"No Water!" Socio-Ecological Transformations in an Uva Basin Village in Sri Lanka

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"No Water!" : Socio-ecological transformations in an Uva Basin village in Sri Lanka

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"NO WATER!"

SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS

IN AN UVA BASIN VILLAGE IN SRI LANKA

A Dissertation

Presented to

The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Brandeis University

Department of Sociology

Gordon Fellman, Advisor

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Ralf Starkloff

May 1994

This dissertation, directed and approved by the candidate's Committee, has been accepted and approved by the Graduate Faculty of Brandeis University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

______Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Dissertation Committee

______(chair) Gordon Fellman, Department of Sociology

______Shulamit Reinharz, Department of Sociology

______George Ross, Department of Sociology

______Robert Wood, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice, Rutgers University

Ralf Starkloff

1994

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the people in Kitulwatte who participated in my research by teaching me about their lives and their landscape, in particular those who acquired the names of Fatima, Heenbanda, Gunasingha and Piyadasa in the course of my writing.*

I want to thank my academic advisor Professor Gordon Fellman and the other members of my dissertation committee at Brandeis University, Professor Shulamit

Reinharz and Professor George Ross, as well as Professor Robert Wood at Rutgers

University, for their patience and support.

I am indebted to Ajantha Palihawadana at the Rural Integrated Development Project in

Nuwara Eliya and Lalith Chandrapala at the Sri Lankan Meteorological Department in

Colombo, for providing me with important data and for sharing aspects of their knowledge.

I wish to acknowledge the cooperation extended by Dean Professor P. Wilson of the

Faculty of Arts, Professor Wanasinghe, Professor Karunanayake, Dr. Rohana

Ulluwishewa and Gamini de Alwis of the Geography Department, at the University of Sri

Jayewardenepura.

Further thanks are due to Yvonne Everett, K.A. Jayaratna, Pradeep Jeganathan, Ian

Nuberg, Professor Martin O'Connor, Alex and Ramya Perera, M. Rajaratnam, Professor

* I have chosen to use pseudonyms for the names of the research village and the people whose voices will be heard in this dissertation, in order to protect their identities.

iv Ulrich Schweinfurth, Arne Tollan and Professor Carl Widstrand, all of whom went out of their ways to help my work.

I feel deep gratitude towards my children Naima and Chendru and my wife Nireka

Weeratunge for bearing with me in the long process of the production of this dissertation.

Nireka has given me invaluable support by participating in our cooperative research process and by sharing her companionship on our journey.

I finally want to express my appreciation for the land and its non-human participants in the Uva basin. They have nourished me and allowed me to experience a closeness never known before to a child of the city.

ABSTRACT

"NO WATER!" SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN AN UVA BASIN VILLAGE IN SRI LANKA

A dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

by Ralf Starkloff

The social construction of water scarcity in the village of Kitulwatte and its impact on the livelihoods of local households are investigated. The inquiry's socio-ecological framework contends that nature is neither a functionally integrated universe nor humanity's adversary, but an open participatory system of co-dependent and mutually structuring relationships between diverse actors and phenomena. The integration of sociological with ecological knowledge, particularly eco-hydrology, is proposed, in order to understand transformations in the relationship between the hydrological cycle and other ecosystem participants, specifically the impact and consequences of human landuse practices.

To study local knowledge and landuse practices participant observation of the people

(N=86 households) and landscape comprising Kitulwatte's micro-watershed were combined with structured, open-ended, in-depth interviews of a sample of thirteen village households representing significant social characteristics (judgement sampling). For- esters, development consultants, state administrators, water engineers and environmen-

vi talists were interviewed as well. Landuse, demographic, health and rainfall data are evaluated.

Water scarcity in Kitulwatte results from a complex multi-causal process of landuse changes. Land degradation and resource competition are caused by the introduction of monocrop tree plantations by Sri Lanka's Forest Department, the adoption of vegetable cash cropping by local farmers and the settlement of Kitulwatte's growing population in suburbanised hamlets. High productivity landuse and extractive water procurement undermine their own viability by impairing the conditions of production of water in the hydro-cycle's landphase while simultaneously raising competitive water demand. The villagers' crop cultivation, household water supply and health are adversely affected. The capacity of farmers to compensate for the loss of locally produced water and soil fertility by intensifying cash crop cultivation with external inputs (agrochemicals, kerosine pumps) is constrained by the rising cost of production. While integrated watershed management in Kitulwatte is prevented by the fragmented knowledge and conflictual resource claims of participating human actors, current attempts at coping with

Kitulwatte's livelihood crisis exacerbate water scarcity.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. OUTLINE OF A DISCOURSE ON WATER

2. TAKING THE PERSPECTIVE OF WATER

The fundamental importance of water to life

Critique of conventional approaches

Alternative concepts and analyses of crises

Commoditisation as a conservation tool

Research and water management

3. CONSTRUCTING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NATURE AND

SOCIETY

Ecology and sociology

Nature as an adversary

Nature as functional integration

The limits of control

viii 4. SITUATING KITULWATTE IN THE SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL

LANDSCAPE

Kitulwatte

The monsoons

From kingship to the dependent welfare state

5. THE RESEARCH ENCOUNTER

The emergence of self and method

A socio-ecological approach to water scarcity

6. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF WATER SCARCITY

Patana grasslands

Forest fragments

Tree plantations

Hill-fields

Homesteads

Tea estates

Valley-fields

7. FAILED INTERVENTIONS

ix APPENDIX: Household Interview Schedule

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Distribution of total land owned by households in Kitulwatte, 1991

Table 2: Mean and range of monthly and annual precipitation (mm) at

Diyatalawa/Bandarawela, 1972 - 1991

Table 3: Mean and range of monthly and annual precipitation (mm) at Dyraaba

Estate, 1972 - 1991

Table 4: Time series analysis of annual rainfall at Diyatalawa/Bandarawela and

Dyraaba Estate

Table 5: Analytical Dimensions of Kitulwatte's Livelihood System

Table 6: Pattern of landuse in the Kitulwatte Micro-Watershed

x Table 7: Change in the pattern of landuse in the Kitulwatte Micro-Watershed

between 1954 and 1988

Table 8: Selling Prices of Urea Fertilizer (Retail)

Table 9: Population and number of houses in Kitulwatte from 1891 to 1992

Table 10: Houses in Kitulwatte in 1954 and 1988 in five selected hamlets

Table 11: Population and household data of Kitulwatte, 1990

Table 12: Distribution of highland owned by households in Kitulwatte, 1991

Table 13: Caste membership of households in Kitulwatte in 1991

Table 14: Monthly precipitation (mm) during the rainy season and drought of

1991/1992 and monthly means for the 1972-1991 period at Bandarawela and Dyraaba Estate

Table 15: Incidence of infectious waterborne diseases diagnosed at the District

Hospital Bandarawela, 1990-1992

xi Table 16: Distribution of land in the valley-fields owned by households in Kitulwatte,

1991

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Map 1: Kitulwatte Micro-Watershed: Stream Flow and Contours

Map 2: Landuse in the Kitulwatte Micro-Watershed in 1954

Map 3: Landuse in the Kitulwatte Micro-Watershed in 1988

Figure 1: Rainfall Partitioning [p]

xii

1. OUTLINE OF A DISCOURSE ON WATER

This doctoral dissertion is my analysis and interpretation of data generated in 23 months of fieldwork in the Sri Lankan Uva basin, and in the capital of Colombo between March

1991 and February 1993. I had come to the village of Kitulwatte with a general theme: to study socio-ecological transformations and their effect on people's livelihoods. My research experience caused me to shift my specific interest from the desire for a social movement to the social ecology of water. My work in Kitulwatte inevitably brought into focus the significance of water to life: no water, no life.

Social ecology may be characterized as a field of inquiry and theorization concerned with the interface of human society and nature. Following an insight by Murray Bookchin

(1987:55), I view nature as "a participatory realm of interactive life-forms" in which relationships among actors and phenomena are codependent (O'Connor, M. 1989:44) and mutually structuring. Social action is the specifically human mode of participation in nature. The social ecology of water focuses on transformations in the relationship between the hydrological cycle and other ecosystem participants, specifically the impact and consequences of human action.

Most of us inhabitants of highly industrialized societies take water for granted, just as the air we breathe. With a flick of the wrist at the tap, water is available to our lives, piped in by public water supply systems in seemingly never-ending flows. We worry a

13 great deal about water pollution, but we scarcely concern ourselves with the fact that water is available to us in the first place. Rarely do we stop to reflect on its sources, systems of transmission, the work and industrial hardware involved, and its conditions and limitations of production. Rarely do we find ourselves forced to engage in conflict action over water. We can rely on water.

People in Kitulwatte do not take water for granted. Less than half the households are supplied by a public system through road taps. Only a small number of households are provided with piped water from the system's mains into their houses. The supply is limited and thus rationed on a rotation basis. All other households depend on private and public wells, on spouts installed in streams and streamlets, and on the main river travers- ing Kitulwatte valley. It is women, predominantly, who walk to these sources to fetch water in containers. Farmers have constructed elaborate channel systems to conduct stream water into their fields for irrigation purposes. The supply is again limited and rotation is necessary. If the irrigation channels do not receive water and the distance to the main river poses no obstacle, water is pumped with kerosine pumps. Farmers without access to irrigation water and/or pumps have to rely on rainfall.

"Watura nae!" was the single most urgent and consistent information communicated by people in Kitulwatte: "No water!". As there is evidently some water in many of the streams and wells most of the year, this dramatic statement was frequently qualified by

"watura adui" ["there is less water"]. People in Kitulwatte reported that the steady decline of the flow of water during the last 15 years was adversely affecting their pursuit of livelihoods.

14 Explanation of the causes of the phenomenon among villagers was less unequivocal.

Almost everyone blamed the Forest Department's pinus plantations covering the hilltops and midslopes on the western side of the valley. A handful of people stated that the cutting of natural forests had caused the crisis in water availability. The inhabitants of two hamlets in Upper Kitulwatte pointed towards the public water supply scheme which is tapping the water sources on which their food cultivation depends. Some farmers in

Lower Kitulwatte complained of a broken anicut [dam diverting stream water into irrigation channels] which had not been repaired by the Irrigation Department. Population increase was held responsible by some inhabitants of the fairly recently established

'suburban' hamlets on the eastern slopes of the valley, who had experienced decline in the yield of their wells. One woman linked the cultivation of eucalyptus trees in private homegardens to receding groundwater levels. One farmer blamed the decline of irrigation water originating in forest fragments above the eastern valley-fields on the owners and inhabitants of small tea plantations and luxury bungalows who had dug large pump- powered wells in the gullies. Particularly during drought periods the explanation "waessa nae" ("no rain") was advanced. Just about no one blamed him or herself.

These explanations among actors directly affected by water scarcity in Kitulwatte are as fragmented and perspective-bound as the discourse in the wider community of concerned bureaucrats, development professionals, politicians, scientists and environmentalists.

Forest Department officers in their official statements proposed that by establishing pinus plantations they were undertaking watershed management and soil erosion control measures, as well as economic development. This position is officially shared by several

15 foreign development agencies involved in forestry and watershed management, while others simply ignore forest plantations and blame small cash crop cultivators, large tea estates and urban development for causing the deterioration of water and soil resources in their respective project areas. Official pronouncements notwithstanding, in personal conversations both foresters and foreign development professionals were entertaining doubts about the benefits of monocrop tree plantations and considered their possibly detrimental impact on the water resources of farming villages.

The local Member of Parliament apparently believes that decisions for allocating increasingly scarce water resources among competing users ought to be determined by the highest number of potential beneficiaries - a rationale suited to maximize his returns in votes.

Local and international scientific experts are embroiled in an argument about the role of different types of landuse in watershed management in general, and the effects of tree cover on water yield in particular.

Environmental activists in the Uva basin and in Colombo hold the pinus plantations solely responsible for the decline of water and have attempted to mount a public awareness campaign.

A local level engineer of the National Water Supply and Drainage Board insisted on decline of rainfall as the cause of water scarcity, while his subordinates cited pinus plantations and population growth.

Only the grama niladari, the village level government administrator, considered a multi-causal explanation involving the pinus plantations, crop cultivation in river reser-

16 vations, clearing of forests and population increase. However, he did not consider the water problems in Kitulwatte to be acute.

This outline of a discourse on water sets the stage for my inquiry. In dealing with a range of partial and often contradictory explanations, the nature of social research forces me to take an ambiguous stance. In order to elucidate the social construction of

Kitulwatte's water crisis, I will have to draw on the knowledge of all pertinent actors as I simultaneously confront their knowledge in a critical fashion. While I propose a deeper and more comprehensive knowledge, I will nevertheless become a participant to the discourse. The sociologist takes a particular vantage point, different from that of all other affected or concerned actors. I will reconstruct the actors' discourse and their action to make my own contribution to the debate.

Discourse denotes an ongoing process of controversial deliberation and quest for knowledge concerning a problematic item of everyday life. It enables the construction of intersubjectivity as a possible foundation of action coordination and allows us to examine the reasons motivating conduct (Habermas 1979:3-4, 1983:77, 1987[1]:28, 37ff., 141-

151; Giddens 1979:57). A research project such as this involves several levels of discourse: among the actors being studied; among the scientists studying the actors and phenomena concerned; and between the scientists and the actors concerned. The reflexivity of social scientific work requires me to turn my critical gaze to all three levels of discourse while making me a participant in all of them (Giddens 1979:47, 1990:15-16, 38-

45; Mannheim 1936:45ff.).

Discourse does not necessarily involve face to face communication or other direct forms of exchange of arguments among its participants. The fragmentation of discourse

17 may render argumentation indirect or disjointed. The lack of communication between some actors and the deliberate or coincidental exclusion of some actors from institution- alized forms of discourse are a significant and persistent feature of social conflicts. Such exclusions on the level of signs and meanings (communicative action) are intimately linked to exclusions on the level of material action.

As a sociologist I can bring the arguments of pertinent actors in touch with each other and confront their knowledge with my concept of their socio-ecological field. I hope to probe deeper than the fragmentary and perspective-bound arguments of entrenched actors and possibly to reflect back to them an enriched perspective, based my systematized quest for understanding. This intention brings my project close to Karl Mannheim's idea of 'relationism', in which particularistic knowledge is critically analysed and assimilated into a totality constructed by the sociologist: "the broadest possible extension of our horizon of vision" (Mannheim 1936:105-106). Mannheim's vision shifts our epistemological perspective and urges our tolerance, but it fails to reconstruct and explain the social dynamics of the construction of competitive knowledge and reflexively to engage in its debates.

My intention involves me with two problematic issues in sociology: first, the status of sociological knowledge in relation to the knowledge of actors who are studied by sociologists, and second, the reception of sociological knowledge by those actors.

Anthony Giddens claims that sociological knowledge "spirals in and out" of everyday discourses (1990:15). As people are motivated by the meaning connected to their action

(Weber 1978:4-8) and coordinate their interaction through communication (Habermas

1983:77, 1987[1]:141-151, 370ff., 1987[2]:183ff.), the sociologist is required to draw on

18 and make sense of actors' relevant statements in light of the wider discourse in which they perform (or from which they are excluded) and the observed socio-ecological phenomena about which these statements are made. Professionalised scientific knowledge, such as sociology, participates in these discourses and is therefore subject to the rules and social conditions under which they are conducted. The rules of discourse ethics, according to Habermas, imply a sincere and uncoerced quest for the best argument which may be advanced for the time being, leading to the "vindication of validity claims"

(Habermas 1979:4, 50-65, 1983:99, 1987[1]:28, 47f., 410ff.). Whether or not actors are indeed observing the ethical and cognitive requirements of reasonable discourse and why, or why not, is the very subject matter of sociological analysis, since this issue involves the actual power relations among these actors.

This understanding leaves the status of sociological knowledge ambiguous. On the one hand, sociology cannot claim a different or even superior status to practical everyday knowledge, because it is based on such knowledge and continues to engage in its discourse. It thereby becomes itself subject to sociology's (self)-critical gaze. One the other hand, sociology claims to make a contribution which entrenched actors cannot provide, and which indeed justifies our profession. My specialised training prepared me to carry out research on social discourses and interactions, and critically to reflect on my findings. As a sociologist I am determined to spend my time exclusively doing critical inquiry, while the actors studied are engaged in their normal life circumstances. This specific vantage point lends itself to systematisation and distanciation.

Still, the sociologist ought not to be deceived by the promise of privileged access to understanding. I am part and parcel of the social field, however culturally and geographi-

19 cally remote my specific field of inquiry may be. The ultimate worry of social scientists, to 'go native', finds its justification in this problem. My knowledge and person become entangled in the problems and expectations of the actors I study. Nevertheless, I am not a farmer, water engineer, forester or development expert. I lack their intimacy with their particular field and thus the deep knowledge associated with it. I depend on their willingness to communicate and my skill to tease out their knowledge. The encounter is full of challenge, selectivity and strategizing; it may engender a gift.

Sociology as critical knowledge finds its purpose and justification in the intention of making a relevant contribution to knowing and solving everyday problems (Habermas

1971:244, 1987[1]:444f.; Touraine 1977:1, 15, 63-64, 1981:144-149; Giddens 1979:244,

1990:38-45). It 'spirals back' into the field of inquiry. Giddens assumes that concerned actors make use of the information supplied by sociology and change their course of action, a circumstance which requires reflection in the activity of sociological research itself (Giddens 1979:47, 1990:15-16, 38-45). Despite some sceptical qualifications,

Giddens' formulation remains overly optimistic and reflects the rationalistic spirit of social science. The rationalization and improvement of social action by means of sociological or critical self-knowledge may be a fragile process. My research experience indicates that actors may disrespect, manipulate, repress, circumvent or simply ignore what the sociologist has to say.

Some actors may also advance better arguments than the sociologist. Giddens' attempt to resolve the ambiguity of the status of sociological knowledge by inventing the distinct categories of 'mutual knowledge' (actors' knowledge respected and rendered discursive for the purpose of inquiry only) and 'common sense' (scientifically justifiable knowledge

20 with which to criticize actors' knowledge) (Giddens 1979:5, 251f.), deprives the hermeneutic encounter of sincere mutuality and of the opportunity for surprise. Socio- logists are neither beyond discourse ethics nor outside the power relations of the social field with which they interact. The tensions of the sociologist's ambiguity as an observer and a participant are the fertile ground on which sociological knowledge may be generated.

In this inquiry my goal is to make sense of complex socio-ecological transformations which are threatening the livelihoods of affected actors. Whether my contribution to our ecological discourse will help to improve human thinking and action remains uncertain.

In my mind, as a sociologist I am not a "prophet" (Touraine 1981:94), but rather a sceptical keeper of the record of our problematic human participation in the marvelous practice we call nature.

2. TAKING THE PERSPECTIVE OF WATER

The concerns of the people with whom I communicated in Kitulwatte suggested to me to take the perspective of water for the purpose of socio-ecological research. They identified water scarcity as a crucial constraint in their pursuit of livelihoods. In following this lead

I realized that the water perspective would enable me to grasp the socio-ecological transformations which had taken place in Kitulwatte. Water flows through all of its constituent components. Thus, I had to follow the flow. At the same time, the understanding of

Kitulwatte's water crisis would only be possible by placing water in its multiple contexts.

These contexts experience water as an enabling and constraining factor and their interactions with water in turn impact its occurence and behavior.

Studying the social construction of water scarcity requires me to take a leap across the disciplinary boundaries of sociology. The ecological expansion of the social scientist's horizon requires "a single dynamic inquiry in which nature, social and economic organisation, thought and desire are treated as one whole" (Worster 1988:293). The understanding of Kitulwatte's water crisis is not possible without reconstructing the links between the pertinent material processes in nature, the social relations by which human actors organise their participation in these processes, and the intellectual and emotional images which inform human practices in nature. In his programmatic statement on 'doing environmental history', Donald Worster has emphasised the need for the historian to

1 acquire an understanding of concepts in the natural sciences. His proposition is relevant to all social scientists sharing a concern for ecological problems.

The environmental historian must learn to speak some new languages as well as ask some new questions. Undoubtedly, the most outlandish language that must be learned is the natural scientist's. ... Yet, with even a smattering of vocabulary, what treasures are here to be understood and taken back home! ... Graphs from clima- tology, on which temperatures and precipitation oscillate up and down through the centuries, with no regard for the security of kings or empires. The chemistry of the soil with its cycles of carbon and nitrogen, its pH balances wavering with the presences of salts and acids, setting the terms of agriculture. ... Together, the natural sciences are indispensable aids for the environmental historian, who must begin by reconstructing past landscapes, learning what they were and how they functioned before human societies entered and rearranged them. (Worster 1988:294)

Furthermore, social scientists concerned with ecological problems need to have a grasp of what natural scientists, engineers and planners are doing, because their activities are inextricably involved in the social construction of ecological crises. My research experience indicates, however, that foresters and water engineers are very reluctant to accept the 'interference' of social scientists. Only if we can speak their language and subject their projects to a critical review from a perspective which integrates the knowledge of the social and natural sciences, can we hope to make the concepts and findings of social research heard among actors with a priviledged access to the transformation of our landscapes. Natural and social scientists need to develop a shared discourse, which serves us to come to terms with the fact that ecological crises are a consequence of historically specific modes of human participation in nature.

Eco-hydrology is emerging as a fecund meeting ground among practitioners from different scientific disciplines (such as hydrology, forestry, agro-ecology, environmental management, urban planning, sociology, anthropology) who seek to tackle water related ecological probems. By showing that the behaviour of water in the landphase of the 2 hydrological cycle is decisively affected by the landuse practices of human actors, eco- hydrology proposes an interactive and dynamic perspective on one of the most fundamental processes linking all actors and phenomena in nature. The integration of the water perspective into my sociological inquiry enables me to investigate the reciprocal relationship between the production of livelihoods among human actors and the hydrological system of the landscape in which local human practices are situated.

In this chapter I will review the central concepts and propositions advanced in the eco- hydrological discourse. I have chosen from systematic and comprehensivce contributions which represent a diversity of orientations. These range from what Egon Bittner has called "debates internal to technology", "the proper handling of problems that are amenable to remedial manipulation by the same kind of methods that caused them", to a more radical critique of "the influence of technology on the conduct of life" (Bittner

1983:249). While the concern about "human autonomy" (Bittner 1983:250) is central to the ecological debate, what is at stake is not merely our autonomy, but human livelihoods and ultimately our survival. In the discourse of eco-hydrology we find perspectives aspir- ing to improve our sciences and engineering capabilities by better 'ecological' knowledge and management, as well as deeply sceptical traditionalist orientations.

3 The fundamental importance of water to life

Recognition of the "central importance of water to life processes" (Falkenmark,

Lundqvist & Widstrand 1990a:7) is shared by all writers. Powered by the flow of energy from the sun, the earth is a "water planet" (Falkenmark 1989a:1) on which "the hydrosphere weaves through and interconnects the atmosphere, lithosphere and biosphere"

(Kovacs, Zuidema, Marsalek 1989:105), constituting a cyclical productive process by which water is made available to all forms of life (Falkenmark 1992:13-14). By entering the rootzone of the soil water enables the provision of food to all living beings

(Falkenmark 1989a:1). It interconnects with another cyclical productive process, the flow of biomass through metabolic networks. As a solvent, water absorbs nutrients in the soils and makes them available to plants. Water is a basic resource in photosynthesis, which transforms light energy into food energy and produces oxygen (Kucera 1973:44). Plants support animal life on different trophic levels of the grazing food chain. In the detritous food chain micro-organisms feed on both plant and animal biomass and break down organic matter, facilitating the production of nutrient-rich soils (Kucera 1973:49ff.).

