PASTORALISTS GRAZING RIGHTS SQUEEZED
Globally, pastoralists are vanishing at
an alarming rate. In India, they are pushed to impoverishment and drudgery
Herders of cattle, sheep, and goats play a vital role in protecting and
restoring fragile ecosystems. Approximately 35 million pastoralists, spread
across 200 communities, manage a livestock population of over 50 million
animals. Exports of milk, meat, leather, wool, and animals used for traction
and manure contribute to livestock raising's foreign exchange earnings.
The study attempts to
knit various strands together to show the linkages between ecology and the life
support systems and the undermining of these by the State in different forms.
The study brings this up very sharply due to non-recognition of the State of
pastoralism as valid historic form of livelihood keeping in mind the ecological
conditions. The British reduced both pastoralists and forest dependent communities
to concessions while simultaneously undermining the life support system on
which they depended.
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