Seventeenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

In South Asia, the majority of forest policies continue to associate forest fires only as ecological disasters that cause massive loss of human lives, livelihood, and ecosystems. Predisposed by remnant colonial conservation measures and misconstrued views on traditional fire regimes, they disregard the historical function of controlled fire in creating and managing the local bio-cultural landscapes. While the burning of forests is illegal in India, the recent global wildfire incidents recommend reconsidering such prohibitions; and include additional viewpoints on forest fires through dialogues with local and Indigenous societies. Through the oral stories and lived experiences of Kattunayakans, forest-dwelling hunter-forager of Southern India, the paper discusses their interpretations of wildfire. The study examines how the prohibition of forest fire affected their security, capabilities, and local ecosystem through ethnographically embedded interviews, transect walks and field observations. Overall, our research suggests that Kattunayakan theories of forest fire reveal a lack of forest fire as reasons for the change in human-wild animal relationships, availability of forest products and frequency of invasive species in the landscape. With the absence of prescribed traditional fire, the Adivasi communities struggle to navigate the concept of altered forest landscapes. In the context of changing global climate and ecology, it is essential to re-evaluate the existing forest management policies and encourage more collaborative research that supports local forest-dependent societies’ perspectives on cultural and traditional fire practices.