Water is, furthermore, a fundamental physical-structural constituent of bodies.

Water connects every single individual of all species with ecological processes on the planet and indeed the solar system. Therefore, on account of its "eco-system maintaining function" water is characterized as "the centerpiece in natural systems" (ECE 1991:6;

Tollan 1992:28).

Water circulates from seas to clouds, to land and rivers, to lakes and to underground streams, and ultimately returns to the oceans, generating life wherever it goes. ... Violence to the water cycle is probably the worst but most invisible form of violence because it simultaneously threatens the survival of all. (Shiva 1988:183)

4 The hydrological cycle has particular requirements which enable its productive movement through pathways in the flora, soils, rocks, landsurface, oceans and atmosphere. Disturbance of those ecological conditions undermines the opportunity generating capacities of water. Water may be considered "the ultimate constraint", being a finite and "the most widely and deeply affected resource", which in turn affects biological systems (Falkenmark 1992:13-14,17; ECE 1989:4). Moreover, being a chemically active solvent in persistent movement over large distances and spaces, "the hydrosphere transports the impacts of human activities between environmental media" (Kovacs,

Zuidema, Marsalek 1989:105). Hydrologist Malin Falkenmark concludes:

On our water planet we are at the mercy of the water cycle. (Falkenmark 1992:13- 14)

The eco-hydrology discourse maintains agreement on the fundamental importance of water for economic action. In the eco-Marxist formulation of Brinda Rao, following the ecological re-interpretation of Marxism by James O'Connor (1989a) and others, "water is a condition of production" (Rao 1989:66). This statement indicates an anthropocentric interpretation of economic activity in human systems of production, where "the viability and quality of the ecosystems on which production depends" (Collins 1991:34) is stressed. Bandyopadhyay and Shiva propose a biocentric concept of production which emphasizes the "economy of natural resources and natural processes and the economy of survival" (1989:114), i.e. the productive processes in nature by which human and other natural actors (plants, animals, micro-organisms) simultaneously produce their own sustenance and the maintenance of ecological systems as a whole. These processes of the

"survival economy" are viewed in contradistinction to exchange value oriented market production. 5 Other contributors formulate their economic considerations in the pragmatic terms of the contemporary concern with 'sustainable development'. Water is viewed as an indispensable and precarious input, which may be the ultimate "proving ground" for the claim that economic development and sustainable resource use are compatible goals

(ECE 1989:5; Widstrand 1980:4; Young 1992:18-19). Falkenmark adds a note of scepticism by recognising that "water is a resource whose scarcity may govern the socio- economic conditions of large populations" in the tropical and subtropical areas of our planet (Falkenmark 1992:13). Consequently, human actors are in need of using and protecting water as a "commons" (Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:24), a task perceived as requiring rational management (Tollan 1992:28).

Critique of conventional approaches

The ecological critique of conventional approaches to water related problems discerns fragmentation on the levels of conceptualization, research activity and organization of the scientific disciplines, as well as among the institutions concerned with planning and management (Falkenmark 1989b:11). Hydrologists have taken a linear approach by concentrating on surface water and its utilization for irrigation and public supply systems.

By limiting their concern to the horizontal branch of the water cycle (runoff generation), they have treated water as a fixed and indestructible resource, accessable to manipulation according to human interest. They have failed to take into account its cyclical nature and the pathways in the vertical branch (soil water, biomass production, evapotranspiration)

(Falkenmark 1989a:3; 1992:15; Shiva 1988:183,192; Bandyopadhyay 1988:88).

6 Other natural sciences, such as biology, chemistry, ecology and their applied branches, have dealt with water without considering its movement and pathways, particularly regarding subsurface phenomena and soil moisture. It has been treated as a climatic input factor and a passive medium (Falkenmark 1992:10,13).

As a result, land use changes and their effects on water circulation have been poorly understood (Tollan 1992:18). Water scarcity has been explained predominantly by recourse to 'natural causes' such as rainfall decline. The responsibility of human actors for decline in water availability as a result of landscape mismanagement is thus avoided

(Lundqvist, Sivanappan & Ramakrishnan 1991:3; Shiva 1988:201; Rao 1989:72).

A related problem is the hegemony of the concept of the 'normal' in hydrological assessments (Widstrand 1980:30). Measurement of rainfall, riverflow and yield estimates enter analysis and planning as annual and longterm averages. Under conditions of high annual and inter-annual variability and fluctuation of these phenomena, such as occur in the tropics and sub-tropics, these concepts are meaningless and misleading. They constitute what Malin Falkenmark terms 'climate bias', since they are imported from temperate zone conditions and their hydrological practices (Falkenmark 1989b:11ff.;

1992:10,17; Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:8; Falkenmark, Lundqvist & Widstrand

1990a:7; Widstrand 1980:18,55,163ff.). Thus, scientific, engineering and managerial activities, which are ignorant of the specific preconditions and environmental vulnerability of the Third World, contribute to water scarcity (Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:5-

6).

The lack of social scientific knowledge about water and of involvement of social scientists in water issues is noted.

7 We know little of the social characteristics of water courses. (Widstrand 1980:88)

Widstrand points out that in dealing with social phenomena this lack of participation has led to the predominance of models and systems borrowed from the natural sciences

(1980:166). The issue of the constraining role of water for livelihood security has failed to enter hydrological models and planning. Instead, social factors have been uncritically reduced to problems of population growth (Lundqvist, Sivanappan & Ramakrishnan

1991:1,3).

The narrow orientation of conventional water management practices towards economic interests in water exploitation and short-term benefits is criticized (Tollan

1992:28; Shiva 1988:186; Bandyopadhyay & Shiva 1985:198ff.; Widstrand 1980:26).

Where environmental impact assessments are required, they usually fail to question the imperative of economic development per se (ECE 1989:12). Administration and implementation of water works are piecemeal and sector-oriented, correct problems after the fact, and their 'solutions' are containment oriented and commandist, based on technological intervention (Falkenmark, Lundqvist & Widstrand 1990a:17; Tolan

1992:29; ECE 1989:1; 1992:18; Rao 1989:73-74). They favor extreme water power development, cash crop irrigation, water development for urbanization, and water development in isolated parts of catchments (Tollan 1992:28; Lundqvist, Sivanappan &

Ramakrishnan 1991:1; Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:7). Water conservation in the

"engineering approach ... is reduced to impounding river water in large dams, to building large networks of concrete-lined canals" (Jayal 1985:88).

Fragmented communication and lack of mutual understanding between participants in water works and institutions whose activities affect water ("experts, planners, decision

8 makers, modellers") (Widstrand 1980:166; Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:8) and the exclusion of users ("people and women in particular") (Shiva 1988:213) are noted. The eco-hydrologists assert that management "in isolation of land, air and living resources and humans" cannot provide "ecosystems maintaining functions" (ECE 1992:3; Tollan

1992:28).

The critique by Widstrand, Falkenmark, Tollan et al remains within the epistemological and pragmatic horizon of science and management. The problems indicated are explained by insufficiently developed scientific understanding and interrelated with a lack of rationality in management. Consequently, they are considered susceptible to improvement of scientific knowledge and better management.

Vandana Shiva's ecological feminism aims at a more fundamental critique, which precludes the resolution of ecological crises by means of cognitive advancement immanent to 'normal science'. Her analysis postulates an irreconcilable antagonism of two cognitive and economic rationalities. The ultimate causes of water scarcity, as of all modern ecological and social disasters, are discerned in patriarchy. According to physicist and environmental activist Shiva, reductionist science is a patriarchal Western project, providing the knowledge base for subjugating nature, women and non-Western peoples; a project of white, male, European scientists, enterpreneurs and conquerers.

Nature has been reconstructed in the image of a machine, the atomistic fragments of which are manipulated for human ends in the processes of industrial production and destruction. The pursuit of profit maximization and capital accumulation externalizes the social and ecological costs incurred by violating nature. Consequently, nature's capacity for self-regeneration is reduced.

9 The manufacture of drought and desertification is an outcome of reductionist knowledge and modes of development which violate cycles of life in rivers, in the soil, in mountains. (Shiva 1988:179)

The violated 'other' in Shiva's worldview are women and nature, and people who are designated as living in 'natural' cultures, such as poor peasants and tribal people. Their knowledge and practices are considered holistic and non-violent based on sustenance economies in partnership with nature (Shiva 1988:15-26; Bandyopadhyay & Shiva

1985:197). According to Shiva, only the 'recovery of the feminine principle' will enable human actors to rectify their problematic interactions with nature (Shiva 1988:223).

Alternative concepts and analyses of crises

In the ecological re-construction of the scientific understanding of water, a number of basic conceptual propositions are advanced.

An advisory group on environmental and water problems of the United Nation's

Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) advocates the adoption of an 'ecosystems approach' (Tollan 1992:29; ECE 1989:1-5; 1991:6), which assumes that all forms of life and physical phenomena are integrated into complex interactive systems requiring adaptability and longterm stability. As ecosystems evolve they strive to maintain balance or equilibrium. Water is understood as a central component of ecosystems, as are human beings who are considered 'major' actors "locked into one life-supporting system" (Tollan

1992: 29,32; ECE 1989:1,4; 1992:4). Arne Tollan suggests a medical metaphor: "our globe can be seen as an organism whose health depends on the health of all of its parts"

(1992:32).

10 Malin Falkenmark and her co-authors at Linkoeping University in Sweden do not conceptualize ecological processes with the same stringency of integration as the ECE group. Human actors remain in a more external though interactive relation to their

'environment'. Human impact and disturbance are discerned on three interrelated levels:

'man' and 'his' immediate surroundings; landscapes and catchments; and continents comprising the global level. Activity on all three levels produces a "multicause syndrome of environmental change" resulting from human manipulative interventions and their effects throughout the environment. Manipulation is seen as inevitable and necessitates a trade-off between human benefits and environmental stress. Ecologically sound knowledge and management can ascertain what kind of manipulations are tolerable or beneficial to environmental integrity (Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:10-11; Widstrand

1980:10,12,39; Falkenmark 1989b:29; 1992:14).

Vandana Shiva conceptualises nature in the symbolic terms of Hindu cosmology as the manifestation of the dynamic interplay of male (Purusha) and female (Shakti) principles which destroys and renews the world in its ceaseless dialectic. Shiva, however, emphasizes the 'feminine principle' and the image of nature as a 'great mother'. Human actors are part of this cosmos, and their capacity to fit into nature's nurturing productivity is essential to 'her' survival. Activity in nature is viewed by Shiva, as in secular ecological cosmologies, as interactive and interdependent, or 'participatory', and as striving for harmony (Shiva 1988:38-54).

These conceptual frameworks translate into several empirically relevant propositons guiding research and water management.

11 All phases of the hydrological cycle need to be considered in a "multimedia approach"

(Tollan 1992:29; ECE 1991:7; Chapman 1989:48ff.), as rainwater, surface water, soil water and ground water are ecologically connected (Bandyopadhyay 1988:88). Landuse changes are of particular importance to the understanding of alterations in the hydrocycle

(Falkenmark:1989b:31; Widstrand 1980:10). Therefore, the 'soil-vegetation-water' system (Jayal 1985:78) comes into focus. Kovacs, Zuidema and Marsalek characterize the soil water zone as the heart of the landphase of the hydrological cycle where rainwater from the atmosphere is partitioned among three pathways: surface runoff, groundwater recharge and evapotranspiration (1989:109). The quality of soils and vegetation determines the distribution of quantities among the three pathways. If structures conducive to percolation and infiltration are maintained, surface runoff is mini- mized and the soil can act as "a major water reservoir" (Jayal 1985:87), providing water for biomass production and groundwater recharge. Conversely, if these structures are radically altered by landuse changes, such as deforestation, afforestation, continous crop cultivation, urbanisation, irrigation, mining, roads, etc., the partitioning of rainwater will be altered and may adversely affect water availability. The impact of different types of vegetation and landuse forms on hydrological regimes is subject to a passionate debate.

Writers such as Shiva argue that "forests produce water" (1988:180). Lawrence Hamilton, on the other hand, proposes that due to the increased evapotranspiration of trees

"reforestation of open land has resulted in lower water tables, less reliable springs, and reduced stream flow" (1983:130).

12 The concept of drought is revised by all participants in the water debate in order to analyse the occurence of water scarcities in different phases of the hydrological cycle.

Brinda Rao argues:

"Drought" is a social construct that can be used to understand (or conceal) a varied set of phenomena that have natural or social origins or both. (Rao 1989:66)

Jayanta Bandyopadhyay conceptualizes drought and water scarcity as a condition that pertains "whenever and wherever the links in the water cycle are broken or destabilized"

(1988:88). He distinguishes four types of drought and related destabilizing factors: meteorological drought due to rainfall failure; surface water drought due to destabilizing land use changes in river catchments; soil water drought due to reduced holding capacitiy of soils and increased water uptake by plants; and groundwater drought due to overex- ploitation of groundwater resources. These four processes can interact in various combinations.

Other writers retain the concept of drought as rainfall failure (deviation from a geographically typical standard), which may be a regular occurrence in particular regions, to which stable ecosystems are adapted to some degree (Falkenmark 1989b:34; Jayal

1985:82; Widstrand 1980:30; Bandyopadhyay 1988:89). By contrast, desertification is a process of prolonged and increasing water scarcity in rivers, soils and aquifers due to extensive periods of rainfall failure over several years. However, desertification may also be caused by excessive erosive runoff resulting from soil exposure and impermeability, as well as by excessive water uptake by human water users and by ecologically unsuitable plants introduced by human actors (Jayal 1985:82). As this land use related form of desertification may occur in areas of considerable rainfall, Malin Falkenmark has suggested the term "desiccation", in order to maintain conceptual clarity (Falkenmark 13 1992:15; Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:6-7,13; Falkenmark, Lundqvist & Widstrand

1989:258-267).

Under conditions of seasonal monsoonal rains and interannual rainfall fluctuations in tropical and subtropical regions, landscapes are vulnerable to desiccation. The limits imposed by extreme hydrological conditions on human activities in the landscape need to be recognized in development activities (Jayal 1985:79-80; Falkenmark 1989b:26).

Human degradation of the landscape has complex and interactive effects on the quality and quantity of water available for human livelihood generating activities. These processes have been summarized by Falkenmark as "three sets of multi-cause environmental challenges". First, water scarcity is caused by landscape desiccation, urban expansion and population growth. Second, water pollution is produced by industrial emissions, the use of agro-chemicals, mining, waste dumping in landfills, and leaching of human waste into the water cycle. Third, degradation of soil fertility results from excessive irrigation, acid rain, reduction of organic fertilizer and organic matter in the soil, as well as soil erosion (Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:13; see also Falkenmark,

Lundqvist & Widstrand 1989:258-267; Falkenmark 1992:15; Kovacs, Zuidema, Marsalek

1989:108-130; Tollan 1992:28; Bandyopadhyay 1988:91; Jayal 1985:78,86).

14 Commoditisation as a conservation tool

The economic valuation of water and the role of pricing in conservation is a controversial issue. It reflects the basic antagonism between biocentric and anthropocentric concepts of nature.

Tollan proposes that "water is an economic good and should be treated as such"

(1992:31-32), by assigning economic value which is expressed in prices and thus turns water into a marketable commodity. Exceptions are made for basic human survival needs in accordance with standard welfare state practices (Tollan 1992:32). It is assumed that price levels which reflect scarcities, ecological stress and the cost of maintenance of supply systems, as well as clearly defined property and user rights can function as a tool in motivating human actors to conserve rather than squander water (ECE 1992:11;

Panayotou 1992:8-9).

Although the Linkoeping group favors pricing for conservation purposes in general, it is aware of the practical, cultural and socio-political limitations of the concept in many societies. Correct measurement of water use and collection activities are organisationally difficult as well as culturally sensitive. Water continues to be considered a 'free gift' by both poor and wealthy users, and powerful lobbies manage to retain control over a free or cheap production factor (Widstrand 1980:91,169; Falkenmark and Lundqvist 1992:19-

20).

In both approaches natural resources are essentially viewed in terms of their utility, vulnerabilty and scarcity within the parameters of market transactions. Thus, water rights, which may initially be allotted on the basis of demand considerations, basic needs and equity, are commoditised (Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:26).

15 By contrast, Rao analyses the collectivisation of water resources in a community in

Maharashtra, India, where non-transferable water rights are allocated on the basis of household membership in a village level water council rather than on the basis of landownership and property size. Rao values this policy as a mechanism which "has helped in reducing class rivalries and exploitation of small farmers by big ones", but criticizes the council's failure to recognize women as producers with distinct access rights to conditions of production (Rao 1989:76). Unfortunately, Rao neglects conservation issues in favour of equity considerations.

Shiva proposes to recognize the "non-commercial economic functions" of natural systems, which are discerned from a primary interest of human and non-human ecosystems participants in sustenance and survival (Shiva 1988:45,208,215; Bandyopadhyay &

Shiva 1985:200). Sustenance is generated outside market relations, while the profit motive of market activities is perceived as destructive to the integrity of nature.

Monetization of natural phenomena such as water is therefore considered antithetical to the objective of maintaining nature's productivity.

The ultimate reductionism is achieved when nature is linked with a view of economic activity in which money is the only gauge of value and wealth. Life disappears as an organizing principle of economic affairs. (Shiva 1988:25)

Shiva assumes that ecological integrity can only be achieved through changes in material practices which require a fundamental reorientation of cognitive and emotional relations with nature: the recovery of the feminine principle. The antagonistic relations between the feminine and patriarchal principles of activity in nature necessitate adversarial, yet non-violent social struggles among competing groups of human actors (Shiva 1988:37).

16 Research and water management

All writers in the hydrological discourse propose to redirect scientific research. Hydrolo- gists are urged to "become more ecology oriented" by "studying the interactions between humans, vegetation, land and water". They need to provide data to other sciences to further their understanding of "water related dependencies". Other scientific disciplines are called upon to take into consideration eco-hydrological knowledge in their research and planning activities (Falkenmark 1989a:2,4,6; 1992:15). Interdisciplinary research and the integration of expert knowledge in hydrology, biology, technology, economics, law, politics, sociology and anthropology are advocated (Tollan 1992:29; ECE 1989:24;

1992:4,7; Widstrand 1980:160-161,171). Data generated in this interdisciplinary effort provide a knowledge base for both managerial intervention and community organizing.

Depending on the implicit socio-political orientations of the various writers, their emphases may vary.

The ECE group formulates its aspirations of managerial expertise in the language of control. "Surveillance" and "monitoring" feed into a "centralized comprehensive data bank" which functions as the base for "corrective action" (ECE 1991:8; 1992:7). Holistic

"management from within" has the "function" of "maintaining ecological equilibrium in nature". The conservation and restoration of aquatic complexes entails the provision of

"co-evolution conditions" oriented by a set of "ecosystems objectives" (ECE 1989:1,6,14;

1992:6; Tollan 1992:29).

Widstrand and the Linkoeping school offer a less functionalist and totalizing variation of the same theme, which is decidedly anthropocentric:

17 In order to satisfy man's water related needs water has to be mastered and redistributed both in time and space. Basically the hydrological system is manageable and the intended adaptation of the natural system to society could be reached. (Widstrand 1980:10)

What is at stake are correct human practices in the adaptation of natural factors to sustainable and optimal human water use. This leads to the demand for integrated landscape management and water resource allocation in order to procure the highest possible water efficiency (rain water available for biomass production and other human uses in relation to 'losses') and productivity (output of socially defined economic value [tonnage, employment, nutrition, etc.] per unit of available water) (Falkenmark & Lundqvist

1992:18-20,24).

The attempt at extensive knowledge and control, however, finds its limits in the complexity of ecological systems and the unruliness of the subject matter.

A great deal of uncertainty exists, however, in long-term ecological developments. ... A full understanding of ecosystem dynamics and exposure at any given time is unrealistic. (ECE 1992:11)

The mobile character of water in itself poses a management problem, as the effects of ecological processes may be felt over spaces which may be out of the control of the managers (Young 1992:19). Widstrand poses the problem of the control of "human obstacles" to rational ecologically sound practices, whereby he provides the rationale for the participation of social scientists in water management.

What are the crucial cultural processes ... and how could they be controlled? (Widstrand 1980:175)

A number of strategies for coping with uncontrollability come into play.

According to the ECE group, research activities need to monitor the states of ecosystems by identifying "indicator species", which are highly prevalent in ecosystems and are

18 conveniently accessible to scientific treatment, as well as so-called "target variables", cross-sections of species representing ecosystems, to which developmental "ecosystem objectives", "safeguarding the functional integrity of an aquatic ecosystem", are assigned, and which can be monitored on a longterm basis (ECE 1989:15ff.; 1992:6-9; Tollan

1992:32). Modelling, simulation, "simple overview models which capture the essence of complex systems" for daily management purposes, ecological forecasting and, in the end, expert judgement will have to bridge the gap between sampling procedures and management activities (ECE 1992:10-11).

The institutional setup for implementation would be guided by national water master plans with an explicit ecosystems approach. These translate into multi-purpose water management systems, integrating all institutions relevant to aquatic systems on regional and local levels (ECE 1989:4,8,9ff.; 1992:13,16; Tollan 1992:31). Mandatory environmental impact assessments prior to implementation of water related projects are proposed

(Tollan 1992:31). The legal and educational systems of nation states and international law are to assimilate and promote the ecosystems approach (ECE 1989:7,21,23; 1991:9;

1992:6-7; Tollan 1992:29-31,32). The requirement for public participation mediates users with expert knowledge and promotes its translation into social practice. Formation of voluntary organisations is to be encouraged, which will function as public counterparts in communications with experts and managers. From the expert perspective their function is to provide "information on people's views and priorities" and to "engage the local population effectively in water-related environmental activities" (ECE 1989:22). Public acceptance of the ecosystems approach is fundamentally based on the inculcation of "the ecology frame of reference" and the translation of the complexities of ecosystems into

19 "manageable facts" for public comprehension in order "to make valid judgements" (ECE

1989:21; Tollan 1992:29,32). Cognitive and behavioral change among the public are considered crucial components in achieving "a state of equilibrium between economic activity and the pressure on the environment" (ECE 1989:22).

The Linkoeping school does not provide as encompassing a set of procedures for research and management. Particularly in the Third World implementation of integrated landscape management and water resource allocation would rely on community mobilization and watershed based projects, pragmatically utilizing expert knowledge, as well as local knowledge and practices, to adjust land use and water availability in a specific locale. The promotion of community based non-governmental organizations is favored. The role of national, regional and local government and institutions, as well as the legal structure is envisioned as providing support and incentives to local activities.

(Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:25-26; Falkenmark, Lundqvist & Widstrand 1990b:29-

43; Lundqvist, Sivanappan & Ramakrishnan 1991:1-33). Public participation is viewed as a necessary but problematic component of projects. The aim would be people's participation "in development undertakings which emanate from officials", spreading of ideas between communities and collaboration of people depending on common resources

(Falkenmark, Lundqvist & Widstrand 1990a:29).

At the same time, Widstrand proposes that experts spend more time with peasants to learn from the "common man", who is acknowledged to have intimate understanding of a local ecosystem (1980:83). Falkenmark and her collaborators are aware of "complications that have been part of interventions from outside" (Falkenmark, Lundqvist & Widstrand

1990a:29). It is recognized that community participation is still in its infancy and requires

20 research into approaches which can deal with the social conflicts and cultural specificity of a community (Widstrand 1980:73).

