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Are Khasis of Bangladesh Eco-friendly Agro Manager? Reflections on Hill Farming Practices and Forest Conservation

AFM Zakaria
Department of Anthropology, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet-3114, Bangladesh

Nur Mohammad Majumder
Department of Anthropology, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet-3114, Bangladesh

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

Khasi is one of the major tree-crops-farming ethnic communities of North East Bangladesh. In this paper, their farming and forestry knowledge is revealed in order to realize the importance of environmental preservation and conservation. What way Khasi administers hill farming practice with deeming locally derived knowledge and why they conserve forest and forestry in terms of agricultural extension without destroying the forest. To understand these issues local people’s climate resilience farming practice and information has been collected through a qualitative method by applying observation, in-depth interview, and collective discussion methods from local participants. Data has been analyzed following thematic and descriptive ways and findings are conceptualized as research objectives. This study has explored that Khasis’ integrated farming efforts that facilitate to uphold local peoples’ subsistence, greenery landscape, and livelihood security, including essential eco-friendly forest conservation. The study findings also have shown how Khasi agroforestry and cultivation are developed by using local knowledge for improving the rural community, including tree crop farming with the conservation of bio-cultural diversity, and sustainable management of agro-ecosystem.

Keywords: Agroforestry, Livelihood, Tree Conservation, Eco-friendly Environment

Location: Singur Punji and Aynachara Punj (villages) at Kulaura and Rajnagar subdistricts under Maulvi Bazar district in Sylhet region

Start Date: 00-00-2017

End Date: 00-00-2018

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Non-commodity: Evaluation

Objectives:

This paper tries to shed light on what way Khasi administers hill farming practice with deeming locally derived knowledge and why they conserve forest and forestry in terms of agricultural extension without destroying the forest. The following paragraphs deal to focus on study people and places and then the way we collect first-hand data to interpret the Khasi way of living in connection to nature.

Methodology:

Study Area: The study area is namely Singur Punji and Aynachara Punj (villages) at Kulaura and Rajnagar subdistricts under Maulvi Bazar district in Sylhet region. It is situated to the north and east of Sylhet town and secluded hillocks, which range from one to two hundred feet high. This area of Khasi living and farming place, and is considered a distinct climatic zone in Bangladesh. The moist tropical climate of the study area is generally warm and humid, turning cool in the winter. Moderately cool and lovely, and dry conditions exist from mid-November to the end of February while June to September is the time of the highest precipitation. Average maximum and minimum temperatures are 35 and 15, respectively. The average annual rainfall is 3800 mm, and humidity ranges from 70% to 85% in most parts of the year (Ahasan et al., 2010). The hills and lower slopes of these hillocks with their topography are under tree crop and tea cultivation. The soil in the hilly ground range from clayey loam on level ground to sandy loam, mixed with dark brown, sandy clay dirt of Pliocene origin. The sandy and clayey topsoil are very productive. Integration of humus on the surface soil is very little because of quick rot under the moist hot tropical setting. Methods We gathered data for this study over a period of several weekends of nine months from 2017 to 2018. We engaged over 110 village inhabitants in open-ended interviews administered in the Bengali language. The study used a purposive/criterion sampling strategy considering the entire farming population, those engaged in upland tree crop farming, aged between 15 to 55 years. In some instances, informants have selected through criterion and snowball sampling techniques. The criterion sampling technique was employed to recruit in-depth interviewees who directly related to tree crop farming practices in the forest region. The snowballing strategy is adopted to recognize the knowledgeable and potential key informants to tree gardeners in the community, who were interviewed asked for further names, and so on. In other ways, they were selected with the help of community leaders to cover a broad spectrum of socioeconomic classes, ethnic-religious groups, gender, and age group as well as formal and informal education, certain experience and culture. In different cases, especially remarkable home gardens or field plantings were noticed and the owner then defined as an interviewee. Using a general interview guide that was openly changed as new situations and information arose; we discussed local tree cultivation techniques, local environment, and soil quality, how they manage eco-friendly environment including tree crop-farming without deforestation while walking through their farm fields for direct observations. Interviews were open-ended in nature, though not all topics were sheltered in all interviews, each main topic was at least covered by a large adequate sample to be flexible to some form of analysis. While the concentration of the study surrounded by tree-cultivation practice, the discussion often also turn to general to acute farming issues about trees health, local environment and biodiversity, which provided additional information of sustainable environment in the fields. We also took detailed information on diverse local farming, culture, and ethnoecology, which is concurrently used in modern horticulture, agroforestry, and so on. The native people used various categories of organic plants and materials to augment soil nutrients for a balanced ecosystem in nature that was also recorded. This study employed the combination of insider (emic) and outsider (etic) approaches to understand the inherent quality of data because of the way in which they were elicited and the method in which they were analyzed. The open-ended nature of interview questions permitted the informants to use their own phrases in describing their perception, and particular words and terms were often jotted down in order to protect emic nature and farming culture. But real generalization and conceptualization of these individuals, insider views into a widespread system were in large part carried out later by myself from an etic perspective. The following discussion will able to provide a clearer picture of how these qualitative methods applied for illustrating the relationships between Khasi people and nature conservation.

Source of Information: J. Sci. Technol. Environ. Inform. 08(01): 574-582 | Zakaria and Majumder et al. (2019) EISSN: 2409-7632,

Article Link (Online Journal): https://doi.org/10.18801/jstei.080119.59

Funding Source:

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

This study presents the Khasi people, their livelihood strategy, greenery landscapes and tree conservation that triggers environmental sustainability. It prioritizes the locality with their ethnoecological knowledge and practice, and the interrelationship of people with their surrounding agroforestry environment. It also focuses on the Khasi way of life based on their respective farming place, agriculture, environment, and plantation economy. Almost all villages have similar soil conditions, topography, and biophysical environments, though there is some variation in surrounding lowland areas with ecology. Khasi’s diversified indigenous and cultivated uphill multi-story tree crops cultivation for subsistence need would get concentration as a viable way to conserve the forest, biodiversity, and ethnoecology. Fundamentally, Khasi’s betel leaf cultivation system is a form of forest conservation system. Betel leaf creeping plant cultivation is performed on the basis of fruiting trees, timber, and non-timber trees as supporting trees. Over the centuries all over the world, indigenous people have been providing series of diversified ecological and cultural services in order to retain food security through agroforestry, crop rotations, polyculture, mixed/intercropping and water preserving agricultural practices. Therefore, for economic livelihood, they emphasize on diverse categories of trees in uphill and nurture it for healthy trees with getting food, fuel, fodder, and fruits as well as for homemaking materials and household artifacts. Therefore, Khasi takes care on soil, air, and water, including flora fauna to conserve local forest and environment. Khasis are known as ‘real’ managers for forest carried out some roles as a laborer and join partner of agroforestry.

Knowledge Management: Journal