Unlike the ECE group, social scientists Rao and Widstrand are both explicit about the conflictual and variable character of human action, which thus escapes the imagery of systems control. Widstrand emphasizes the lack of rationality in social action. Rao, as well as Shiva and Bandyopadhyay, focus on irreconcilable conflicts between social groups (class, gender, caste, ethnicity) and their imputed normative and economic interests. As a consequence, radically different propositions for action are advanced.

Widstrand argues that research into the social field of water courses should be undertaken before organizing collective action on water (1980:88). Human interaction with water is structured by institutional and socio-cultural factors (Lundqvist, Sivanappan

& Ramakrishnan 1991:3). Issues of power are involved in issues of water and the social scientist needs to study competition and conflicts over rights and access to water

(Widstrand 1980:2). These conflicts intersect with gender, caste and class conflicts (Rao

1989:79-81). Cosmological symbol systems, such as religious images, reflect human actors' identities in relation to natural phenomena and thus not only structure them symbolically (Rao 1989:78-79), but circumscribe the horizon of human action.

In Widstrand's perspective social scientific knowledge is the basis of conflict resolution and rational mediation by managerial intervention. Multiple levels of conflicts among users, planners, administrators, politicians, development agencies, as well as between nation states sharing river basins, who compete for resources and/or "visions of the future", are discussed (Widstrand 1980:121-148). While it is recognized that each type and instance of conflict has its own 'profile', prevention, persuasion, compromise,

21 fair resource sharing, cooperation and reconciliation are generally favoured over coercion. However, conflict within limits may be productive in bringing issues and rational solutions to the fore.

Rationalization is also urged in confronting the shortcomings of planning, implementation and administration prevalent at all levels of development activities.

Widstrand enumerates a host of problems betraying rationality deficits including corruption, incompetence, unreliability, poor design, lack of discipline," crude and perfunctory reasoning" and ignorance of cultural factors (1980:65-72,81-82). The difficulty of the problem may be inferred from the lack of tangible alternative proposals in Widstrand's discussion, his recurrent call for more research, and his emphatic appeal for a change of attitudes and standards:

The present colonial bureaucratic approach with its inadequacy in technological capabilities of personnel at all levels and in all branches of activity has to be replaced by a competent, professional and committed approach. (Widstrand 1980:70)

Brinda Rao's interest lies within the sociology of social movements, in particular women's struggles. She argues that women are not only "victims" of development processes or ecological crises, but that people's "action and inaction" also affect structures. People's responses to adversity always contain the possibility of "self-empowerment and liberation" (Rao 1989:66,69,71). "Poor, rural women" in India and the effects of water scarcity on their lives are at the centre of her concern. The women's task of procuring drinking and household water is next to invisible in male-dominated state water management, which favors crop irrigation (Rao 1989:66,68,74). Furthermore, water supply is a political bargaining chip in trading votes for schemes between political leaders and their most important constituencies. 22 In Maharashtra rich peasants growing sugar cane can monopolize water resources. As a consequence, women of powerless strata deal with difficult access conditions to water, entailing long walks and bad water quality, which worsen with increasing drought conditions (Rao 1989:68,73-74). Rao also describes a case of exclusion from access to water on the basis of caste division (Rao 1989:79-80). Experience of adversities such as these lead to grassroots initiatives and social struggles in which water rights are

(re)claimed and identites are transformed, asserts Brinda Rao. Whether these are more than "first faltering steps in the process of self-affirmation and empowerment of women"

(Rao 1989:81) remains unclear.

Rao's study interrelates problems of social justice and the socio-cultural construction of property and access rights over 'conditions of production', in line with traditional

Marxist concerns. Thus, conditions of scarcity are mainly depicted as related to the denial of access rights and to exclusion from state planning. The ecological conditions of production themselves remain unanalyzed.

Shiva and Bandyopadhyay argue for the replacement of reductionist research procedures by a scientific approach which is "oriented to the public interest and ecological in nature", and satisfies requirements for both scientific adequacy and social justice (Bandyopadhyay & Shiva 1985:210; 1987:32). Controlled laboratory experiments and computer modelling are rejected, because these methodologies are unable to interact directly with the material world and are therefore not subject to the ecological consequences of their findings (Shiva 1988:34-35). Shiva claims the epistemological superi- ority of 'ethno-science' or 'traditional thought', which derives theoretical statements and

23 generalisations from activity in the material world (participation) and is subject to the consequences of such activity.

Socially, the world of scientific experiments and beliefs has to be extended beyond the so-called experts and specialists into the world of all those who have systematically been excluded from it - women, peasants, tribals. The verification and validation of a scientific system would then be validation in practice, where practice and experimentation is real life activity in society and nature. (Shiva 1988:36)

Women, by virtue of their "participation in the water cycle" and their activities in procuring water, are water experts and managers (1988:212).

Women like Itawari Devi [an activist of the Chipko movement against deforestation in the Dehradun area], who co-habitate with the elements, who participate in nature's cycles, who watch and experience nature's destruction in their everyday lives even while they produce sustenance with nature, have a kind and level of knowledge that no Western trained technocrat can have access to. (Shiva 1988:208)

Shiva envisions, however, a purpose for scientifically trained experts, like herself. The scientist collaborates with actors affected by ecological crises to produce knowledge which integrates the expertise of all collaborators. Shiva and Bandyopadhyay have carried out "ecological audits", research projects which assess the material costs and benefits of technological choices, such as growing monocrop tree plantations, from the perspective of entire ecosystems. An ecological audit recognizes the "multi-functional roles" of resources in a system and the "conflicting utilities" for different groups of human actors and thus "takes into account which social groups and sectors will gain and which will lose materially as a result of a particular utilization of resources"

(Bandyopadhyay & Shiva 1985:210). The objective of "safeguarding the public interest" is pursued by influencing other scientists, decision makers, technocrats and

24 administrators through scientific communications, as well as through public pressure generated by social movements.

The central actors in this scenario, "women, poor peasants and tribals", are a priori associated with sound ecological practices. So-called traditional technologies and landuse forms are critically juxtaposed to modern development and commoditisation

(Bandyopadhyay & Shiva 1985:197-198; Shiva 1988:186,212). The traditionalist nexus of women's work in nature, their production of non-commercial goods, their sound knowledge and wholesome nourishment are believed to be the source of physical and moral strength (Shakti) gifted by nature from which ecological social movements arise

(Shiva 1988:208-209). Their protest against deforestation, large-scale dams and capitalistic farming, is interpreted as a "resistance against the destruction of entire civilizations and ways of life" (Shiva 1988:189). These social movements are expected to initiate "the recovery of the feminine principle in water management", through which women, poor peasants and tribals reclaim their roles as "water managers for the use of water for sustenance" (Shiva 1988:189,215).

The contributors to the eco-hydrological discourse agree on the fundamental importance of water to life and on the problematic consequences of human landuse activities for the hydrological cycle. They differ greatly in their assessment of the causes and proposed remedial actions, which may be explained by the persistence of disciplinary divisions and the variance in fundamental assumptions about the relationship between nature and society. A consistent synthesis of concepts from the social and the natural sciences continues to be lacking. This deficit is further complicated by a division of the

25 debate into two divergent images of what constitutes social and ecological relations, the theoretical models of conflict and of functional integration.

Among the eco-managers the functionalist perspective is basically accepted. Their explanation of eco-hydrological problems is technological. Human actors are applying unsuitable techniques in their exchange with nature. Rational insight can improve these rationality deficits, and the harmonious integration of nature and society can be achieved by managerial control. The social dynamics of human agency in both ecological crises and their proposed solutions remain largely unanalysed. Social action is treated as an engineering problem. Experts discern the technical causes and solutions of crises and communicate requests for behavioral adjustments to society as a set of instructions.

These, of course, ought to be culturally sensitive, a subject matter falling in the proper realm of sociological and anthropological experts. 'Public participation' in this approach is a paternalistic social corollary of ecological engineering. Non-governmental "voluntary groups" replace the need for conflictual social movements in the controlled universe of an

'ecological society'. Eco-managerialists shy away from the analytical reflection of and practical involvement in social conflict. At best, conflict is susceptible to rational mediation by experts.

Eco-Marxism, by contrast, explains ecological crises as a consequence of the contradictory imperatives of the capitalist mode of production. Solutions to crisis are concerned with sustainable appropriation of nature and distributive social justice. Human agency is perceived as fundamentally conflictual and social movements are identified as the possible proponents of ecological socialism. They confront a 'greening' capitalist state, which is concerned about the maintenance of capital's natural resource base. Yet,

26 eco-Marxism leaves the dynamics of ecological relations and of production in nature largely unexplained. Instead nature remains subsumed under capital as its condition of production.

Vandana Shiva seeks to integrate the analysis of production processes in nature and of the participation of human actors, and understands the significance of conflict. Un- fortunately, her discussion is sociologically untenable. By a priori assuming the ecological soundness of landuse practices among traditional women, peasants and tribals, she assigns essential behavioral characteristics to particular actors without accounting for either their socio-historical status and empirical situations, or their actual capacity for remedial social action.

In the following chapter I will critically assess the lack of integration of sociological and ecological knowledge, and the cognitive models which inform the divergent strands of thought in the eco-hydrological discourse. I will finally question the feasibility of totalitarian models of ecological repair.

3. CONSTRUCTING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NATURE AND

SOCIETY

Human activity in, and knowledge of, nature and society are informed not only by our practical experience of reality, but by socially constructed cognitive models which circumscribe the horizon of our knowledge and action. In everyday activity, as much as in specialized scientific discourses, these frames of mind, worldviews or cosmologies remain by and large unreflected, tacit, but deeply ingrained presuppositions. The experience of ecological crises throws up a query into the fundamental assumptions about our relationship with nature. Our models of knowing are of vital importance in the making of ecological crises, in our ability or failure to understand their making, and for our capacity to restore ecological integrity.

In this chapter I seek to clarify some of the fundamental assumptions about the relationship between nature and society informing contemporary scientific discourses on ecology. I will investigate the status of material practice, knowledge and power. The ecological deficits of sociological concepts of nature and conversely the sociological deficits of ecological models will be evaluated. I will critically review images of discontinuity in the relationship between the human species and nature in two powerful contemporary paradigms, Marxism and functionalism. The limits of managerial control of nature are discussed. In this theoretical inquiry I argue for the integration of sociological and eco-

1 logical knowledge in an effort to reconceptualize the problematic interface of nature and society. At a time when prevailing models of knowing have become unreliable for the purpose of coming to terms with the experience of ecological crises it has become necessary to sharpen my conceptual tools.

Ecology and sociology

The central cognitive innovation produced by the eco-hydrological discourse is the understanding that the quality of soils and vegetation or, looking from the perspective of human activity, the type of landuse practiced, has a significant impact on the hydrological profile of a landscape. However, the discussion of these phenomena among most eco- hydrologists tends to be constrained by a narrow technological perspective. According to this viewpoint, human actors have so far failed properly to understand the hydrological implications of their practices. Eco-hydrology and related ecological sciences have now advanced to an improved understanding and are instructing land managers in the application of appropriate technologies, which regulate the total system in an ecologically sound fashion. Rational insight into the necessity for improvement will generate compliance and change.

Common to the technological perspective is the understanding that 'nature imposes limits' on human action, which if not observed tend to undermine nature and thereby human survival. While the eco-managerial approach would test their flexibility it would posit and recognise such limits. The deep ecological perspective, by contrast, rejects attempts at extended management and control. It is argued that human actors should let nature do its thing and refrain from too much interference. Rather, people should re-

2 nounce control and find their proper state of fit. This requires observing limits to human economic action, limits to growth, limits to consumption, and thus frugality and delight in the insight that true wealth is found in nature's fecundity. Models for sustainable activity in nature are derived from subsistence oriented pre-industrial modes of production.

Both perspectives suffer from a lack of historical and sociological analysis. Landuse technologies (knowledge and practices) are productive forces which operate within historically emerging social relations of production. Human participation in ecosystems is not reducible to the notion of an undifferentiated human species which applies good or bad technologies. Human activity simultaneously involves (a) interaction with other species and natural phenomena in eco-systems, i.e. biomass flows, hydrological cycles, landuse forms etc., which are structured by their specific composition, properties and patterns of activity; and (b) interaction among human actors in social systems which are structured by socio-cultural phenomena such as class, gender, caste, ethnicity, property relations, the market, the state, systems of knowledge, stocks of tools, etc. Furthermore, social relations structure human activity in ecosystems, and thereby affect the state of the system.

Reciprocally, the state of an ecosystem structures human activity. These interactive processes evolve historically and exhibit persistent change. Ongoing activity in nature comprises flexible and interrelated sets of opportunity and constraint (structures), simultaneously constituted by and confronting all species and phenomena involved. The composite effect of activity within these parameters continuously reproduces the system while affecting incremental change.1

Eco-Marxism takes an explicitly sociological approach to ecological issues. Jane

Collins argues that natural limits and scarcities are socially produced and experienced.

3 Limits are not absolute, but historically specific; and they are not given by nature but represent the impact of past production practices on current production goals. (Collins 1992:181)

The environment does not pose universal timeless obstacles to human endeavours, but operates within our production practices ... (Collins 1992:186)

Human labour mediates nature and society (Collins 1992:180-181; O'Connor J.

1989b:7) and (re)produces human life by appropriating and transforming natural resources. In historically and socially specific circumstances, social production causes ecological crises. In capitalist society, capital accumulation generates a central contradiction between the human production system and the natural system:

The combined power of capitalist production relations and productive forces self- destruct by impairing or destroying rather than reproducing their own conditions. (O'Connor J. 1989a:25)

The 'conditions of production' entail human labour power and material resources (i.e. nature), as well as socially produced infra-structures (O'Connor 1989a:16). The actors and phenomena of natural systems are conceived as a resource pool of social production, which may become scarce, exhibit strain or break down as a consequence of social dynamics and practices. For example, capital accumulation motivates growing demand on petroleum and causes the increasingly rapid depletion of natural stocks. In agriculture soil fertility may not be restored as a consequence of spreading household labour too thinly over various income generating activities among farming families forced to migrate between different locations in order to secure livelihoods under conditions of capitalistic markets (Collins 1992:181,182-183).

The insight that human practices in nature are always social practices and as such co- determined by historically mutable social structures is crucial. As a consequence, ecological crises can neither be understood nor resolved by analysing prevalent landuse 4 technologies and by introducing improved technologies in isolation of the social relations structuring human participation, and thus constraining the ecosystem concerned.

However, eco-Marxists fail adequately to conceptualise the mutual conditionality of ecological relations. The concept of production is limited to human activity, and natural systems are viewed as conditions of production which operate within human practices as mere environments. Eco-Marxists maintain the perspective which imagines and treats human and other natural actors and phenomena as fragmented objects of unidirectional appropriation. Thus, Brinda Rao analyses social conflicts over the appropriation and management of a particular condition of social production, water, without analysing the conditions of production of water in the hydrological cycle. A social conflict over resource uses cannot be understood and resolved by studying and managing the social relationships involved in isolation of the ecological relations in which a social system is embedded. The physical requirements of ecosystem participants act as constraints of social systems and may contradict the social practices of human participants. In other words, eco-technological intervention may be preempted by its incompatibility with prevailing social relations, while the regulation of social conflict over the conditions of production may continue to undermine ecological integrity and thereby undercut the regulation of social relations.

The concepts of 'production' and 'conditions of production' indicate but two moments in the relationships among all beings and phenomena in nature. Nature may be characterised as a productive network in which all actors produce their own existence, by cycling biomass, water and air, and thereby simultaneously provide conditions of production for others. Each productive activity by drawing on opportunities existing within the

5 network contributes to creating a set of opportunities for others. At the same time productive activities also act as constraints preventing or limiting the opportunities of particular actors and phenomena. Martin O'Connor has identified these structural relationships as

'co-dependency' (O'Connor, M. 1989:37,44). If, however, constraints outweigh opportunities, an actor's or phenomenon's ability to exist may be severely reduced or become impossible.

In the case of the hydrological cycle, water enables biomass production as it infiltrates into the soil. Conversely, a particular biomass structure, i.e. a network of plants, microorganisms, animals, human actors, soils, etc., will enable this infiltration process. If, however, this structure is altered and soil water infiltration sufficiently limited, water availability to biomass production will be reduced, and the system will experience a crisis and change its composition and patterns of activity. Human actors may therefore experience water scarcity as a serious threat to their ability to produce livelihoods. Yet, not only crop cultivation and household water consumption would suffer from water scarcity, but forests may alter their species composition or die altogether, and aquatic life may decline or disappear. Other life forms dependent on these specific habitats could loose their sources of sustenance. This set of changes may, on the other hand, increase the opportunities for certain other species not affected by increasing water stress. These may then occur in such proportions as to threaten human interests by causing crop damage or diseases. The specific sets of critical species interactions and their linkeages will need to be ascertained by empirical analysis.

Each component of an ecosystem has therefore a set of requirements, its conditions of production, which must be met for this component to exist and reproduce itself, and act

6 as a condition of production for others. These requirements constitute limits for the opportunities of other actors. They are intrinsic to nature rather than socially produced.

Their violation may be a consequence of past human production processes, but the limits inherent in the specific sets of requirements of natural actors and phenomena are not.

This is what Shiva and Bandyopadhyay are suggesting by viewing economic activity as integral to production in ecosystems. They derive two antithetical modes of economic action from this framework: (a) human production which maintains the links between components of an ecosystem by recognising the limits inherent in the requirements of interdependent actors and phenomena; and (b) human production which ruptures these links and appropriates a maximum of productive output for human uses.

In an analysis of ecological crises, it is necessary to study both the productive activity and the conditions of production of critical ecosystem components affected by crisis.

Given the powerful role human actors play in the making of ecological crises, socio-ecological research needs to scrutinize the social relations and forces of production which comprise the human component of an ecosystem. However, analysis which reduces nature to a condition of production for human ends may miss the point that social systems by themselves are not capable of reproducing their own conditions of production. The constituent components of ecosystems, of which human actors may be but one component, are reproduced through the composite effects of their interactions.

Nature as an adversary

The social construction of an adversarial relationship between society and nature finds its most fervent expression in Marxist theory and the material practice of the socialist

7 societies of the 20th century. Images of nature as discontinuous with human culture, and as an opponent of labouring and knowing human actors, are, however, dominant in the cognitive models of modernity in general. Classical economics and its contemporary successors, most radically in development theory and practice, as much as Marxism, perceive of human progress as an ongoing struggle to overcome scarcity, defined as a lack of production and consumption. The betterment of the human condition is intimately tied to an increasing capacity to appropriate and transform natural resources and to circulate the products in markets. While Marxism and 'bourgeois' economics differ considerably in their preferences concerning distributive mechanisms, they share fundamental perceptions of human relations with nature. In the following discussion, I take Marx's concept of nature as my point of departure, with the intent to critically examine images of production which construct nature as an adversary.

In the German Ideology Marx and Engel propose that human beings are distinguished from nature because they 'produce' their means of living. A statement in the original manuscript, which was deleted by Marx and Engels themselves, reads as follows:

The first historical act of these individuals by which they distinguish themselves from animals is not, that they think, but that they begin to produce their means of living. (Marx & Engels 1969:20)

The published text adds an explanatory suggestion:

They begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of living, a step which is based on their bodily organization. (Marx & Engels 1969:21)

Marx and Engels construct a radical qualitative separation between human beings and all other nature which marks the beginning of history. By way of production human actors have stepped past the natural evolutionary process. This achievement is para-

8 doxically based on their bodily organisation. How and why human bodies achieve this transcendence and why this constitutes a qualitative difference separating us from all else, is not explained.2

The relationship of human beings and nature in Marx's thought is paradoxical. It is simultaneously a unity and an adversarial struggle (Schmidt 1971:19-23). Unity is grounded in necessity. Human beings produce their life through 'metabolic' exchanges with nature, which ties them to the inherent properties of natural matter. The activity mediating human beings and nature, accomplishing metabolic exchange, is labour

(Schmidt 1971:76-78).

As the producer of use values, as useful labour, labour is an existential condition of human beings independent of all social forms, an eternal natural necessity, mediating the metabolism between humans and nature, i.e. human life. (Marx 1973:57).

Human beings are grounded in nature and reproduce their existence through labour.

Marx's investigation, however, constructs the relationship as an opposition: "man and his work on one side, nature and matter on the other" (Marx 1973:198). Metabolic activity takes the form of unilateral acquisition. Human beings are provided with a resource pool, "the earth ... as the general object of human labour" (Marx 1973:193;

Schmidt 1971:8). Furthermore, the appropriation of nature through human labour is conceived of as an inevitable and eternal struggle:

Just as the savage must wrestle with nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilized man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. (Marx 1978a:441)

The process of human civilisation is depicted as the social history of the reversal of power relations between human beings and nature through the development of the productive forces, i.e. human labour and its artifacts. Hunting and gathering societies are

9 "ruled by ... the blind forces of nature". In industrial societies, by contrast, human producers are "rationally regulating their interchange with nature" by "bringing it under their common control" (Marx 1978a:441).

In Capital Marx analyses the structuration of this common control of nature by technical-industrial means as commodity production. From an ecological perspective, this implies the transformation of interdependent metabolic exchanges among complex sets of actors and phenomena, i.e. of material links in ecological systems, into commercial exchanges, i.e. the circulation of fragmented objects as commodities. As Shiva and

Bandyopadhyay argue, fragmentation takes place throughout the entire process of knowing, appropriating, processing and consuming of natural objects.

Marx limited his analytic concerns to social production and failed to pursue the dramatic ecological implications of commoditisation. Instead he celebrated the productivity of industrial labour. In the Marxist perspective, the historical process is a dialectical movement of the development of forces and relations of production. A succession of modes of production in distinct social formations generates increasingly productive means of creating and appropriating surplus labour and surplus products.

Freedom is thought attainable when the control of nature by technical means is matched by the control of social relations by associated producers, who abolish the appropriation of surplus labour by a ruling class and utilise the capacity for surplus production to abolish scarcity. Nevertheless, the desire for freedom continues to confront ambiguity.

Marx argued, that in production, which ties human beings to necessity and the struggle with nature, 'freedom' is attained through the optimal domination of nature by technical- economic means. "The true realm of freedom" lies beyond necessity and natural contin-

10 gencies. The feat of industrialism is the satisfaction of needs beyond scarcity through highly productive labour, allowing for the alteration of time economy under post- capitalist conditions: high productivity processes free time for pure human creativity

(Marx 1978a:441).

Egon Bittner rejects the view that true freedom may lie in an intellectual/spiritual realm beyond necessity. He argues that human autonomy is always intimately connected with human labour.

The aspiration to autonomy is realized in people's struggles to live according to their creative understanding of necessity and purpose. (Bittner 1983:251)

While human labour cannot produce what runs counter to the forces of nature, it realizes freedom in harnessing those forces to design and construct processes and artifacts which do not occur and operate through "nature's spontaneous naturing" (Bittner 1983:250).

This capacity comes to bear on the procurement of people's livelihoods.

Human autonomy comes into being when humans cease to depend on the providence of nature for sustenance and begin to rely on the prudence of labour. (Bittner 1983:251-252)

Bittner continues to imagine the human relationship with nature as a 'struggle' in which the builders of machines achieve a human 'victory' over the forces of nature. The efficacy of scientific management of labour processes and life in general may, however, turn this 'victory' into a new dependency on experts who control technical knowledge over fragmented aspects of the universe. Bittner worries that the supersession of practical and experiential intelligence by technical knowledge undermines human autonomy. The preponderance of "an abstract, aimless ideal of effectiveness" (Bittner 1983:253) and the decontextualization and standardization of knowledge may cause profound changes in the quality of human intelligence and in the relationship of human actors to machines. 11 The Marxist emphasis on material practice, on relations, forces and conditions of production, tends to side-step the symbolic dimension of social action. The analysis of human cognition and communication, however, permits the insight, that the effects of human participation in ecological systems are co-determined by the cultural system through which human participation is signified. By means of language communication human actors create selective images which arbitrarily engage reality and create situational definitions which form the basis of action coordination.

By symbolic valuation and synthesis of the objective reality, we create a new kind of object, with distinct properties: culture. Language is a privileged means of this project. (Sahlins 1976:64)

The creation of meaning is the distinguishing and constituting quality of men ... such that by processes of differential valuation and signification, relations among men, as well as between themselves and nature, are organized. (Sahlins 1976:102)

Habermas has argued that human actors relate to nature through instrumental rationality guided by the interest in the "technical power of control over an environment"

(Habermas 1971:166). Empirical knowledge provides for the efficacy of human labour and is validated by the efficacy of human intervention in natural processes. The interest in technical control and domination requires human actors symbolically to conceive of nature as an adversary to whom instrumental rationality is imputed. Nature is treated as a subject "which has habitualised the 'laws of nature' as behavioral rules" Habermas

1971:161).

Only if instrumentally acting man constructs his natural environment in this perspective and projects himself as an adversary of instrumentally acting nature, can he hope to be successful with his method. (Habermas 1971:161).

Habermas ascribes instrumental rationality and domination by technical means to human exchanges with nature throughout the evolution of the human species as a whole.

12 The conditions of instrumental action have developed contingently in the natural evolution of the human species; but they tie our knowledge of nature transcen- dentally necessarily to the interest in possible technical control over natural processes. (Habermas 1971:49)

By contrast, social relations among human actors are constructed by means of communicative action guided by the interest in "securing intersubjectivity of understanding in speech communication and in action within common norms" (Habermas

1971:221). Social action is coordinated by "unconstrained consensus" achieved in discourses free of domination.

Habermas' polarisation of nature and society assigns domination to human relations with nature and consensus to relations among human actors. Yet, in their social relations human actors draw on mixes of modalities of power associated with particular types of communication, including domination and consensus.3 Meanwhile, non-human actors and phenomena in nature may not only be experienced as adversaries, but also as allies, friends or gifts. Human cultures throughout history have communicated with actors in nature (spirits, demons, deities) with whom the mutual adjustment of relationships need to be ritually negotiated, thus involving submission, deals, compromises and consensus.

If the scientific perspective was to judge these communications as imaginary and incapable of generating intersubjectivity, it will have to recognise that the imagined dialogue with non-human actors has the same symbolic status as imagining nature as an adversary. Furthermore, communicative exchanges with nature may establish an ethic of restraint.

The interest in unrestrained domination of nature through instrumental rationality and technical power of control may be read as both a selective and arbitrary signification and a power claim of a historically specific culture and its prevailing mode of production. The 13 characterisation of human labour as an instrumental act is a reductionist image which ignores the circumstance that labour is embedded in complex socio-cultural and ecological matrices.

Labour is not bare expenditure of labour power like a machine performance; it transcends the framework of instrumental action as a technically instructed appropriation of natural objects. It is much rather an ensemble of economic, political and cultural practices, structured through the capitalist relations of production. (Berger 1986:269)

Instrumental rationality as a central tenet of cultural lore in capitalist societies is the product of discursive practice. The construction of human relations with nature as a

'functional sphere of instrumental action' rests on an agreement among human actors that natural phenomena may be treated as adversaries who are technologically apprehended in the interest of human control. Furthermore, this agreement does not only rest on the rationality of validity claims, but also on the desire of a social group to conduct life within the horizon of the situational definition which posits nature as a functional sphere of instrumental action. It rests on a power claim.

To be sure we want the agreement to be a rational agreement, an agreement based on arguments and if possible on moral arguments, and yet, what is finally decisive is the factual agreement, and we have no right to disregard it by arguing that it was not rational. ... Here we have an act which is irreducibly pragmatic, and this is precisely because it is not an act of reason, but an act of the will, an act of collective choice. The problem we are confronted with is not a problem of justification but of the participation in power ... (Tugendhat 1981:11)

The belief in the existence of powerful deities or the commitment to an instrumental rationality are widely accepted cultural foundations, which prove to be quite immune to the critique of rational discourse. Criticism does not only depend on its soundness but also on power, in order to construct its knowledge and enable it to bear on action. This state of affairs may violate the injunctions of Habermas' discourse ethics. Rational

14 discourses are but one kind of manifestation of the conflictual negotiation of knowledge and power claims. The insight of the Thomas theorem may thus guide our understanding of the consequences of socially accepted symbolic systems and cognitive models.

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences. (quoted in Merton 1967:421)

Accordingly, the analysis of the problematic consequences of particular modes of knowledge and action is a central concern of socio-ecological inquiry, such as this present study. Only by demonstrating the relationship between crisis experiences and the power, knowledge and action from which they result, I can hope to intervene in a discourse and practice which is insulated against criticism by its power and knowledge.

However, the motivation for a commitment to an adversarial approach to nature is not sufficiently explained by a claim to power for the sake of technical control as such.

Gordon Fellman has pointed out the need for a theoretical framework which explains motivations for adversarial encounters in human conduct (Fellman 1989:23).4 He argues that the explanatory value of theories which focus on the consciously intended outcomes of adversarial contact is limited, as they ignore its emotional dimension and may actually serve to rationalize repressed impulses (Fellman 1989:2-3). Fellman explores the emotional commitment of human actors to the pursuit of triumph and submission, of victory and defeat, the central role of fear and the denial of empathy for others. The projection of repressed emotions onto an 'other' in whom they may be ruthlessly defeated, is perceived as a central tool of unconscious ego defense.

The human experience of both nature and society is fundamentally ambivalent. The family, community, ethnic group, nation state, etc., as well as our interactions with other species and natural phenomena are sources of both nurture and threat. Social relations 15 entail belonging and mutual care, but also exclusion, conflict and exploitation. Nature provides health and sustenance, but also inflicts disease and famine. The cognitive models and cosmologies of human cultures may serve as collective "projective systems"

(Obeyesekere 1984:428) in the attempt to find resolutions for existential ambivalence.

The conflicting emotions of love and anger, of security and fear we feel among our fellow human beings on all levels of social organisation, as well as in the natural environments in which we participate, precipitate multiple repressions and projections. Projective systems are complex, often contradictory and always culture specific. They therefore make generalisation difficult.

The image of nature as an adversary, predominating in industrial modernity, is a projective resolution of existential ambivalence by means of dichotomisation. Nature and society are split apart and the threatening dimension of experience is projected towards nature, while society, by dominating nature, can be perceived as the source of sustenance and security. Nature is accordingly constructed as an adversarial other, whose violence we fear and with whom we deny empathy. Human violence against nature is legitimised as the liberation from the 'fetters of nature' through technical progress.

In the process of this emotional manipulation we have repressed our connectedness, our existentially ineluctable interdependence with the diversity and complexity of life- forms in nature, and most importantly our subjection to risk. In nature all beings are living with the constant possibility of death at any moment. Nature is an interplay of nurture and destruction, a dance of life and death.

Consider what Hegel wrote nearly two centuries ago. Everything is useful, he said, but in an implacably reciprocal sense. Each thing that exists, does so through making use of what surrounds it; yet everything is at the mercy of everything else,

16 finds itself being used or lets itself being used by others and exists, in this sense, for them. (O'Connor M. 1992:5)

I am therefore suggesting to conceive of relations in nature as complex and contradictory mixes of adversarial and mutualistic modalities. This complexity is reflected in the prevalence of both adversarial and mutualistic images of nature in symbolic representations across cultures and history. Patriarchal myths identify nature with feminity as both a nurturing mother and as a threatening aggressor.

The explanation of both calamity and fortuity in human relations with nature as the outcome of a moral judgement of human conduct by powerful deities, is a resolution of ambivalence prevalent in South Asian cultures. Drought and the resultant misfortune of crop failure are perceived as a punishment inflicted by gods who are angered by immoral human behaviour. In this case security and nurture are not achieved by the technical domination of nature, but by righteous conduct and ritual negotiation of relations with beings recognised as powerful. Of course, in contemporary South Asia both cognitive models co-exist and guide human practice: Sri Lankan farmers protect their crops by spraying agrochemical pesticides and by making offerings to the gods, demons and animals in their fields.

South Asia and the 'West', as much as societies all over the planet, share the resolution of existential ambivalence by splitting society apart as well. We construct multiple others in other nation states, other ethnic groups, other castes, the other gender, etc., towards whom we project our emotions of fear and anger.

The obsession of modernity with security and the systematic reduction of risk is, however, a "double edged phenomenon", as Anthony Giddens has pointed out (Giddens

1990:7,92ff,124ff). The ontological security of reliable environments under human 17 control is created by means of domination and violence against the 'forces of nature' and the 'evil' forces of multiple human 'others', a circumstance which paradoxically places us under the threats of large-scale nuclear annihilation, protracted ethnic warfare and ecological destruction.

It is nevertheless difficult to establish clear cut correspondences between observable group behavior and collectively shared emotional states. Motivations are constructed in complex socio-cultural syndromes which link the experiences of individuals to the historical evolution of their social group. The symbolic reflection of such individual and collective processes serves both to give meaning to these experiences and to structure activity. Theoretical assumptions about motivations for human conduct in nature therefore need to be empirically ascertained in the specificities of cultural experiences.

Some motivational forces may be located in the psychological deep-structures of a collective's members. They are coded in rituals and narratives concerned with cosmology, in stories of origin, identity and destiny. They elaborate themes such as the experience of the family and the body through the life cycle, the metaphorical identity of nature and femininity, the meaning of fear and security in human survival, and the experience of misfortune. Motivation may thus be reconstructed by placing significant pointers in rituals and narratives in an interpretive framework which reveals the relevance of such symbols for contemporary practice.

Motivations may as well derive from more overt and thus more readily ascertainable sources. Each human actor is ineluctably placed in a symbolic and material universe of social and ecological relations already in place. As each individual is socialized to act within structural parameters, she or he draws on them as resources and contributes to

18 their reproduction and transformation. This circumstance entails a degree of flexibility and creativity, which, for example, allows human actors to manipulate the received cultural symbols and artifacts selectively in order to deal with specific experiences. Yet, the motivational force of an "ensemble of economic, political and cultural practices, structured through the capitalist relations of production" (Berger 1986:269) can hardly be escaped.

Human beings have historically evolved as increasingly powerful actors, whose cognitive capacities and use of tools have radically extended human autonomy. The capacity to transform nature according to human design has created a cognitive illusion, which assumes that human dependence on nature has been lessened or supplanted by reliance on human skill. Yet, the prudence of human labor continues to depend on the providence of nature. Human production depends on activities beyond its own capacity and reach. Agriculture, the foundation of human survival, requires solar energy, photosynthetic activity, water and biomass flows, and soil. etc.. While human beings can significantly impact the conditions of production of such resources, they cannot substitute human labour for the productive activities of the beings and phenomena which constitute nature. They can only participate in this interactive network. Dependence remains an inevitable constraint of autonomy. We therefore will have to come to terms with the fact that there is no prudence in labour which does not recognise the fundamental interdependence of nature's participants.

Nature as functional integration

19 Eco-managerialism and ecological traditionalism are two influential variants of the ecological response to the crises in natural systems induced by the adversarial treatment of nature. They are informed to varying degrees by a dominant cognitive model of the

20th century, functionalist systems analysis.

The functionalist approach views the components of natural and social systems as comprising a structure which is integrated by functions or functional relations between components. The delineation of a system is somewhat arbitrary. Each system is integrated on a larger scale with others. Located on a particular hierarchical level a system is related horizontally to corresponding systems and to the encompassing higher level constructions through 'input/output' relations of energy, matter and information. Internally, systems components maintain 'throughput' relations. Systems form potentially endless hierarchical layers, in each of which several lower level systems may be intgrated. A system is constructed according to the observer's interest and points of reference. Relevant phenomena outside the immediate focus of the systems perspective can thus be situated as an environmental context.

For example, 'human ecologists' Marten and Saltmann construct a relationship between two systems, a social system and an agro-ecosystem, to describe the relationships between farmers and their farms. Social systems are analyzed on the household level, and agroecosystems are discussed on the levels of cropping system and the farm system integrating several cropping systems. In the social system population, ideology, technology and social structure are specified as points of analytic reference and functional relations are established, where these components interact in such a way as to integrate a social system and act as mutual checks. Functional relationships also link

20 soils, water, live stock and pests in the agroecosystem. The latter maintains input/output relations with the wider eco-system of which it is part and which functions as a natural resource to the agroecosystem. The social system likewise exchanges itself with social systems on other hierarchical levels. The links between the social and the agroecosystems are equally constructed as inputs and outputs (Marten & Saltman 1986).

Structure and function are the basic analytic categories of functionalist systems theory in ecology (Odum 1971:3). The structure of an ecosystem refers to its "component parts

... and how they are arranged in space and time" (Marten and Saltman 1986:24), specifically to their "anatomy and morphology" (Everett 1987:9). The concept of function constitutes the dynamic element of interactions and relationships, the "physical process"

(Everett 1987:9), or work and coordination (Kucera 1973:9; Odum 1971:293). The flow of material (nutrient cycling) and energy are conventionally subsumed under this notion, and the flow of information (language, genes) is considered as well. Functional relationships are thus input/output relations. Functions are indicated by the achievement of such goals and purposes as productivity, stability, sustainability, self-maintenance, resilience to disturbance, regeneration etc. through the participation of systems components in the total system. This functional and structural placement of individual organisms is designated as a niche.

'Succession' accounts for time and change in ecosystems. The consept assumes that ecosystems move through subsequent stages of species composition in an ordered fashion until they reach a state of climax: a self-perpetuating, stable, diversified and complex community in equilibrium with its environment. Initially so-called 'pioneer' species or

'opportunists' 'colonise' habitats, and are gradually replaced by equilibrium species. An

21 important assumption of the idea of succession is that this sequence will only occur in the absense of 'external disturbances' which undermine a system's resilience (Kucera

1973:86ff.; Emberlin 1983:61ff.; Everett 1987:21,39,57).

Emberlin has suggested that this concept is too rigid. Ecological systems are volatile on account of both external and internal factors. He therefore proposes to view succession as a sequential but varied occurrence of individual plants living together in a habitat.

Plants which are smaller, short-lived, adaptable to a wider range of environments and sun-tolerant, tend to be replaced by plants, which are taller, live longer, adapt to a nar- rower range environments and tolerate shade (Emberlin 1983:75-80). However, a combination of factors, such as climate, grazing animals and fire, may prevent the establishment of a forest climax.

Some writers view functional integration in ecological systems as comprised of highly organized, orderly and imperative processes. They project an organistic metaphor into the entire biosphere. James Lovelock's Gaia-hypothesis constructs an image of the planet as a living creature, "the largest manifestation of life" (Lovelock 1988:39).

The boundary of the planet then circumscribes a living organism, Gaia, a system made up of all the living things and their environment. (Lovelock 1988:40)

Gaia's component ecosystems and species paradoxically have a status analogous to

'organs', although they are actively involved in the continuous creation and control of the biosphere (Lovelock 1979).

Edward Goldsmith simplifies this perspective by deciding that the planet is a "single living system" (Goldsmith 1988:161). Frederic Clements, one of the original proponents of succession theory (see below) during the early 20th century, refers to a community of

22 plants as a "complex organism", "a new kind of organic being" which exhibits the same developmental properties as an individual of a species.

As an organism, the formation arises, grows, matures and dies. (Clements, quoted in Worster 1977:211)

Kucera recognises the non-identity of bodies and eco-systems and attributes to ecological communities a "quasi-organismic character", the totality of which comprise a "worldwide complex of life" (Kucera 1973:4,8).

In the eco-managerial orientation the organistic metaphor turns into a clinical problem:

Our globe can be seen as an organism whose health depends on the health of all of its parts. (Tollan 1992:32)

The eco-system is a patient whose illness may be diagnosed and treated with the intent to restore its health.

Participation and action in an ecological system are viewed from the vantage point of order and integration into a whole.

The design of a natural ecosystem serves one function above all - the continued functioning of the ecosystem, its persistence. (Marten & Saltman 1986:34)

Persistence resurfaces as sustainability in the discourses of eco-management, which strives to design persistence into ecological structures dominated by human actors.

Edward Goldsmith explicitly posits an ecosystemic telos emanating from the global biosphere ("Gaia's strategy"), which is transmitted through its subsystems and components. This telos is binding for all constituent parts, which are assigned roles (via structure/function) and thereby contribute to "maximizing" systemic stability as "Gaia's overriding goal" (Goldsmith 1988:161-162,168-169).

The imputation of characteristics of organisms to ecological or social systems is problematic. Relationships between actors and phenomena are portrayed as necessary or 23 inevitable, because a functional link between them is constructed from observable interactions. The historical emergence of these relationships, however, remains obscure. The idea of a 'function' is of limited explanatory value. Thomas McCarthy's sociological critique is relevant to ecological analysis.

The contribution of the consequences of structures of action to the maintenance of a social system cannot by itself explain why these structures exist. (McCarthy 1986:203).

The utility of a fact does not explain its being. Explanation must be historical and analyse the concrete relations of activity among concrete actors. A function is an effect yet to be explained (Giddens 1979:113).

Functionalist theory fails to recognise the radical difference in the ontological status of bodies and of ecosystems. The analogous reasoning involved in conceptualizing interactive systems of natural bodies and phenomena as organisms is problematic and over- stretches the metaphor by confounding its denotative and connotative meanings. The bodies of organisms or individuals of a species are invariant structures with physically necessary links of component organs. All life forms are bounded by their bodies and act as whole bodies, coordinated by their capacities and requirements. Therefore, it may be warranted to speak of functions and explain the parts by reference to the whole, as organs do not act on their own.

By contrast, ecosystems are interactions of bodies and geo-physical phenomena. Life constitutes historically evolving practice rather than functional fit. Species composition and linkages in ecosystems are variant, flexible and change in time and space. Each body encounters the system as a changing set of conditions and contributes to this changing character of the system by its actions. Action constitutes a "continuous flow of conduct"

24 (Giddens 1979:55) and events. Therefore, ecosystems do not have finite life cycles and die, as bodies do, but are transformed by the actions of their participants. Ecosystems evolve as long as there is life on the planet. Even in the event of catastrophes, such as volcanic eruptions or the detonation of nuclear bombs, which annihilate most or all of a system's participants, in due time successional processes will occur and diverse and complex compositions of life forms will evolve.

In the case of interdependent but distinct actors the explanation of the parts from the perspective of the whole is problematic. The idea of function implies the imputation of goals, needs and purposes to systems. However, intention is characteristic of individual actors, whose activities cause systemic effects as mixes of intended and unintended consequences of action (Giddens 1979:56). These effects are regularized and networked by actors who are linked in time and space by effecting composite conditions of action which are to some degree reliable, i.e. constitute adaptations. The structure of a system is a set of resources (material, energy, information) upon which actors draw in order to reproduce their bodies and their activities. Anthony Giddens has depicted this phenomenon as the duality of structure. His sociological argument applies equally to ecological relations.

The structural properties of social systems are both medium and outcome of the practices that constitute the system. (Giddens 1979:69)

In the continuous flow of conduct actors participate recursively, i.e. they render the system self-productive (autopoietic). To quote Giddens quoting F.G. Varela:

Autopoietic organisation can be understood as relations between the production of components which 'participate recursively in the same network of productions of components which produced these components'. (Giddens 1979:75; Varela 1974)

25 The reproduction of a system is the accomplishment of actors and active phenomena, such as water and solar energy, not of the system. The capacity of all system participants to draw on some structurally available resources in the system and to transform system components for their own benefit constitutes power, i.e. relations of autonomy and dependence (Giddens 1979:91-93). No actor can control and appropriate all the resources of a system. Everybody remains dependent on the transformative capacity of others.

Autonomy, i.e. the ability to act according to an actor's purpose and intent, is grounded in dependency on others' capacity for a degree of autonomy. Assymetry of resource control and utilization constitutes domination (Giddens 1979:145).

Functionalism cannot properly deal with 'disequilibrating' activity. Its concepts are constructed from the vantage point of order and integration, which requires to keep forces of conflict, disintegration and rupture conceptually outside the system in an 'environmental' position. They are defined as external disturbances, such as 'anthropogenous intervention' (Kucera 1973:88; Emberlin 1983:61; Goldsmith 1988:174; Meyer

1989:159-161,172). Conventionally, population growth and the 'progress of technology' are identified as the causes of human disruption of ecological systems (Odum 1971:510-

516; 1975:204-224; Emberlin 1983:262-281; Kucera 1973:3,203-208). These explanations are sociologically unsophisticated, because they fail to reconstruct the historical evolution of societies and how their dynamic structures and relationships lead to specific destructive forms of landuse and technology.

If a historical explanation is attempted, for example by Eugene Odum, it transposes the functionalist succession model from ecosystems to human societies. In the metaphorical confusion of organisms, societies and ecosystems, developmental trajectories

26 from youth to adulthood are assigned to all three types of systems. Thus, a 'pioneer society' conquers an area and ruthlessly exploits both people and the environment, as for example during the industrial revolution and slavery in the Americas. Odum is prepared to consider this 'opportunistic' pioneer conduct necessary and justifiable. High productivity processes are capable of rapidly producing economic wealth and mirror the high consumption levels of energy and nutrients, and the rapid production of biomass in ecological pioneer systems. However functional this 'youthful' voraciousness may have been, according to Odum, now it is time for human society to reach the mature stage, analogous to a climax ecosystem, in which environmental protection and human rights contribute to a new level of functional integration (Odum 1989:204,264-266). In this scheme of things even environmental destruction and tremendous human suffering can be integrated as functional.

Donald Worster illustrates how Frederic Clements' climax theory was modelled on the conquest of the prairies of the American West and the self-perceptions of his culture, as well as on the organistic theories of society advanced by Auguste Comte's and Herbert

Spencer's sociology. The ironic paradox of the incompatibility of a 'vegetation climax'

(forest, prairie) and a 'social climax' (industrial agriculture), resulting in the socio- ecological disaster of the dustbowl (Worster 1977:219), is evidence for the ignorance in functionalist ecology of the conceptual inconsistency of destructive human participation within a functionalist universe.

Ecological orientations within the social sciences grounded in functionalism, such as the human ecology school, combine the analysis of social and ecological systems by depicting human and natural realms as distinct spheres which maintain input/output

27 relations (Marten & Saltman 1986; Gallopin, Gutman & Maletta 1989). By keeping the social system outside the ecosystem, human actors are identified as disturbing environmental factors, without 'polluting' the functional integrity of either ecological or social systems. The question arises, how both systems integrate on a higher hierarchical level if the social subsystem affects disturbing transformations in the ecological subsystem. The concept of the relationship between nature and society in functionalism betrays an important logical inconsistency. Strictly speaking social and ecological systems need to be placed on different hierarchical levels. A social system is comprised of intra-species relations among members of the human species. An ecological system is comprised of inter- species relations among individuals of a great number of different species. For this reason, social systems need to be situated within ecological systems and analyzed as to their 'functions' in throughput relations of matter, energy and information exchange among systems components, to stay within the functionalist idiom. Faced with the destructiveness of human activity this approach would, however, compel the ecologist to recognize the inappropriateness of maintaining an integrationist perspective.

Ecological traditionalists with a functionalist orientation divide human societies and social history into two antinomous ideal-typical spheres in an attempt to account for the consequences of human action in functionally integrated systems. For example, Edward

Goldsmith counterposes 'vernacular man' in 'vernacular society' and 'modern man' in

'institutional society'. While the former exhibits an harmonious fit of human beings in the biosphere, the latter has developed a 'technosphere' which obstructs 'Gaia's' imperative for functional integration. Why, how and when a transition from vernacular to technological

28 society occurs, remains unanalysed. Goldsmith's cosmology is ahistorical and un- sociological.

Instead, a cognitive rupture is suggested. 'Vernacular man' is guided by a knowledge and ritual practice which contains largely unconscious eco-functionalist instructions.

These are mythically transmitted and grounded in the 'great dawn' of ancestral origin, "an era when the social laws were definitely established" (Goldsmith 1988:163). This unconscious determination of human action in nature is likened to the unconscious neurological control of organs and their 'adaptation' within the body (Goldsmith 1988:163). These processes enact a cybernetic code of instructions "developed over hundreds of millions of years" (Goldsmith 1988:169), by which Gaia integrates 'herself'. Cosmologist Goldsmith discerns 'The Way', a cosmological principle and telos, binding for all life on earth, which he expresses in sixty-seven 'laws'. This total system has somehow been transcended and is being violated by 'man's' impetuosity. Human actors have substituted "out-of-control, conscious, empirical and rational knowledge" ('cognitive maladjustment') for 'Gaia's wisdom'. Goldsmith proposes a reinterpretation of the cosmos and a recreation of 'homeo- telic' society, where human actors serve their gods with zeal in order to restore divine creation (Goldsmith 1988:183).

Goldsmith ignores that all types of societies develop technical knowledge and practice, mythically coded unconscious motivations, vernacular practices and social institutions. What is of concern is the specific qualitative and quantitative impact of a social group's evolving and often contradictory knowledge and practices on its ecological context and how such knowledge and practices emerged in the continuous flow of history.

29 The dogma of the fit of traditional societies into a functional hierarchical universe is reflected in functionalist analyses of hunting and gathering tribes (Radcliffe Brown 1965;

Reichel-Dolmatoff 1976), and in ecological interpretations of the functioning of South

Asian caste societies. Nigel Pollard (1983), Mudiyanse Tennekoon (quoted in

Sandrasagra 1992) and Ranil Senanayake (quoted in Harrigan 1992) assume that the caste division of labor (hereditary vocations) in Sri Lanka and India order human actors into behavioral patterns and social relationships which perpetuate functional integration through cooperative lifestyles in both social and ecological systems. Human actors occupy ascribed roles from birth which place them in an immutable ('organic') position in the cosmos. According to Hindu doctrine, this station in life (determined by actions in previous births, i.e. karma) could only be transcended in another birth, if the caste's role expectations, as stipulated in the caste specific code of conduct (jati dharma), were fulfilled.

The philosophy [Hinduism] provides a traditional set of relationships to give the individual both a social and ecological niche in the world, and a relationship with an eternal absolute. (Pollard 1983:33)

These interpretations are of course based on religious idealisations of Hinduism rather than observations of religious and material practice under reality constraints. It is noteworthy, that the Hindu concept of jati dharma survives among traditionalist ecologists in Buddhist Sri Lanka, although doctrinal Buddhism prescribes Buddha dharma, the right path of human conduct, as a vehicle of transcendence for all followers irrespective of caste.

Vandana Shiva has advanced a feminist variant of ecological traditionalism. She combines an essentialist and a materialist argument in order to discern social actors

30 capable of the recovery of the 'feminine principle'. A religious discourse in Hindu mythology is selectively interpreted by metaphorically identifying nature with femininity.5 The metaphor is projected back onto women as real actors, who are considered the keepers of the female principle and are thereby endowed with a propensity for harmonious ecological practices. The essentialist argument is validated by Shiva's selective account of women's practices in nature. Women are identified with traditional social structures, i.e. pre-capitalist, pre-industrial, subsistence producing societies of peasants and tribals. The men in these societies are susceptible to the adoption of ecologically destructive practices on account of their involvement with capitalistic commodity markets, while the women retain their ecologically innocuous behaviour as they remain "linked to life and nature through their role as providers of sustenance" (Shiva 1988:42). Third

World elite women and Western women are generally excluded from the traditionalist nexus. Men who remain subsistence producers are subsumed under the feminine principle.

Shiva constructs multiple ahistorical polarities, such as male vs. female, modern vs. traditional, market vs. subsistence, outside intervention vs. inside integrity. This ideological manipulation is a powerful image in the confrontation of political adversaries, but is analytically questionable. Shiva, as much as other traditionalist thinkers, fails to perceive the contradictory and complementary mixes of tradition and modernity in actual rural communities in the Third World. As a consequence, she cannot elucidate the various and changing ways in which women and men participate in their socio-ecological systems. Shiva fails to investigate how images of femininity and masculinity are constructed in the lives of women and men, what purposes they serve, and how they might

31 change through history and vary between different social groups. Instead she confronts the dominant patriarchal symbol system by constructing a feminist counter-myth.

Understanding the role of human actors in socio-ecological transformations requires us to investigate the multiple and variant activities in which both men and women engage to procure livelihoods, and the complex social and ecological conditions under which these livelihood activities operate. Jane Collins remarks:

When peasants and tribals are caught up in markets - and particularly in the contradictory demands resulting from simultaneous participation in several labor and commodity markets - their production practices become intimately linked to the cycles of the world economy. The tendency of many recent environmentalist writings to use third world peasantries as examples of 'organic communities' ... neglects the real economic circumstances in which they must provision and reproduce themselves. (Collins 1992:185)

The impact of social structures and symbolic representations on interaction in ecological systems cannot be understood by assigning preconceived behavioral attributes, cognitive capacities and interests to particular categories of actors. Sociological analysis would be replaced by a discourse of desire for righteous social agents and unambiguous adversaries. Furthermore, the ideal-typical juxtaposition of traditional and modern societies does not resolve the inability of functionalist ecological theories to explain the historical emergence of industrial capitalistic modes of human participation in nature.

The resurgent popularity of functionalist models in green discourses, whether deep ecological or eco-managerial, is indicative of the importance of totalitarian models of order in situations that are perceived as problematic and out-of-control, as in socio- ecological crises. The traditionalist and the eco-managerial versions compete for the recognition of a way of ordering reality and strive to impose that order on human actors.

32 The notion of 'design' in natural systems, while being logically inconsistent, reveals the practical purpose of functionalist systems theory. The idea of design presupposes a designer, a being or a group of beings who signify and select a particular pattern of how what is being designed ought to be. Design and its implementation necessitate power and coordination among social actors. These categories are inapplicable to the biosphere or other levels of ecological systems, which are complex systems of recursive participation of multiple actors of different species. Unless one is prepared to assert that all these are under the control of an 'almighty' being or a group of coordinated powerful beings, i.e. deities or ancestral spirits. Goldsmith quite explicitly affirms this kind of cosmology.

Gaia, the Greek nature goddess, appears as the supreme systems technologist. In any case, the assumption of systemic self-design, entails the projection of a capacity generic to actors to an authority beyond actors. Thus, a human cognitive construction is imbued with a supra-human imperative force.

However, both the concept and the imperatives are human constructions, based on historically specific experiences and meanings. A design is thus limited in space and time. The design is subject to conflict, to rupture and refusal. It is a tool of power. Design is the anticipation of a coordinated effect, not the coming into being of a composite effect, a characteristic generic to systems. Thus, designs enter systems evolution as a factor. Neither do systems design themselves, nor can specific actors design the entire system, although they may desire to do so and invoke notions of systemic self-design on behalf of this desire.

33 This circumstance refers to the point of origin of systems theory. As Giddens indicates, systems theory "has received a direct impetus from developments in modern technology, ... 'systems technology'".

Systems technology does not just refer to computers, automated machines, etc., but also to the incorporation of human beings, or their activities, within designed control systems. (Giddens 1979:74)

I should like to add that non-human actors and phenomena are incorporated into designed control systems as well. A scientific experiment as much as an agricultural operation can be imagined and implemented as a designed control system, where phenomena are brought within a designer's (scientist, farmer) cognitive and/or material control. In such pragmatic contexts systems theory is a "potent ideological force" (Giddens 1979:75). The perception of reality in terms of functionalist systems theory is less of an analytical tool than a managerial device. Under conditions of socio-ecological crises and conflicts an image of 'necessary' integration is formed by which to motivate human actors to act according to its presumed imperatives. The forces of disorder, rupture and conflict contradicting integrative power are consequently designated as maladjusted, deviant, malignant, out-of-control and non-fit, and thus are to be reintegrated according to roles designed for them, or eliminated.

Ecological managerialism asserts that in the face of crisis and disintegration human knowledge has to discern the features of an equilibrated system, and design behaviours for system participants (co-evolution conditions, ecosystems objectives, target variables) which integrate the system from within in a holistic perspective (ECE 1989:15ff.; 1992:6-

9; Tollan 1992:32). Aided by a centralized comprehensive data bank, the surveillance of ecosystems components is achieved by monitoring systems which trigger intervention

34 through corrective action (ECE 1991:8; 1992:7). The organistic and clinical metaphors are joined by imagery prevalent among police agencies. As, however, knowledge and material control are difficult in a vast and volatile world and therefore rational understanding and action always incomplete, the final word is the judgement of the experts (ECE 1992:10-11) who have designed the systems of control in the first place.

The traditionalist version of this totalitarian design is merely communicated in a different idiom. The design of reality is assigned to powerful forces which oblige human actors to integrate themselves. Otherwise they will be punished, ultimately with annihilation, as these forces will sacrifice anything for their ultimate telos of order, integration and stability. Again, knowledge and proper action are difficult to discern. The communication with deities is not a common person's business. Therefore, the ritual expert and cosmologist is required to translate the 'instructions' of the supreme beings to the commoners and design their behavior according to his or her 'intuition' and ritual tradition. Yet, the cosmologists are the ones who have designed the image of order

(cosmology) in the first place.

The myths of the modern and traditional functionalists are self-legitimating symbol systems. Their practical legitimacy would derive from their power to convince the human actors whom they are intended to motivate, and from their capacity to enable the actors operating within the horizon of the cognitive model, to achieve the objectives proclaimed.

Faced with two competing totalitarian versions of coping with socio-ecological crises on our planet the questions arises, how much control is actually possible.

The limits of control

35 The 'ecosystems approach to water management' is an instance of what eco-Marxists have called the attempt of capital, mediated by the state, "to exercise more control or planning over production conditions" in order to deal with the self-induced impairment of the conditions of production (O'Connor J. 1989a:29,23; O'Connor M. 1989:35; 1992:1-2).

By assigning commodity values and property status to fragments of nature, anything under the sun is potentially subject to the social control of capital. Martin O'Connor notes the symbolic manipulation involved. Since the natural conditions of capitalist production are not produced as commodities, they must be "codified as capital".

"Exchange value" is instituted as a mode of coding and controlling social relations - the commodification and pricing in the market of all this hitherto external domain. (O'Connor M. 1992:2)

Nature is conceived in the image of capital. (O'Connor M. 1989:35)

Planning and design are assigned the function of controlling the interface between nature and capital. The cognitive planning tool is functionalist systems theory. The planners imagine a transformation of 'disorder and conflict' into 'harmony and optimiza- tion' through functional integration (O'Connor M. 1992:36).

The eco-Marxist authors note, that "the contradiction between capitalist production relations (and productive forces) and the conditions of production" (O'Connor J.

1989a:16) induces a "capitalist crisis of control" which radically undercuts the symbolics of integration. James O'Connor is concerned with the displacement of the central contradiction between the relations and conditions of production into the spheres of the state and the public. The bureaucratisation and politicisation of the relationship between human actors and nature on account of state intervention induces the emergence of social movements contesting the "definition and use of production conditions" (O'Connor J.

36 1989a:23-24,29). Martin O'Connor emphasises the systemic limits to human control on account of the volatility and complexity of interactions in nature (O'Connor M.

1989:45,52).

Accordingly, managerial control is constrained on three interrelated levels: (a) the structural contradiction between human economic production and the conditions of production, (b) social struggles contesting the management of the relationship between human actors and nature, and (c) the indeterminacy of relationships among actors and phenomena in spacially and temporally open systems. In this section I shall deal with these dimensions of the limitation to managerial control.

As I have argued above, the eco-Marxist perspective subsumes production in nature under the capitalist mode of production as mere conditions of production. I suggest to treat capitalistic production as an historically specific mode of human participation in productive activity in nature. I can thereby shift the analytic interest from a single-minded anthropocentric preoccupation with contradiction within the capitalist mode of production to the fundamental contradiction between capitalist production and production in nature. The concern for the ultimately self-destructive tendencies of the capitalist mode of production is expanded to a concern with the destruction of the life-sustaining processes on earth. The irreconcilability of the contradiction arises from the simultaneous dependence of capitalist production on production in nature, and the incompatibility of the rationales driving either mode.

The expanding appropriation and consumption of nature in capitalistic production processes and the concommitant violation of the integrity of production in nature, result from structural pressures for increases in economic productivity. Competition in capitalistic

37 markets and class conflict over the conditions of exploitation (wages, length of the working day, organization of production) motivate ongoing productivity increases by means of technical reorganisation of production processes (Marx 1973:331-340). Rising productivity implies increases in commodity output per invested unit of variable and constant capital, or conversely lowers the production cost of a commodity. High productivity processes thereby increase the throughput of biomass (resource appropriation). At the same time they motivate the externalisation of costs in the form of socio-ecological damages to habitats (pollution, depletion, over-production crises and unemployment). The internal logic of capital renders this process potentially ceaseless, as the socially valid standards of productivity level out and new cycles of competition, class struggle and investment in new products and markets are set off. High productivity processes in the production of desired goods occur regardless of important social variations in free enterprise, state interventionist or state managed socialist systems.

In agri- and silviculture, monocrops and high levels of agrochemical inputs afford an optimum output of commodities per units of time and space, and investment at a given standard of productivity. High productivity systems select fast-growing early succession species, whose maintenance requires high levels of energy inputs, such as irrigation, fertilisation, fuel for machinery, pest control etc. (Odum 1971:45,267). Competition from undesirable life forms, defined as pests and weeds, is limited or eliminated. Space, energy and water resources are dominated by a single species (crop) which is controlled and consumed by another single species (human beings).

At the same time these high productivity processes cause hydrologically and biodynamically problematic consequences, such as desiccation, nutrient depletion, soil

38 erosion and destruction of genetic diversity. Agricultural production is, however, fundamentally dependent on the free availability of soils, water and genetic material. These cannot be produced capitalistically. They have been produced over long periods of time without concern for short-term optimum outputs. Ecologically diverse processes of production are not based on optimum productivity, but on flexible degrees of shared cycling of energy, nutrients and water in complex networks of interacting species and inorganic phenomena. No single species or group of individuals can appropriate an optimum of desired resources without simultaneously depriving others of their capacity to exist. Conversely, for a network of life forms and phenomena to exist, their interactive requirements in terms of nutrition, energy, space and time must be met. If such a set of requirements is fundamental to the existence of the human species, the latter's productive processes can only operate optimum productivity processes until they have consumed and impaired what ecological processes have built up in time spans and spaces not affected by capitalistic production processes. As soon as these resources are exhausted and their productive interactions eliminated, capitalistic production processes themselves are rendered defunct.

The relationship between structural contradiction and social conflict needs to be theorised carefully. I suggest that the contradictory modes of capitalist production and production in nature are not symmetrically represented by particular social forces, i.e. capital and the state opposed by social movements. The fundamental contradiction is embodied by all social actors operating within the context of the capitalist mode of production. They may at the same time be victims and perpetrators of ecological destruction. While they are subject to the specific capitalist conditions of resource appropriation,

39 they simultaneously require the integrity of these resources. As long as livelihoods are dependent on the production of commodities, the economic survival of human actors and the survival their of bodies are in conflict. The contradiction culminates in a livelihood crisis when human economic activity destroys its ecological foundations.

The relationship between capital, the state and social movements cannot be inferred from a structural theory. Ecology as a concern of contemporary capitalist societies is a contested terrain in which conflicting and shifting alliances of actors make knowledge claims and compete for the implementation of their projects. Capital does not act as

'abstract capital', but constitutes a competitive social field in which the productive practices of one branch of production may cause the impairment of the conditions of production of another. The capitalist state is not a monolith, but another conflictual social field in which politicians, administrators, and technical experts networked in national and global agencies negotiate relations of relative autonomy and dependence among each other, as well as with capitalist producers and the public. The state as a producer of infra- structural commodities may cause the impairment of the conditions of production of other commodity producers, as for example small-holding farmers. State regulation may therefore intensify rather than displace contradictions on the level of production. Social movements are not 'class actors' unified by a common objective in a continuity of struggle. Social struggles may be confined to the particular spacial and temporal circumstances by which they are motivated, if they occur at all. The emergence of social movements in the event of a livelihood crises cannot be taken for granted, and the objectives of social struggles may be grossly overstated when Shiva and Rao impute to

40 their social subjects the capacity to resist the 'destruction of entire civilizations', to recover the 'feminine principle' and to achieve 'self-empowerment and liberation'.

The preoccupation with struggles diverts the view from less extra-ordinary conflict situations among human actors. Spectacular confrontations may be a comparatively rare strategy. Empirical research would have to discern the actual constellations of conflict and cooperation among actors involved in ecological crises. Where conflict does occur, it infuses ecological systems with unpredictability which impacts the efforts of environmental managers, particularly if their designs are the subject of conflict.

Irrationality and failure of human knowledge and practices comprise a further social constraint of managerial control. The most careful design of control systems may be undermined by "crude and perfunctory reasoning, lack of discipline, incompetence and corruption" (Widstrand 1980:65-72,81-82) among administrators, experts, politicians, capitalists, environmental activists and farmers. Recalcitrance, incompetence and parasitic behavior may be calculated and intentional, and co-constitute the ecological system in which eco-managers intend to intervene. Rationally motivated resolution of crises and mediation of conflicts may not be attainable. Conflicts and failures may remain unregulated if the juggling of the status quo proves to be immune to recurrent waves of reform initiated by seemingly enlightened experts.

Furthermore, the importance of purely symbolic handling of ecological crises cannot be underestimated. An abundance of rhetoric and pretension, of planning, designing and strategizing, without necessarily producing practical consequences supports the livelihoods of experts, administrators and activists participating in advisory boards,

41 conferences, development agencies, government departments and non-governmental organisations. These actors may institutionalise inaction by creating mere talk.

Finally, eco-management is limited by the complexity and volatility of relationships within spacially and temporally open ecosystems. Recurrence and order interlace with rupture and conflict. Time is both cyclical and linear, and space is possibly infinite. There are too many actors and phenomena at work for total system integration to be feasible.

The systemic consequences of managerial 'inputs' are not necessarily predictable in systems charcterised by indeterminacy (O'Connor 1989:49-51). Knowledge production and managerial intervention remain necessarily reductionist and partial. In the course of contradictory, contested and complex realities, ecosystems management can be expected to be patchy and discontinuous, a set of interactions among a multiplicity of others.

In the early 1970s Andre Gorz anticipated a technofascist scenario created by the totalitarian aspirations of ecological systems design.

The limits necessary to the preservation of life will be centrally determined and planned by ecological engineers, and the programmed production of an 'optimal' environment will be entrusted to centralized institutions and hard technologies (this is the technofascist option, the path along which we are already halfway engaged). (Gorz 1980:17)

I am arguing that this distopia is a contested, fragmented and always limited universe.

However, given the pretensions of the equilibrating spirit, authoritarianism is a con- ceivable option for crisis management. If in particular instances the conditions of capitalist production have been sufficiently impaired to produce drastic scarcities, the management and distribution of the remaining resources may be controlled and enforced by an expert culture and the coercive apparatus at its disposal.

Gorz has emphasized the necessity for politics beyond the rhetoric of systems design:

42 The rejection of technofascism does not arise from a scientific understanding of the balances of nature, but from a political and cultural choice. (Gorz 1980:17)

Yet, planning and design remain an inevitable responsibility, however partial and local the actual effects may be. Given the extent to which human actors are capable of transforming and impairing the biosphere, and the fact that somebody always does some planning, it is of great importance to understand, who has access to discourses on knowledge and design, to decision making processes, and to the implementation of human projects.

Furthermore, we need to understand how the requirements for the persistence of non- human actors and phenomena, who cannot participate in human discourses about their fates, are represented or repressed in human knowledge and planning. This is indeed a political matter, because the institutions and actors involved in these tasks exert mechanisms of social closure, which contestants for participation may seek to breach. Demo- cratisation of technocratic processes has therefore been a central demand of ecological social movements. Still, democratisation only offers a chance for better knowledge and action. It allows for access. It does not, however, guarantee that democratised planning and project realisation will not lead to a concerted human effort at ecological (self-)- destruction.

NOTES

1. This discussion of the status of action, structure and change is informed by a critical and admittedly selective reading of Anthony Giddens' theory of structuration (Giddens 1979:49-95). Giddens is explicitly concerned with the development of social theory. Although he contends in a later work, that "sociologists today find it 43

hard to develop a systematic appraisal of ecological concerns" (Giddens 1990:8), I consider the theoretical concepts elaborated in Giddens' Central Problems in Social Theory useful in developing a socio-ecological framework of analysis.

2. In Capital One, Marx, in passing, advances two criteria which may support this perspective. Animals do not produce purposively and on the basis of conceptual knowledge, but are guided by their instincts (Marx 1973:192-193), and they do not use tools or 'means of labour' (Marx 1973:194). Consider Bookchin's following argument: "Every organism is in some sense "will- ful", insofar as it seeks to preserve itself, to maintain its identity, to resist a kind of biological entropy that threatens its integrity and complexity. However dimly, every organism transforms the essential attributes of self-maintenance that earn it the status of a distinct form of life into a capacity to choose alternatives that favor its survival and well-being - not merely to react to stimuli as a purely physico-chemical ensemble" (Bookchin 1987:73). For this reason, I am treating living individuals of all species as 'actors', in an effort to extend a theory of action to nature as a whole. Categorisation of abiotic components of ecosystems meets difficulties, because these are inanimate, yet, as in the case of water and fire, highly volatile and indeed active. I have resolved to refer to them simply as phenomena. Tools empower human actors in their interactions within nature. They never separate them from nature. Marx viewed tools as the "means of labor", as "means of power" (Marx 1973:194). He characterised the human body as a "natural power" (Marx 1973:192) which transforms nature. The original means of labor is the body, a characteristic, which human beings share with all natural actors: the transformative capacities of bodies link all actors in nature. Tools are extensions of the body, which increase the body's transformative capacities. Tools can never be entirely substituted for the body. They require human judgement and handling.

3. This perspective differs from sociological theories which identify power with domination and strategic / instrumental action (see for example Giddens 1979:88). Instead, I view power (transformative capacity) as constructed by various modalities of action coordination, involving domination, manipulation and deception, deals and compromises, as well as consensus. For a comprehensive discussion of this topic see my Eco-Power Communications (Starkloff 1989, esp. ch. 4).

4. My discussion of adversarial imagery and practice in human relations with nature is informed by Gordon Fellman's writing on adversarialism and mutuality as paradigmatic modalities of structuring human social relations. The two concepts provide a theoretical framework designed to analyse the motivational foundation of war, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to suggest possible alternative attitudinal underpinnings of amicable conflict resolution (Fellman 1989). I agree with Fellman's suggestion that his categories are equally productive in thinking about human approaches to their relations with other species (personal communication). However, while he states that the two paradigms are complementary rather 44

than mutually exclusive, he presents them as alternative ideal-types, and views conflict resolution as a movement from the adversary to the mutuality paradigm. By contrast, throughout the discussion in this chapter I am treating both modalities as extreme images of a spectrum of modalities of power relations (domination and consensus) which in everyday practice occur as complex and often contradictory mixes. Fellman and I can however agree, that in the making of social and ecological crisis the preponderance of adversarial encounters in human conduct is of central analytical interest.

5. Shiva bases her interpretation of nature's femininity on Hindu mythology and the symbolisation of life energy or power through the female deity Shakti or Prakriti. Hindu cosmology is however fundamentally modelled on the interplay of male and female, reflecting an image of sexual activity as well as the family, which is represented in infinite versions in the vast pantheon. Shiva makes reference to male forces and symbols (god Shiva, Purusha the passive masculine principle), but assigns the "nature of Nature" to the activity of Shakti. Yet, in Hinduism nature is symbolized as the complementarity of activity and passivity. Shiva herself cites an interpretation of the myth of the taming of the female force of Ganga descending from the heavens to earth as torrential monsoon rains and comprising the river Ganges which flows from the Himalayan mountains. The breaking of the force of Ganga by god Shiva's hair symbolizes the interception of the powerful wild waters by the vegetation of the mountains (Shiva 1988:184). This image might strike feminists as profoundly chauvinistic. The gendered vision of nature reflects visions of ourselves outward and back onto ourselves in order to provide discourses mutually legitimating our activity in nature and between men and women. The same cosmological operation, by manipulating the symbols selectively, lends itself to feminist as well as to patriarchal interpretations.

4. SITUATING KITULWATTE IN THE SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE

The purpose of this chapter is to generate a contextual perspective on Kitulwatte. Specific systems of action are embedded in spatial and temporal contexts and co-constitute such contexts. First, I will provide a synthesizing view of Kitulwatte's landscape and outline the significant spatial transformations which have occured over time. Next, I will demonstrate how the interaction of the monsoons with the topography of the Uva basin produces cyclically recurring yet volatile patterns of climatic change in the distinct region in which

Kitulwatte is located. Finally, I will reconstruct the historical dynamics of the social formation in the context of which Kitulwatte has evolved.

Kitulwatte

A cluster of hamlets nestled in the eastern and western slopes of a small valley in the Uva basin comprises the village of Kitulwatte [kitul = caryota urens, wine or fishtail palm; watte = garden]. The Uva basin is a distinctive geological formation of undulating hills and valleys, surrounded almost entirely by high mountain ranges, in the Eastern part of the central hill country of Sri Lanka. In 1819 the British colonial officer John Davy described the features of the basin in his travelogue:

On looking round the country, it has the appearance of a magnificent amphitheatre sixty or eighty miles in circumference, formed of a succession of steep, smooth, green conical hills, and of deep narrow glens remarkably free from wood, enclosed

1 on every side by mountains varying in perpendicular height from four to six thou- sand feet. (Davy [1821] 1983:302)

Kitulwatte is located at an elevation of about 1200 metres in the south-eastern corner of the approximately 700 square kilometer large basin, very near the provincial trading town and holiday resort of Bandarawela.

The people of Kitulwatte live in a landscape, the components of which are intimately linked to their pursuit of livelihoods and their identities. Given the centrality of their water problem, I have delineated the land area included in my study as 'the Kitulwatte micro-watershed. This boundary requires to be handled with some flexibility. The micro- watershed is defined here as that part of the hills above the valley of Kitulwatte which contain water courses draining into the river flowing through the valley. Some of the micro-watershed’s land area and waterways utilised by people from Kitulwatte are located outside the boundaries of the Kitulwatte grama niladari [village officer] Division, but had to be included in my definition of the 'Kitulwatte micro-watershed. Furthermore, a small side valley in the northeastern hills, Malapotukapalla, which is cultivated exclusively by farmers from Lower Kitulwatte, but does not fall within the micro-watershed, had to be included in the spatial definition of my research unit as well. The result of this deliberation and choice is reflected in Map 1 and in the landuse maps provided in chapter

2 Map 1: Kitulwatte Micro-Watershed: Stream Flow and Contours

3 The valley of Kitulwatte is traversed by a small river, which the people in the village call 'Kitulwatte Oya' [oya = river] or simply the Oya. The Oya originates in the upper ridges of the mountain range surrounding the basin. Fed by streams and streamlets arising from both Haputale Range as well as from the lower hills inside the basin, the Oya flows into Mahatotila Oya just north of Kitulwatte. Mahatotila Oya joins Uma Oya past the town of Welimada. Uma Oya drains into the northern low-lands of the Uva Province and flows into the Mahaweli Ganga, Sri Lanka's most significant river, at Rantembe Reser- voir.

In between Mahatotila Oya and Kitulwatte Oya, south of their confluence, lies a small range of hills, the two highest summits of which are roughly 1500 metres high. In the gullies and hollows of this range many rivulets and streamlets emerge to form small streams, referred to in Sinhalese as kandura, which drain into the valleys of the Kitulwatte and

Mahatotila Oyas. The eastern part of this hill range forms the western slopes of the

Kitulwatte micro-watershed. The upper slopes and hill tops are almost continously covered by tree plantations, which consist of pines interspersed with an occasional eucalyptus lot. An exception are a single hill above Ambagahakumbura [field of the mango tree], the southern-most hamlet of Kitulwatte, and a nearby large hollow, Galpotuyaya [paddy fields at the rock], below one of the summits. Both places are covered predominantly by grasses and other herbacious plants. They are the remnants of hilly grasslands commonly refered to as patana. In Galpothuyaya seven springs feed streamlets which form the Ara- kandura, one of the most fecund water sources in Kitulwatte. Its springs are surrounded by tiny forest fragments consisting of dwarfed trees. Inside most gullies on the slopes of

Kitulwatte valley, fragments or remnants of forests can be found alongside their streams.

4 In these side valleys villagers are cultivating vegetables and to a lesser degree paddy near watersources.

Further down the gullies, towards the mid-slope, forest fragments merge almost im- perceptibly with the homegardens of the villagers. By contrast, the boundary between tree plantations and homegardens is distinct. In the homegardens trees, shrubs, vegetables and herbs are cultivated by their human inhabitants. Some homegardens, or parts thereof, have been converted into tiny tea plantations. In the core of each home garden is a clearing with the house surrounded by an open yard. A hamlet consists of an irregularly spaced cluster of adjacent houses and gardens, which spread horizontally and vertically along the midslope of the valley. The homegardens form a nearly continuous belt span- ning accross all the villages in the valley.

On the lower slopes and in the valley floor alongside Kitulwatte Oya, paddy and vegetable fields spread in an almost uninterrupted mosaic. Narrow irrigation channels link the fields with the streams of the side valleys, from where water is abstracted by small anicuts. As each hamlet is situated near at least one kandura, it operates its own small irrigation system, an intricate network of one or more main channels [Sinhalese: ela], each running alongside the slope at different altitudes, and of minor channels, connecting the elas with the fields. Some of the fields on the lower slopes have springs and can thereby rely on their own water supply.

The situation on Kitulwatte's eastern slopes and on the hills above, contrasts strikingly with the western side. The villages spreading across these hills can be considered the suburbs of the town of Bandarawela, where relatively new and dense settlements have been established, some on very steep slopes. Most of their homegardens are small and

5 exhibit a different species composition and structure than the old-style gardens. In a spa- cious hollow, on and around the grounds of an old dried up reservoir, several large institutional buildings are situated or are currently under construction. They house several garment factories, a spinning mill, a technical college, the new Affiliated University Col- lege of Bandarawela, as well as a boarding school of British origin with their staff quarters. Nearby, on the highest hill of this range, the National Holiday Resort, a government owned hotel for Sri Lankan tourists, is located.

These suburban features continue into the upper and mid slopes of Kitulwatte's eastern valley. Three new hamlets have emerged since the 1960s, which provide homesteads for the expanding population of the village. Their gardens consist predominantly of eucalyptus trees and vegetable plots. A tiny government housing project for seven poor families from outside the village was built as well.

Along the hillside at mid-elevation a major road runs through the eastern village, connecting the towns of Bandarawela and Welimada, which is located in the centre of the

Uva basin. 'Welimada Road' is a winding tarred road with two lanes on which private and state buses provide transportation to the towns. All the important non-agricultural enterprises and state services available in Kitulwatte are spread alongside the road over a distance of 2 kilometres, without ever forming anything resembling a village centre. 11 small shops [sinh.: kade] selling staple groceries and other necessities are located here.

So are the village school, a carpentry shop, which also houses an electric paddy mill, a small vocational training centre for apprentice weavers, the local cooperative store, an orphanage for boys, the quarters and stores for the construction of the Affiliated Universi- ty College, and a spice processing factory. There is no office of the grama niladari, since

6 no one would replace the previous incumbent. A grama niladari from a neighbouring village was entrusted with the duties by the Divisional Secretary in Bandarawela. There are no post-office, medical facilities, banks, or a market square. People in Kitulwatte are provided with these services in the neighbouring villages or in Bandarawela.

A 'dirt road' leads upward from Welimada Road to Ginigathenapatana ['the grassland used for slash-and-burn cultivation'], one of the new hamlets on the hilltop, and to a drinking water reservoir and pumping station of the National Water Supply and Drainage

Board, situated next to the hamlet and below the National Holiday resort. The road continues on to neighbouring villages.

Another partially macadamized road branches off Welimada Road and leads downhill to four small private tea estates located between the main road and the Oya. Two of these estates, Glenwood and Clair Estates, are operative enterprises, which also rent their bungalows to short-term holiday makers or long-term residents. The other two are severely degraded and partially abandoned. The tea estates extend from the south eastern end of the village and cover about two thirds of the eastern mid-slopes. They enclose the two largest forest fragments of Kitulwatte, which are located alongside streams in gullies.

There are no water courses on the slopes above Welimada Road. The two new hamlets of

Gaswatte [tree garden] and Clairwatte [Clair garden] are sandwiched between the estates and the road.

North of the estates and below the road is a wide side valley with a stream and scattered remnants of a forest fragment, which is entirely cultivated with vegetables. Further north lies the only old homegarden cluster on the eastern side of the valley, consisting of several hamlets and the village cemetery. These are adjoined by a few larger properties

7 with eucalyptus woodlots and homesteads, as well as a small tea garden. Another small forest fragment is hidden among these private tree plantations.

Parts of the lower slope and valley floor consist of paddy and vegetable fields. These fields are also irrigated with water abstracted from the streams in the forest fragments.

The road to the tea estates used to continue as a footpath through the Clair Estate forest fragment and the paddy fields below, to a dilapidated wooden footbridge crossing the

Oya in the hamlet of Upper Kitulwatte. Just before I started my research in the village, a new cement bridge had been constructed to permit vehicle traffic to the western village.

The project was financed by Care International, a private development agency based in the United States. During our stay, a governmental village development programme,

Gamudawa [village awakening], was endeavoring to widen and macadamize the former footpath between the tea estates and the new bridge. The extension of the road into the western side of the valley from Upper to Lower Kitulwatte, where it would rejoin

Welimada Road, was started and postponed for lack of funds.

Besides the new bridge in Upper Kitulwatte and the bridge where Welimada Road crosses the Oya in Lower Kitulwatte, there are three footbridges permitting movement between the two sides of the valley. People, of course, wade through the shallow river as well. Countless footpaths and shortcuts, some long established and even 'developed' into stairways, others only in the making by recent use, criss-cross the hillsides in all directions.

Movement and transport in the western valley is restricted to footpaths and relies on walking and hand carrying. Occasionally, cattle caravans will transport sand dug from the river to house construction sites; a task accomplished with tractors and trailors or with

8 small lorries on the east side. There are no roads leading through the pinus plantations.

One long-established footpath connects the south-western hamlets with the army garrison and survey camp in the town of Diyatalawa, on the other side of the hill range. Both these institutions have been a consistent source of employment for villagers from Kitulwatte.

Yet, sharp-shooting army units using the tree plantations as their training grounds, and the difficulty of the steep and badly eroded terrain interfere with the freedom of movement of people in the western hills.

Due to their less favourable accessibility, the western hamlets have remained what appears at first sight old-style farming settlements. There are two undersupplied shops serving the community. The only thriving kade in the valley has set up at the meeting point of

Welimada Road and Kitulwatte Oya, at a busy bus stop, in the north end of the village. A

Buddhist temple is located in Upper Kitulwatte which had been initiated by a politically well-connected family in the hamlet during the mid-1970s. Its following has remained small, as people from most hamlets frequent the old established temples in the neighbouring villages. The village development project opened a nursery school on the temple grounds during our time of residence. Members of the prominent family also opened a brand new grocery shop at the new bridge in Upper Kitulwatte, just a few months before our departure from the village. It promises to thrive more vigorously than the spiritual establishment, due to the evident market niche it is occupying.

The ethnic structure of Kitulwatte is dominated by 1937 Sinhalese, the island's ethnic majority. There is an enclave of several Muslim households belonging to the same family of altogether 20 people in the northern part of the village. Of the 25 Tamils most live as a resident labour force at Clair Estate. Another 14 people comprise a mixed group of Sri

9 Lankan decendents of European colonial settlers and of European longterm residents of

Kitulwatte, most of whom live on Clair Estate (Kitulwatte Village Survey 1992). The

Sinhalese caste structure in the village is dominated by the island's majority group, the goigama [cultivator] caste. As settlement patterns were structured by caste in Kandyan society, two clusters of houses of the lower service castes can be found in Kitulwatte. A number of vahumpura [juggery maker caste] live in a section of Lower Kitulwatte, and members of the chalia [weaver] caste live in a corner of Upper Kitulwatte. The new hamlets of Clairwatte and Gaswatte are comprised of inhabitants from various castes. The hereditary occupations traditionally identified with caste do not correspond to the actual contemporary occupations of the villagers. However, a comparatively high proportion of members of the service castes are artisans.

Economic activity in the village involves a range of occupations and income sources.

Agriculture, being the most conspicuous, combines cash crop cultivation of European vegetables (tomatos, cabbage, beans etc.) and subsistence production of rice and homegarden crops. If both rice and vegetables are grown, they are rotated in the same field. Some garden produce is also sold for cash, and the surplus of vegetable cultivation will be consumed in the family. Dairy production is marginal. Tea is a cash crop for both local and export markets. Labor mobilisation in agricultural production involves family, exchange, wage and contract labor. There is a culturally specific, though flexible, gender division of labor in all spheres of activity. Property relations involve owner cultivation, tenancy and lease relationships, as well as a grey zone of private appropriation and usufruct of state land. A single person or the members of a household may engage in all pos-

10 sible combinations of types of labor mobilization and property relations in their pursuit of livelihoods.

All private properties in Kitulwatte are small holdings by the standards of the De- partment of Census and Statistics in Sri Lanka (i.e. below 20 acres) (1987:3), including the two largest tea estates, which are fifteen and eight acres respectively.

11 Table 1: Distribution of total land owned by households in Kitulwatte, 19911

Size class (acres) No. % 0.01 - 0.12 58 17.5 0.13 - 0.25 87 26.2 0.23 - 0.5 51 15.4 0.51 - 0.75 24 7.2 0.76 - 1.0 21 6.3 1.01 - 2.0 21 6.3 2.01 - 3.0 5 1.5 3.01 - 5.0 3 0.9 > 5.0 3 0.9 Subtotal 273 82.2 Landless 59 17.8 Total 332 100

According to table 1, only three households (0.9 percent of total households) own above five acres of total land owned by private households (valley fields and homegardens taken together), and 29 households (8.7 percent) own between one and five acres.

72.6 percent of all households own one acre or less in total land, and 17.8 percent are entirely landless. It should be noted that children of landowning families, who live in seperate households from their parents, are listed as landless, although they might eventually inherit land.

Several artisan occupations are practiced by villagers, such as masonry, carpentry, wood-cutting and general house construction, as well as baking and food preparation.

Villagers also engage in a wide range of non-agricultural employment in both the private and government sectors, involving school teachers, policemen and soldiers, shop employees, wage laborers in garment and spice factories, in the Survey Department and as

12 civilians in the armed forces. A single person or the members of a household may combine any of the above mentioned activities for the generation of their livelihoods.

Water is a crucial resource in all of the livelihood activities in Kitulwatte. It is used for cultivation, construction, food preparation, nutrition, cleaning and personal hygiene. Pad- dy and vegetable fields, as shown above, are irrigated by channels conducting the water from hill streams into the fields, or by springs inside the fields. As the water yield in the springs and streams has been declining over the last 15 years, farmers were forced to rotate irrigation supplies and to acquire kerosine powered pumps to tap Kitulwatte Oya for irrigation, where the distance of the fields from the river poses no obstacle. Some farmers who were unable to afford pumps have been hand-carrying water in containers to their vegetable crops. Since paddy is a water intensive crop, farmers reported that they either abandoned paddy altogether or reduced their paddy cycle to once in three to five years.

Household consumption of water for family use or for home based artisan production depends on the streams, where spouts have been installed, public and private wells, and/or the road taps of the public water supply scheme and of a small water supply scheme run by villagers in Ambagahakumbura and Galahitiyawa. If women are available at a given time, the task of fetching water in containers will invariably be performed by women. Laundry and bathing will be done at the nearest source. The users and administrators of both supply systems complain of insufficient and declining yields, forcing them to ration and rotate water supplies. The decline of yields in the other sources is forcing women to walk greater distances to find water and impairs household production during dry periods.

13 Although human landuse has changed the ecology of the Uva basin from the 11th century, Kitulwatte's landscape has experienced its most drastic transformations during the last 75 years. Pinus and eucalyptus plantations, established by the Sri Lankan Forest De- partment in the upper hills during the mid-1970s, replaced a large part of the patana grasslands of the micro-watershed. The patanas had been the predominant plant community of the Uva basin's hills. The earliest reliable record describing the features of the Uva basin is that of Robert Knox, a British seaman who was a prisoner of the Kandyan king for twenty years during the 17th century:

... full of small hils, but noe trees one them ... the wood growes onely in spots ... the other ground without woods bareth onely a longe flagie or reede like grasse [sic]. (Knox [1681] 1989:10,12)

Given the patterning of Sri Lankan feudal agriculture, which always included a considerable forest component, and the fact that most parts of the western hill-country retained their forests despite settlement during the pre-colonial period, it may be assumed that the

Uva grasslands are on the whole not the result of deforestation during the period of the

Kandyan kingdom. The Uva basin is thus an ecosystem distinct from most other parts of the central hills. The conspicuous contrast struck Davy, as he travelled over the ridge of the Haputale Range at Idalgashena in March 1819:

Nothing can be more striking than the difference of prospect on the opposite sides of the mountain. Ascending, the scenery is what one has been accustomed to ...; but not so in descending. On that side the view is quite novel: on the top of the pass, the path makes a turn and brings one suddenly in view of Upper Ouva, consisting of an extensive surface of green grassy hills, walled round by lofty blue mountains, laid out like a map at one's feet. The sight of such a country, free from jungle, was quite a treat, and the eye at liberty wandered with delight from hill to hill, and from mountain to mountain. (Davy [1821] 1983:301)

14 The patana hills were used by the people of Kitulwatte as extensive cattle ranges until the planting of pinus and eucalyptus in the 1970s. The pastoral component of livelihoods in the village has since declined rapidly.

Forest cover has been confined to the climatically and edaphically more favourable conditions alongside watercourses in the gullies and hollows in between the hills and hillocks, and in the floor of the main valley. Davy noted all over the Uva basin the "narrow slips of jungle in sheltered hollows", as opposed to the occurence of grasslands in exposed situations (Davy [1821] 1983:343,309). The extent of forest cover in Kitulwatte has declined, as forest fragments were replaced by agricultural fields. There are indications that previous generations of inhabitants practiced chena or hen, i.e. slash-and-burn cultivation, in the patanas and forest fragments.2 At present there are no chena fields in

Kitulwatte. Some of the hill-fields were claimed by villagers to be as old as 130 to 150 years. The vegetable boom of the last 30 years, however, caused the most significant recent transformation of both patanas and forests into cultivated land.

The patanas and riparian forest fragments must be considered longstanding interdependent components of the principal ecological system of the Uva basin. Before human settlement of the basin from the 11th century, the patana / riparian forest formation most likely covered the entire inner Uva basin. It would have formed a crucial link in the hydrological situation of the basin. For more than 800 years micro-watersheds such as in

Kitulwatte were capable of sustaining human settlement and agriculture.

Riparian forest and patanas would have converged on the midslopes of Kitulwatte's main valley. Human settlement transformed this area gradually into homesteads with houses and homegardens. Old-style homegardens in subsistence systems contain many

15 utility tree species and form multi-layered canopies. The extent of tree cover on the midslope would have increased with expanding human settlement. This process was intensified during the 20th century. A more recent development in the homegardens is a marked change in species composition towards tree and vegetable species suitable as cash crops.

Accordingly, the canopy in the homegardens has been open up.

In the valley floor and lower slopes the most recent ecological change was the introduction of vegetable cultivation in the paddy fields. Before the 1940s all farmers cultivated one paddy cycle annually and left their fields fallow for the rest of the year. From the

1940s some farmers cultivated European vegetables in rotation with paddy. In the 1970s the rotation system was adopted by all farmers. An older and more gradual transformation was the clearing of the pre-settlement eco-system in the lower valley for rice cultivation. Remnants of forest species alongside Kitulwatte Oya indicate the previous existence of a riparian forest belt alongside the river, which would have been interspersed with wetlands. The conversion of forested river reservations along the Oya into rice and vegetable fields has been taking place until the 1950s, but may be expected to resume in the last remaining stretch in the south-east of the village.

The patanas on the upper and middle slopes of the eastern part of the Kitulwatte micro-watershed have been converted into homesteads, first gradually and since the 1960s in a more rapid process. Most of these belong to families from Kitulwatte who were unable to settle in their ancestral lands, due to population growth and the exhaustion of available space. Patanas and riparian forest on the eastern mid- and lower slopes disappeared in the 1930s, when about 35 acres of land were acquired and cultivated with tea by a Sri

Lankan planter from outside the village. Three forest fragments were preserved as river

16 reservations, which would provide water to both the estate and the paddy fields located below. The estate was subsequently parcelled out and sold to four new owners.

Landuse in Kitulwatte in the 1990s is both diversified and intensive. Few areas in the micro-watershed are left uncultivated or unsettled. During its approximately 200 years history Kitulwatte's ecology has been transformed from a landscape of grassland hills and riparian forests to small scale subsistence and increasingly cash crop farming, extensive human settlement, as well as tea and tree plantations. These landuse changes have involved the growing population of local farm households, private tea estate owners and the

Sri Lankan state. Since the 1970s this process of landuse intensification has caused increasing resource stress, particularly in the availability of water. In the following section I will discuss the distinct geo-climatic conditions of Kitulwatte's eco-hydrological system.

17 The monsoons

Human and non-human activities in nature are intimately related to cyclical transformations in climatic patterns. These are the result of a complex interactive process, involving cyclical movements of the earth in relation to the sun, as well as winds, the topography of landmasses and water.

The island of Sri Lanka is situated in the tropics, between 5.54 and 9.52 degrees of northern latitude, and between 79.39 and 81.53 degrees of eastern longitude, 35 kilometres south-east of the southern tip of India. It is therefore under the climatic influence of the monsoon winds. The tropical location causes air temperatures in Sri Lanka to remain evenly warm throughout the year. Seasons are determined rather by the monsoons and the resulting rainfall patterns.

The so-called northern intertropical convergence zone, a weather front where hot low pressure tropical air (westerlies) converges with cool high pressure air from the northern hemisphere (northerlies and easterlies), moves between appr. 5 degrees north of the equator and the Tibetan Plateau (appr. 25 degrees north) in an annually recurrent pattern. A corresponding phenomenon, the southern intertropical convergence zone, migrates between 25 and 5 degrees south of the equator. The movement of the intertropical convergence zones is caused by the shifting angle of inclination of the earth. The zone of maximum temperature shifts accordingly and causes seasonal cooling and warming of the hemispheres.

As the northern hemisphere warms during the northern summer, the intertropical convergence zones move north. The warm low pressure air over the northern landmass and cool high pressure air over the oceans establish a horizontal air pressure gradient which

18 causes cool moist south-westerly winds to flow landward, where they are heated, rise, condensate to form clouds and eventually rain off. This process constitutes the south-west monsoon. From May to September the northern intertropical convergence zone lies north of Sri Lanka, which exposes the island to the south-west monsoon. The central highlands act as a barrier, lifting the low level monsoon currents and triggering plentiful rainfall over the south-western part of the island. As the northern hemisphere cools off, the northern intertropical convergence zone moves southward, and from mid-September the island is influenced directly by its turbulent weather. It crosses over the island during October and November, causing the local production of frequent thundershowers, the so-called inter-monsoonal rains.

Once the northern intertropical convergence zone has moved south of Sri Lanka, De- cember through February, the influx of cool north-eastern winds, drawn by the warmer air over the southern seas, picks up moisture over the Bay of Bengal, which precipitates predominantly over the eastern part of Sri Lanka, the hill country acting again as a barrier. The north-east monsoon generally carries less moisture, as it originates over a landmass, and therefore provides less rainfall. Another intermonsoonal period occurs as the northward movement of the northern intertropical convergence zone once again crosses the island during late March to May.3

The resulting pattern of distribution of rainfall and the frequency of the occurrence of dry months in the various parts of the island, has caused its division into four climatic zones, the south-western wetzone, the north-eastern dry zone, the intermediate zone situated between the wet and dry zones, and two arid zones in the north-west and south-east.

19 The manifestations of this climatic pattern in the Uva basin are decisively effected by its location east of the highest peaks of the central highlands, as well as by its mountain basin relief. During the south-west monsoon the Uva basin is on the leeward side of the central mountains and of Haputale Range. The monsoon winds discharge their moisture on the windward side and descend as dry winds, the so-called kachchan, from the steep slopes of the surrounding hills into the Uva basin, in the process of which they are heated.

Within the basin, the kachchan is funneled through wind channels formed by the river valleys and the inner hills. As a consequence, rainfall from mid-May through early Sep- tember is very low. Furthermore, the desiccating effect of the kachchan winds subjects the flora and fauna in the basin to considerable moisture stress. In exposed locations the impact of the wind speed, up to 150 km/h were recorded in Boralanda (Schweinfurth

1982:147), poses difficulties for plant growth, including agriculture, as well as for human settlement. Various writers have emphasized the kachchan phenomenon, such as de

Rosayro (45/46:I-209,III-90), Domroes (1971:75-76), Schweinfurth (1982:142-143),

Swan (1987:23), Weitzel (1971:105,145) and Meyer P. (1989:18). The British adventurer

Samuel Baker has provided a vivid description of his experience of the kachchan:

From June to November, the south-west monsoon brings wind and mist accross the Newera Ellia mountains. ... Clouds of white fog boil up ... The wind howls over the ridges ... the opaque screen of driving fog and drizzling rain is so dense ... There is a curious phenomenon, however, in this locality. When the weather described prevails in Newera Ellia, there is actually not one drop of rain within four miles of my house in the direction of Badulla. Dusty roads, a cloudless sky, and dazzling sun- shine astonish the thoroughly soaked traveller, who rides out of the rain and mist into a genial climate, as though he passed through a curtain. The wet weather ter- minates at a mountain called Hackgalla. ... This sudden termination of the cloud- capped mountain gives rise to a violent wind in the sunny valleys and bare hills beneath. The chilled air of Newera Ellia pours down into the sun-warmed atmosphere below, and creates a gale that sweeps across the grassy hill-tops with great force,

20 giving the sturdy rhododendrons an inclination to the north-east, which clearly marks the steadyness of the monsoon. (Baker [1855] 1983:86,88)

The effects of desiccation astonished John Davy as he returned to the Uva basin in

August 1819:

With the general appearance of the country I was disappointed: its surface was not fresh and green, as when I viewed it the first time from the Idalgashena, reminding me of the hills of England in spring; but of a light yellowish-green color, as if parched and withered: nor were its mountains of the intense blue which I then so much admired; but of a light dazzling, aerial hue. This appearance of a country having suffered from a long drought, was greatly heightened by the clouds of smoke in which many parts of it were enveloped, and which driven before the wind, had a singularly wild effect, giving the idea that the ground was not only parched, but in a state of conflagration. (Davy [1821] 1983:343)

The highest rainfall in the Uva basin is expected during the months of October and

November, as a result of local convectional-cyclonic thunderstorms typical for the second intermonsoon period (Pemadasa 1984:106; Domroes 1971:77). Throughout the island this period is considered to produce reliable rainfall and marks the beginning of the so-called

Maha rice cultivation season [maha = great] (Yoshino & Suppiah 1984:11). During the north-east monsoon the Uva basin is on the windward side, and the opening of the surrounding mountains in the north-east, as well as the sloping terrain from south-west down to northeast, are more conducive to influx and upwell of monsoonal rainfall. March through mid-May, intermonsoonal thundershowers are expected. These are locally known as the so-called kollu vaehi, because kollu, a small drought resistant bean, capable of ripening through the onset of the dry season, used to be generally grown in rainfed cultivation [vaehi = rain] during this season. The Uva basin is classified as belonging within the intermediate zone. The mean monthly temperature ranges from 18.1 degrees Celsius in January to 21.5 degrees Celsius in June at the meteorological station in Diyatalawa; the annual mean is 20.1 degrees Celsius. 21 This sketch of the climate of the Uva basin characterizes what is assumed to be a general pattern, which abstracts from spatial and temporal specificities and potential ranges of variation. This model of order is qualified by the volatility of climatic events. The inter-annual as well as the annual variation may be significant. The Uva basin's topography produces many micro-climatic situations between which considerable variation of rainfall occurs (Domroes 1971:78-79).

For these reasons, I required local data which would allow me to observe the patterning of the rainy and dry seasons within the year, as well as the range of variation of monthly and annual precipitation over a long-term period. As the two recent large-scale landuse changes, pinus plantations and vegetable cultivation, were introduced in

Kitulwatte from the 1970s, the rainfall records of the 20 year period from 1972 to 1991 appeared adequate. However, none of the tea estates in Kitulwatte had followed the longstanding convention of keeping local rainfall records on the plantations. I opted for a comparison of data from the meteorological stations in Diyatalawa, which was recently shifted to Bandarawela, and on the Dyraaba Estate. Kitulwatte is located in between these stations.

Table 2: Mean and range of monthly and annual precipitation (mm) at Diyata- lawa/Bandarawela, 1972 - 19914

mean range JAN 103 2.4 - 373 FEB 68.8 0.2 - 236.9 MAR 112 14.9 - 219.4 APR 140.5 46.6 - 274.5 MAY 120.5 9.0 - 214.3 JUN 47.3 1.3 - 162.2 JUL 80.6 0.1 - 253.2

22 AUG 62.1 4.9 - 151.9 SEP 144.6 18.4 - 265.1 OCT 255.2 86.6 - 520 NOV 227.2 108.3 - 388.2 DEC 171.5 63.1 - 297.6 ANNUAL 1549.9 1238.9 - 1977.9

It may be observed from table 2 that the rainfall activity in Diyatalawa/Bandarawela generally conforms to the pattern outlined for the Uva basin. June, July and August constitute a pronounced dry season. From mid-September, intermonsoonal rainfall indicates the start of the rainy season. October and November are generally the wettest months of the year. The monsoon proper provides less, but still considerable rainfall during Decem- ber, while it declines in January. Mid-January to February is another shorter dry period, a feature consistent with the island as a whole. The intermonsoonal rains from March through May provide moderate rainfall.

Table 3: Mean and range of monthly and annual precipitation (mm) at Dyraaba Estate, 1972 - 19915

mean range JAN 128.2 2.5 - 605.8 FEB 57.2 0 - 294.9 MAR 123.9 11.6 - 331.3 APR 197.1 69.9 - 727.3 MAY 150.9 5.5 - 373.3 JUN 41.9 7.7 - 94.8 JUL 80.6 4.1 - 272.1 AUG 67.1 11.5 - 133.9 SEP 137 45.4 - 284.9 OCT 232.8 42.4 - 457.9 NOV 207.6 52.5 - 403.7 DEC 220.6 109.8 - 397.9 ANNUAL 1660.3 1283.1 - 2895.3 23

Table 3 indicates that Dyraaba Estate shares the experience of extended dryness in

June through August and in February. Although its wettest month of the year is generally

October, the values for the second intermonsoon period are below Diyata- lawa/Bandarawela. The north-east monsoon months of December and January are, however, wetter, as is the first intermonsoon period from March through May. This variance in the data is only partially owed to two extreme rainfall months in January and April

1986 (605.8 mm and 727.3 mm respectively) in Dyraaba. Dyraaba Estate's location on top of a hill above a steep gap, which forms part of the valley of the Mahatotila Oya, may co-determine the observed variance as a topographic variable.

In both locations the great range of variation above and below the mean of monthly and annual precipitation is consistent through all the months of the year during the 20 year period. This indicates inter-annual variation of rainfall during all seasons. As a consequence, unanticipated dry or wet months may occur.

Given the considerable inter-annual and annual variations of rainfall observed, its location amidst variable micro-climatic regimes, as well as the desiccating effects of the kachchan winds, the conditions of the hydrological situation of Kitulwatte may be characterised as volatile and extreme. Life in this ecological system needs to be capable of coping with cyclical seasonal extremes as much as with 'unseasonal' deviations. The climatic constraints of the Uva basin require not only passive adaptability of organisms in terms of a range of physical tolerance, but the active participation of the inhabitants of the ecological system in the production and maintenance of conditions which enable their

24 survival, as a composite effect of their networked activities. This implies that the dry season may be survived if a minimum of water availability in the soils, groundwater and surface water courses can be maintained. A rich, well areated soil with a thick layer of humus, kept in place by a dense root structure and sheltered by its resident vegetation from the direct impact of intense rainfall, wind and sun, is capable of absorption, retention and slow release of water received during rainy periods. It is simultaneously capable of supplying the flora and fauna, which participate in the production and protection of the soil, with nutrients and water.

Besides the pattern of annual rainfall distribution, the longitudinal trend of annual rainfall totals is an important factor in the conditions of a hydrological regime. In the eco- hydrological debate the readiness of landusers to blame rainfall decline for decreased water availability was criticised. I consider investigation of long-term trends nevertheless relevant, since a comparison of annual rainfall figures over the years does provide indications about developments in the total water input received in a watershed. Furthermore, several participants in the discourse on water in Kitulwatte insisted on lack of rainfall as an explanation for the water crisis they experienced.

This position was strenthened by statistical evidence of rainfall decline in other locations of the hill country. For example, analysis of the rainfall record from 1870 to 1970 in

Nuwara Eliya, the highest town in the island, shows a rainfall decline of 4.98 mm per year, which amounts to a 20 percent reduction within the period considered (Madduma

Bandara & Kuruppuarachi 1989:53-55). A recent calculation of the 1961 to 1990 period arrives at the same results (Fernando & Chandrapala 1991). Both popular and scientific opinions associate this decline with deforestation and the establishment of coffee and tea

25 plantations since the latter half of the 19th century. The cloud forests of the Nuwara Eliya region are a crucial factor in cloud interception (Mohns 1989). Madduma Bandara and

Kuruppuarachi, however, doubt that landuse changes alone can account for the magnitude of decline in rainfall, and acknowledges the current lack of understanding of climatic changes within regional and global contexts (1989:56). Fernando and Chandrapala have calculated 30 year rainfall trends at 14 meteorological stations all over Sri Lanka and have noted significant decline everywhere except in the driest areas of the north-west.

In order to ascertain the trends in rainfall in Kitulwatte, a time series analysis of records from the meteorological stations in Diyatalawa/Bandarawela and on Dyraaba Estate was performed by Lalith Chandrapala of the Sri Lankan Department of Meteorology.6

The years considered for long-term trends are based on data availability, while short-term trends are calculated for the period of most drastic landuse change in Kitulwatte. The results are conveyed in table 4.

Table 4: Time series analysis of annual rainfall at Diyatalawa/Bandarawela and Dyraaba Estate

Diyatalawa/Bandarawela long period trend (1941-1991) - 1.34 mm/year (-4.2%) short period trend (1971-1991) - 3.31 mm/year (-4.2%) Dyraaba Estate long period trend (1915-1991) - 0.5665 mm/year (-2.4%) short period trend (1971-1991) +13.15 mm/year (+15%)

The trends for Diyatalawa/Bandarawela show an insignificant rainfall decline. The overall reduction in both periods of calculation was 4.2 percent. The trends in Dyraaba are more complicated. While rainfall decline during the long-term period amounts to 2.4

26 percent, which is again insignificant, calculation of the last 20 years indicates a significant rate of increase of 13.15 mm per year or 15 percent. This phenomenon is explained by extraordinarily high rainfall years in the mid-1980s and in 1991, which does not however reverse the longterm trend of slight decline.

Based on these data, lack of rainfall must be excluded as a significant factor in the causation of reduction of water availability in Kitulwatte. Particularly extreme or unseasonal dry periods did occur in Kitulwatte during the last 20 years. These do not, however, amount to a significant trend of overall decline, as extreme or unseasonal rainfall periods occurred as well. Consequently, explanation must be sought in the evident changes in landuse practices and in the complex socio-ecological transformations within which they are embedded.

From kingship to the dependent welfare state

In this section I will relate the transformations of landuse patterns outlined above to the historical movement of the social formation which governs human activities in

Kitulwatte. Actors far beyond the reach of the local community come into play.

I have characterized the interactions among living organisms and inorganic phenomena as productive and self-transforming systems, in which human actors may be one species of participants among others. Human participation entails the appropriation of productive processes in nature for human consumptive purposes and thereby simultaneously a contribution to those productive processes, a status which is shared with all living beings in ecosystems. Human appropriation may take the form of hunting and gathering of desired species and phenomena, which occur as the result of the spontaneous self-

27 transformative activity of nature's participants. Human actors are however capable of in- tervening in these activities in an extensively planful manner, as they design and contrive the behaviour of other ecosystem participants with a view to increasing or maximizing opportunities for appropriation and consumption. These designed interventions may be short-term, as in the case of slash-and-burn cultivation, or more permanent, as in the case of paddy and vegetable fields or homegardens. They do not, though, replace productive activity in nature, nor do they succeed in entirely controlling all actors and phenomena.

Cultivation depends on the capacity of the species involved in designed systems to create networked effects, just as in undesigned systems. Due to the favouring of particular desired 'products', designed ecosystems are simplified and not necessarily assembled with a view towards and knowledge of maintaining the kind of biomass and water cycling, which produces and maintains undesigned ecosystems.

Characteristically, cultivation appropriates undesigned systems, where complex and diversified processes have already established pathways of fertility and water flow, and reassembles elements of the same. This may be done in a fashion akin to an undesigned system, as for example in homegardens, pastures or paddy fields, where different degrees in the intensity of design and intervention can be observed, or in combination of designed and undesigned systems, such as forests. On the level of the landscape, exchanges between the components are largely localized and establish links which facilitate the interdependent reproduction of systems components. A certain amount of the products of cultivation may be consumed elsewhere, but the basic sources of genetic material, water in its landphase, nutrients etc. are locally generated and cycled. Cultivation may, however, disregard or sever these links and reduce local utilization to limited spaces and a few

28 components of ecosystems. Soils and water of a vegetable field in the hills may be local, but the species cultivated, the nutrient inputs and the means of excluding competition from undesired species are both simplified and largely extraneous. This may also include the import of water from large-scale irrigation systems. Consumption may also take place largely beyond the local system. Rather than facilitating transfer between and maintenance of ecosystems components, these cropping systems may deprive other ecosystem participants of needed inputs.

Ecological systems, whether spontaneous or humanly designed, have particular relations and pathways of production, exchange, distribution and consumption among its participants. In the socio-ecological approach these categories signify a different meaning than in standard ecology, where biota are divided into producers, i.e. photosynthesisers, and consumers, who eat photosynthesisers, as well as micro-organisms who break down residue of either. Rather, I am following the economic meaning of the terminology, as discussed by Marx in the Grundrisse. Here exchange, distribution and consumption appear as 'moments' of human social production, as interdependent aspects of the productive process. Within the social division of labor, the acquisition and consumption of the product of one producer, for example a wood-cutter, by the next, a carpenter, constitutes both the production of the latter as well as a phase in the overall productive process among human actors. A mode of production is then a totality of processes of "mutual interaction ... between the different moments" (Marx 1978b:236). In 'nature's economy' these dynamics of production may be discerned as well. Each living participant consumes

(the product of) another, in order to acquire and process nutrients and energy to

(re)produce its own body and thereby a link in the network of an ecosystem. Biomass is

29 cycled through the bodies of ecosystem participants and through the soils, water as a solvent being the chief means of transport through the pathways of the system as a whole.

Marxist scholarship is generally not interested in specifying the material link between the interactive relations among the various species and phenomena of an ecosystem and the social relations of human production. Ecosystems are treated as passive givens, as

'land' or the 'conditions of production', which are an 'object of labor', transformed by the social productive forces, and as an object of appropriation organized through property relations. Asoka Bandarage provides a succinct orthodox definition of the mode of production concept.

We shall define a mode of production as a system of production characterized by distinct productive forces (including labor organization and technology), and distinct social relations of production (including property relations and surplus appropriation). (Bandarage 1985:19)

Bandarage's critical review of the modes of production debate (Bandarage 1985:322-357) as well as Newton Gunasinghe's elaboration (Gunasinghe 1990:4-17) of Marx's famous passages in the introduction of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

(Marx 1978c:4-5) reveal an exclusive concern of the neo-Maxist debate with social dynamics. The productive activities of and relationships among non-human components of ecological systems and their linkeage with social dynamics remain invisible, although both authors' inquiries into the activities of the Kandyan kingdom and the colonial state in the Sri Lankan hill-country persistently deal with the social appropriation of its ecosystems' components.

A mode of production in the socio-ecological perspective is a particular capacity of human actors, organized within definite social structures, to interact with the productive activities in ecological systems. The ability of human actors to intervene in ecosystems 30 and reorganize these activities is intimately connected with both the structures and features of the particular ecological system as a whole and the specific social mode of human participation. Human labor, its material activity and associated organisation, accumulated knowledge and artifacts, is then the human component of the productive forces of an ecological system, while distinct social property relations and modes of appropriation are the mechanisms through which human participants establish their claims to desired components or products of this ecosystem, i.e. forms of distribution and exchange. A social formation may be understood as a combination of various distinct social modes of participation within the ecological system of a locality. My intention in this section is to outline how historically variant social modes of participation have transformed the ecosystems of the Uva basin.

There is scant evidence of pre-historic settlement in the Uva basin, in the area of Ban- darawela in particular. A few archeological finds and a considerable amount of speculative interpretations of 'stone age cultures' in Sri Lanka by F. and P. Sarasin (1908), N.A. and H.V.V. Noone (1940), B. Alchin (1958), P.E.P. Dereniyagala (1963) and N.P. Perera

(1972), suggest that various locations, including the hills near Bandarawela, were inhabited by people who processed quartz to furnish crude tools and used pottery as well as bone and shell implements. Remnants of charcoal and hearths were identified in those sites. The finds in Bandarawela are from surface sites, which makes dating difficult.

Speculations range from the paleolithic to the neolithic, up until 500 B.C.

N.P. Perera suggests sweeping inferences about the landuse practices of 'Bandarawel- ian man', despite the Noones' consideration that "very little could be said in the absence of any sort of stratification" (Seneratne 1969:23), and Seneratne's critique of Dereni-

31 yagala's incompetent methods of excavation and unwarranted conclusions (Seneratne

1969:25-26). He draws on reports of the lives of neolithic cultures in the Andaman Is- lands and of a contemporary tribe in New Guinea, which has been assigned neolithic status, and concludes that in the Bandarawela area the hilltops were deforested by stone axes and fire for purposes of settlement, slash-and-burn cultivation, quartz processing, hunting and warfare. As a result, erosion would have prevented the recurrence of a succession towards forest, and patana grasslands remained as a degraded form of floristic habitat

(Perera N.P. 1972:17). The evidence presented is too little, too unreliable and too indirect, to warrant conclusions about a hunting and gathering or early agricultural tribal population and their landuse forms in the Uva basin.7

Human participation in the Uva basin before the 11th century is very limited as little permanent settlement appears to have occurred. Reliable historical evidence for this time period is difficult to come by. A few written records are found in the mythical chronicles of Sinhala culture, such as the Mahavamsa and Culavamsa [Great and Small Chroni- cles].8 Here occasional references to the uninhabited hill-country, a perilous and inaccessible country through which the heroes of the narrative had to pass, are made. Lacking references to the ecological features of the Uva basin itself, discussions in the contemporary literature which advance hypotheses about the deforestation of an originally dense forest cover, rely exclusively on descriptions of areas outside the basin (Perera N.P.

1972:20-21; Dicke 1987:78). These records are unreliable in regard to assessing the extent of forests in the Uva basin. Much rather, the specific hydro-climatic and edaphic features of the basin would have sustained a formation of interdependent riparian forests and

32 patana grasslands over centuries prior to the settlement by Sinhalese from the dry zone between the 11th to the 13th century A.D.

The kingdoms of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa in the northern dry zone, the Rajara- ta, were the significant centres of human activity in the island from the 2nd century B.C.

These societies had established complex irrigation systems, which combined water supplies from small village 'tanks' with large reservoirs, permitting the surplus extraction of grain, in form of a land tax (Roberts 1970:115), for the maintenance of an elite of nobles, clergy and state administrators, concentrated in ritually significant urban centres. The collapse of the Rajarata in the 11th century A.D. precipitated an approximately 300 year period of transition of the Sinhalese civilisation towards the south-west of the island.9 By the 13th century the Uva basin was settled by a population of farmers who had adapted their knowledge and practice of irrigation, paddy cultivation, cattle rearing (including buffalos), homegardens and chena cultivation to their new ecosystem (Siriweera 1978:37;

Perera N.P. 1976:21; Knox [1681] 1989:10,27-28).

The most significant differences compared with the dry zone were a longer rainy season and a topography with steep hills and narrow valleys. The flat valley floors and adjacent lower slopes were cleared of riparian forest and paddy cultivation was established.

Irrigation could be carried out by abstracting the many perennial streams in the wooded side-valleys as well as in the main valley. The homegardens above the fields caused an expansion of perennials into the grasslands and a transformation of the locally typical species composition of forests into utility species selected by their human consumers.

The patana hills were used both for chena cultivation during the rainy season and for extensive cattle rearing. Forests provided firewood and other forest products, which were

33 collected or hunted rather than cultivated. The intervention in the grasslands and the remaining forests was the least intensive, as the basic floristic structures were maintained or permitted to recur, although they were manipulated and harvested to varying degrees.

The extent and intensity of all these modes of participation depended on the magnitude of consumptive demand, which is affected by the growth of the population as a consequence of inmigration and reproduction (this principle also applies to the growth of the cattle population), and by the demand for surplus extraction by the aristocratic elites and clergy which had migrated alongside the cultivators and service castes. The surplus consumers established a feudal state and property structure which culminated in the Kandyan kingdom, the last independent monarchy on the island, of which the Uva basin was an integral part.

During the transition from the Rajarata to the consolidation of the Kandyan kingdom in 1594, four smaller kingdoms (Kandy, Uva, Seven Korales and Sitawaka) had emerged on its eventual territory (Dicke 1987:81-82). Gunasinghe (1990:19) has argued that this consolidation was a reaction to the colonial threat posed by the Portuguese who controlled the western Maritime regions. Throughout its history until the British conquest of the entire island in 1815, the Kandyan kingdom was preoccupied with negotiating its boundaries and relationship with the Portuguese, Dutch and British, primarily by means of warfare and to a lesser degree by means of trade. Uva, which included the eastern hill country (part of which was the basin) and territories in the dry lowlands, was a dissave

[province] of the Kandyan kingdom, further arranged into six divisions. These then had additional lower layers of subdivision down to the village level (Davy [1821] 1983:101-

133). The area of today's Kitulwatte was situated in Udakinda, Mahapalata korale. At-

34 tached to these many layers of administrative division where officers of the king, from the dissave [provincial ruler] to the vidane [village headman], who governed in the name of the king, but constituted a considerable feudal power structure, with which the monarch had to reckon (see Bandarage 1985:33). In addition the king maintained an administrative apparatus at his court in Kandy. Uva dissava was transformed into a principality under the Kandyan king in 1635.

The stucture of property relations and surplus extraction was designed as a means of generating income, services and loyalty for the king, to sustain his administration in Kan- dy and in the provinces, as well as to support the aristocracy and the clergy. Through the king's capacity to grant land as the 'lord of the soil' he was able to regulate and manipulate a feudal structure which was the political foundation of his absolute monarchy. This position as sovereign was dependent on his subjects' loyalty, whose allegiance was intimately linked with the monarch's land grants. Thus, despite the ideological notion of the king's lordship over the soil, the nobility owned and controlled large expanses of land.

Gunasinghe maintains that "the political system [of absolutist monarchy] became the dominant instance which exercised hegemonic control over the articulation of the structure" (Gunasinghe 1990:37). The dominance of the absolute monarchy was owed to a situation of perpetual mobilisation of labour for warfare and service to the king among all strata of society (Gunasinghe 1990:21-22,33ff.).

Paddy fields were the primary source of surplus extraction and the tenurial system focussed on regulating social relations in regard to land in the valley floor, the mada, as a complex hierarchical structure. The goda [cultivated highland] was by contrast subject to unspecific regulation, although it may have been attached to royal land grants as 'appur-

35 tenances'. The practice of highland property relations suggests their classification as usufruct, where forests and grasslands were available for the free utilisation as hunting and gathering terrain, for chenas and for grazing, with the exception of the royal 'forbidden' forests, which remained for the sole use of the monarch. The chenas and homegardens were not subject to systematic surplus extraction, although the king could impose his claim to the produce of certain fruit trees, and parts of a chena crop would regularly be offered to a cultivator's aristocratic overlord (Knox [1681] 1989:47; Gunasinghe

1990:20-22; Bandarage 1985:20-31).

The emphasis on paddy signifies the high ideological and symbolic value of rice, which preoccupies Sri Lankan society to this day. The identity of cultivators and society as a whole is attached to being a rice culture, where rice is considered the prime staple food and a measure of well-being. The paddy field is a ritual space apart, with its specific language and practice. Its cultivation is elaborate, labor intensive and time consuming.

Rice was used as a form of money in trade, tax payment and usury (Gunasinghe

1990:20,30). However, the homegardens and chenas, far from being a secondary or casu- al element in the livelihood system of cultivators, were the foundation of survival. They provided sustenance to cultivators whose crop would not provide rice for the entire year, when paddy harvests failed, when grain had to be used as payment for debts or rent and taxes, or where no paddy land was available to communities of lower castes (Meyer E.

1983:26-27). The actual significance of rice in the diet of cultivators and surplus consumers is therefore a matter of social stratification, as the upper strata controlled access to most paddy lands, while lower strata depended more heavily on homegarden and chena products. Robert Knox observed the importance of finger millet, jak- and bread-fruit, and

36 yams in the diet of the poorer segments of the population (Knox [1681] 1989:44-46,61), and concluded:

Rice is the Chiefe and principall graine that is eaten by the nobility and better sort. (Knox [1681] 1989:46)

The caste stratification of the tenurial system assigned hereditary roles and occupations to the royal subjects and thereby reproduced the structure of property and status relations rigidly. It established ritual and spatial boundaries between social groups, the most significant of which were endogamy and caste specific settlement patterns.10

The following outline of the structure of property relations and surplus extraction is informed primarily by Gunasinghe's reconstruction (1990:20-33), as well as by Ban- darage's discussion (1985:31-41). Different categories of land or villages were distinguished, according to which a category of actors was entitled to surplus extraction.11 The king was the direct proprietor as landlord in the 'royal villages', the gabadagam, the produce of which filled his granaries. The fields were divided into three categories. The muttettu fields were cultivated by the tenants and the entire product was appropriated by the king. The tenants, being divided into the cultivator caste and various 'inferior' service castes, cultivated pangu [share] and nilapangu [service share] fields respectively, of which they retained the total product. The means of extraction was thus a labour rent.

This system of shares did not entitle the cultivator to a fixed plot, but to a share in a larger pangu field. In this tattumaru [alternation] system the various plots were rotated among the cultivators to compensate for differences in fertility and water availability (Het- tiarachchy 1982:25). Gabadagam land was used to give temporary land grants, badavadili, to holders of administrative offices.

37 Perpetual and hereditary land grants bestowed so-called nindagam land on loyal and exceptional members of the aristocracy, over which they exercised direct proprietor rights. Both nindagam and badavadili lands were allocated foremost to the radala, the aristocracy, an endogamous group forming an elite stratum of the goigama. The senior officials of the kingdom were predominantly recruited from this elite and thus usually held both nindagam and badavadili lands. Surplus extraction on both types of land followed either the muttettu/pangu system, or the ande [half] system. In the latter, no division between the landlord's and the tenants' land existed. Rather, the landlord appropriated a produce rent in form of 1/3 to 1/2 of the harvest.

Two types of temple lands existed, viharagam, land allocated by the king or the aristocracy to the monks of a particular Buddhist temple, and devalegam, land allocated to the trustee of a devale, where the Sinhalese Buddhists propitiate their deities. These would either be cultivated as muttettu fields, or a share of a temple field would be allocated to a tenant in return for specifically stipulated services to the temple.

The tenants in all these relationships were either of the highest and largest caste in the

Sinhalese caste system, the goigama [literally 'cultivators'], or of the various service castes, such as berava [drummers], vahumpura [juggery makers], kammal [black smiths], hena or rada [washermen], etc. These hereditary occupational groups rendered their caste specific services to the king, the nobility and the clergy, in addition to being part-time cultivators in tenancy relationships, with the exception of the goigama, who were full-time cultivators.

Finally, there were hereditary free-hold lands, so-called koralegam, which owed the state taxes and military services, but were not subject to tenancy relationships. These

38 came into being as a consequence of the officially sanctionend freedom of royal subjects to clear land for paddy cultivation. Eric Meyer claims that these villages were the most numerous, although the smallest, of Sinhalese villages, and were predominantly inhabi- tated by goigama (Meyer E. 1983:27). This was the only land which could be sold or mortgaged (Gunasinghe 1990:24-25; Abeysinghe 1978:61-62).

In addition to labour and produce rents, various taxes in kind and duties performed for the state, all of which were known as rajakariya, were extracted from the cultivators and service casts (Gunasinghe 1990:27,29).

In the Kandyan social formation paddy cultivation was therefore a prime source of surplus appropriation, a means to achieving free-holder status, a source of the most prevalent money form, and a central ideological and ritual symbol. Its paramount economic and cultural significance caused the transformation of much of the Uva basin's riparian forests and wetlands into croplands. Limits to accessibility of paddy land and the intensity of surplus extraction from paddy cultivation as well as through labour service, would have impacted the intensity and spatial extent of chenas.

The comments of Knox on the 17th century Uva suggest that its inhabitants, although altering the ecological structure of the river valleys quite radically, were able to establish a diversified and fecund mode of participation in the ecologal systems of the Uva, which maintained perpetual plentiful flow of water and biomass throughout all components of the landscape, while sustaining its human population.

The province of Ouvah ... is a Country well watered, the Land not smooth, neither the hills very high, wood very scarce, but what they plant about their houses. But great plenty of Cattle, their land void of wood being the more apt for grazing. ... In this Country grows the best Tobacco that is on this land. Rice is more plenty here than most other things. (Knox [1681] 1989:27-28)

39 This Country, as you stand one the hils, appereth low to them and full of small hils, but noe trees one them and flatt valys betweene them, which are thire rice fields and very well watered. ... they are hard put to it to gitt wood for firring ... The hils generally are stony barren land baring onely (Illucke) or such flage grasse ... the va- lies or rice fields fruitfull and good Land. Aboute thire townes are Lymes, plan- taines and Jacke trees, the Countryy poppolous and healthful. (Knox [1681] 1989:10)12

During the colonial period from 1815 to 1948 two significant socio-ecological changes in the Uva basin require discussion, the attempted destruction of the livelihood resources of human actors in the ecological system of the basin during the rebellion of 1818, also known as the Uva Rebellion, and the establishment of the plantation economy.

In 1815 the British occupied Kandy and established colonial rule in the entire island.

The conquest was facilitated by the conspiracy of a number of Kandyan aristocrats, whose power struggle with the monarch afforded the British an opportunity to seize the kingdom. 19th century British sources stressed the tyranny of the monarch, based on the violence with which the king responded to the aristocratic rebels as well as their British allies, in order to explain the conflict and to legitimise their intervention (Davy [1821]

1983:236-242; Tennent [1860] 1977:615-621). Sinhalese nationalist scholars of the 20th century, however, are keen to emphasise that no popular uprising against the king was apparent and that the 'chiefs' reacted against the curtailment of their powers as feudal lords by the monarchy (Bandarage 1985:48; de Silva K.M. 1973:12-16). As a consequence of the Kandyan convention of 1815, at which the 'chiefs' and the British Governor

Brownrigg negotiated the new socio-political order, agreement was reached to retain the structure of property relations and aristocratic as well as clerical privilege in turn for the recognition of the sovereignity of the British Crown (Davy [1821] 1983:242-243; Official

Declaration of the Settlement of the Kandyan Provinces of 1815, in Davy [1821]

40 1983:372; Bandarage 1985:49). An intact feudal structure was therefore placed under the authority of a foreign power, which was represented by British administrators and armed forces.

After barely two years of British rule the Kandyans rejected the sovereignity of the

Crown and organized a rebellion, at the centre of which was the Uva province, led by its dissave Keppetipola. The Sinhalese historian Tennekoon Vimalananda depicts the failure of the British to adhere to the terms of the Convention of 1815 and the abusive treatment of the people by the British, the appointment of a Muslim as dissave in Vellassa was counted among these abusive practices, as the precipitating events (Vimalananda

1970:xxx,xxxvii,lx). The British medical officer in attendance on Governor Brownrigg,

John Davy, on the other hand, insists that the British "strictly adhered'" to the terms of the convention and blames the desire of the Kandyans for self-rule and their tactical use of the British for their own ends. He concedes, though, that the conduct of the British in the

Kandyan provinces was culturally improper from the Kandyan perspective. In his opinion, the Kandyans resented the lack of respect of British soldiers and administrators towards the Kandyan nobles, British ignorance of caste distinction, attempts at the imposition of Christianity, and the lack of visibility of their new sovereign (Davy [1821]

1983:243-244). Here Davy is in agreement with Sinhalese scholarship (Bandarage

1985:50-51; Vimalananda 1970:xxx).

The British Governor Brownrigg ordered the suppression of the rebellion by counter- ing guerrilla warfare with a scorched earth policy, which aimed at destroying the social and economic fabric of the enemy. Sri Lankan historian Vimalananda paraphrases

Brownrigg's orders to his troops:

41 Brownrigg ordered Major MacDowall that all men above eighteen should be killed, all houses pulled down and burned, and all the trees bearing fruits of use to human beings, felled. All grain should either be destroyed or confiscated, irrigation tanks and canals should be breached; cattle belonging to the people which were in excess of the requirements of the army should forthwith be destroyed. (Vimalananda 1970:xlii)

This interpretation is confirmed by Davy who describes the sights of destruction along his travel route in the Uva basin shortly after the rebellion.

... the dwellings of the resisting inhabitants were burnt; their fruit-trees were often cut down, and the country was scoured in every direction by small detatchments, who were authorised to put to death all who made opposition, or were found with arms in their hands. (Davy [1821] 1983:246)

Another peculiarity, and a painful blemish of the scenery, forces itself on one's no- tice, and produces a melancholy train of thought: it is the deserted appearance of the surrounding country - its cottages in ruins, its fields laying waste, its cattle destroyed, and its population fled - all effects of the rebellion, of which this province was the principle theatre. ... The whole way we saw very many neglected, but very few fields in actual cultivation. (Davy [1821] 1983:302-303)

Davy reported of the spread of famine and epidemics during and after the rebellion (Davy

[1821] 1983:247). He estimated 10,000 Sinhalese casualties during the rebellion in all provinces involved. It is difficult to estimate whether the British were able to succeed in carrying out Brownrigg's orders all over the Uva basin, or whether the more remote areas were spared. Davy's accounts were gathered as he travelled along recognised routes frequently used for British personnel movement.

He does, however report the case of an aristocratic family, the Dambawinnes, who were successfully coerced into collaborating with the British, after the latter had captured the wife and children of the chief of Dambawinne. They were spared from the campaign of destruction and the head of the Dambawinne walauwa [manor] was appointed dissave by the British.

42 ... at Dambawinne ... we had the great pleasure, greatly heightened by contrast, of finding everything the reverse of what we had been accustomed to - fields neatly cultivated, covered with green paddy, the large house of a Kandyan chief, in the nicest order surrounded by fruit-trees, uninjured and in bearing; and the chief himself and his people all attention and civility. (Davy [1821] 1983:322)

Several lands in Kitulwatte's valley floor and western hills had been granted as nindagam to the Dambawinne walauwa before and during British rule, according to information from villagers. It is therefore possible that Kitulwatte was not subject to the devastation experienced elsewhere.

After the suppression of the rebellion its top-ranking aristocratic leaders were either executed or permanently banned to Mauritius. The British appointed loyal chiefs, many from lower ranks, to administrative positions. The proclamation of the Kandyan convention was amended so as to reduce power and privileges of the Kandyan aristocracy.13 The

British adoption of rajakariya as an ideologically charged signification of compulsory labor services for road and bridge construction, and forest clearing, which by far exceed- ed the demands the Kandyan king had been able to make, had both important strategic and economic consequences. It consolidated British military occupation and provided an infrastructure for the plantation economy (Gunasinghe 1990:45-46; Hettiarachchy

1982:49-50,58-62). Under fortified British rule the opportunity for surplus approriation by the Kandyan aristocracy was preserved, although in considerably reduced form. The colonial state extracted surplus by combining compulsory labor and taxation, both of which were handled in a grossly exploitative manner throughout British rule and led to repeated conflicts, including the short rebellion of 1848, and to several revisions of the structure of surplus appropriation by the state.

43 The most far reaching ecological consequences of the supression of the rebellion in the

Uva basin were the debilitation of paddy cultivation for lack of irrigation capacity and the confiscation or killing of cattle. Regionally specific intensification of rainfed chena cultivation would be the consequence of the collapse of the paddy fields. In addition, due to their greater flexibility in terms of labor mobilisation, chenas became the chief source of sustenance for cultivators subjected to prolonged 'rajakariya' who were unable to comply with the seasonally specific labor demands of paddy cultivation (Hettiarachchy 1982:62).

Cattle manure was a major source of soil fertility and a link in the biomass flow within local ecosystems. Dairy products were a source of nutrition. Buffalos were the principle source of draft power and were used in threshing the harvested paddy. The loss of cattle would have further incapacitated paddy cultivation and required the farmers to resort to more labour intensive methods of ploughing and threshing with hand tools. It would have exacerbated the food crisis by removing the source of dairy products. Furthermore, the regeneration of homegardens must have taken decades, since the establishment of a closed canopy of trees is a slow process.

No quantitative data exist, however, by which the actual destruction and its economic and ecological effects could be estimated. We are left with the accounts of British government servants, such as Davy and White, who professed great ambiguity about the manner in which the rebellion was dealt with. They offer a glimpse of the most crude causes of the 'development of underdevelopment' in the periphery of the periphery. The tenacity with which the inhabitants of Uva clung to their independent status and the fight they put up against incorporation into colonial empires since the 16th century was in the end only defeated by waging destruction of an entire socio-ecological system.

44 This kind of warfare finds no place in military history, properly speaking, but it left indelible marks on the face of the country, for it is partly owing to the stern methods of repression employed during this period, that Uva has been, considering the character of its soil, its climate, and its people, the most backward, the most stagnant, of any portion of Ceylon. (White 1893:110)

The capitalist plantation economy started in 1824 with the opening of the first coffee estate in the hill-country wetzone (Meyer E. 1992:324). In the Uva basin coffee had been grown in homegardens by Kandyan cultivators for a long time. From all over the hill- country the Kandyan kingdom traded coffee with the colonial maritime provinces (Ten- nent [1860] 1977:691,764; Bandarage 1985:70-72; Ameer Ali 1972:50). By 1857, 81,000 acres of land were cultivated in British owned plantations in the entire colony. Coffee cultivation by farmers, the so-called 'peasant coffee', had increased to ca. 50,000 acres islandwide, which amounted to 38 percent of the total land under coffee (Tennent [1860]

1977:738,740-145).

The coffee industry in Sri Lanka was destroyed by the concurrence of the 'coffee blight' (the fungus Hemeleia vastatrix found coffee a desirable habitat), and the expansion of coffee cultivation in Brazil during the 1870/80s, both of which rendered the industry unprofitable (Bandarage 1985:78; Gunasinghe 1990:54). The collapse of coffee prompted the conversion of plantations to tea, which proved more suitable to the soil and more successful by economic standards. Tea has remained a formost export crop of the island until today. The small scale coffee producers in the villages were unable to cope with the disease and the deterioration of the market, as well as with conversion to tea, causing this branch of the industry to disintegrate (Bandarage 1985:79,84-86).

Sri Lankan labor remained relatively reluctant to satisfy the labor demands of the plantations, even with the abolition of forced state labor service in 1833. The majority of

45 farmers prefered to use employment opportunities on the fringes of the plantations to supplement their farm incomes (Meyer E. 1983:36; Tennent [1860] 1977:736). The plantation economy induced a steady movement of wage laborers between South India and

Ceylon and the eventual settlement of a South Indian population in the hill-country (Ban- darage 1985:74).

The decisive social transformations generated by the intervention of colonial capitalism in the Kandyan provinces include the introduction of private property and a market in land, of wage labor, of a market in British manufactured goods, and of the money economy in general. What resulted was neither a 'dual economy' (Moore 1985:72; Schwein- furth 1982:145) nor a 'reactivation of archaic production relations' (Gunasinghe

1990:195-216), but a conflictual interdependence of the persistent feudal relations in the

Kandyan villages, sanctioned by British law, of the capitalist plantation economy, and of local commodity markets, within an emergent colonial order. The dual economy concept assumes that a 'traditional' and a 'modern' sector of the economy can co-exist as a more or less benign side by side. The Sri Lankan situation was characterized by the intrusion of the plantation sector into the village and by the inevitable adaptation of the village economy to these conditions. The persistence or demise of 'archaic' modes of property relations and modes of surplus extraction is the result of political conflict, negotiations and settlements between the Kandyan aristocracy and the British Crown. Gunasinghe's concept of reactivation is essentially functionalist and ahistorical, as it explains this persistence as a necessary structural component of 'peripheral capitalism', which served to con- solidate the capitalistic order at a higher rate of profitability while causing the forces and relations of production in the periphery to stagnate (Gunasinghe 1990:205-206). His theo-

46 retisation is at variance with the incremental changes in the conflictual historical process of the emergence of the Ceylonese colonial society, of which Gunasinghe's empirical work is ironically keenly aware.

Eric Meyer has researched the temporal and spatial specificities of 'landgrabbing' and plantation establishment, as well as their social and ecological impact on the villages in the Kandyan region. Until 1840 the obscure legal status of the goda lands caused conflicts between the encroaching British planters and the indigenous users of the forests and patanas. Therefore, the colonial administration enacted the Ordinance 12 of 1840, the so- called Crown Lands Ordinance, which stipulated that all lands above paddy fields and homegardens, the highland, were principally property of the Crown. The legitimacy of this claim rested in the fact that the Crown was legal successor to the Kandyan king.

Thus, villagers and aristocrats could only establish ownership claims if they were able to produce royal Kandyan titles. This proved to be impossible for most villagers, since they treated forests, chena and pasture lands essentially as usufruct. As a consequence, aristocrats, who were most likely to posses titles, were at an advantage. False titles were produced as well. The practice of the law deviated grossly from its intended procedures. Plant- ers grabbed and cultivated lands before applying for surveys and titles, villagers ignored the law, and the 'headmen', local level Sinhalese administrators, took advantage of both sides by taking bribes and increasing their own opportunities for access to land. What the ordinance did accomplish was to establish property rights, either by the state or by private individuals, which promoted the legalisation of a land market for spaces which had hitherto been de facto commons; and it placed the state and the planters at an advantage over the villagers (Meyer E. 1992:324-326; 1983:28).

47 Until the mid-1850s plantations were primarily established on 'virgin' forest and patana lands. Thereafter, the relative scarcity of such lands prompted the intensified expro- priation and sale of chena land to plantation capitalists. The loss of the chenas caused

'near-famine conditions' among farmers, which eventually prompted the colonial admis- tration to set up a 'dual system' of land allocation. Village highland was blocked out and one block was allocated to village inhabitants and the other to the Crown for sale to planters (Meyer E. 1992:326-330; 1983:28-29). The spread of the 'coffee blight', the collapse of the coffee industry and the conversion to tea prompted several landgrabbing frenzies between the 1870s and 1890s. Village cultivators had lost their main source of cash income, small holder coffee, and were hard pressed to pay their various taxes. They sold their chena land and in some cases their homegardens in order to keep their paddy lands (Meyer E. 1992:334-336; 1983:29; Bandarage 1985:78). By the turn of the century native middle-men, who had brokered the massive land sales to British planters, as well as traders had accumulated sufficient capital to invest in plantations. They became the predominant landgrabbers of this time period, while foreign land acquisition had almost come to an end (Meyer E. 1992:338; 1983:30).

Meyer thus argues that the combination of a century of landgrabbing and of population growth in the villages created an acute shortage of land available for homesteads and cultivation, and thus precipitated the 'landhunger' of the 'peasantry', which was to remain a pressing issue through the 20th century (Meyer 1992:344). He characterises the situation in the Uva province as follows:

... in the areas of Uva and northeast Sabaragamuwa, the tea estates originally established on land sold by the Crown had expanded through private sales by impoveri- shed villagers up to the limits of the paddy fields. Not only the pasture grounds, so

48 important in the economy of the Uva highlands, had disappeared, but living space shrank to the point when villagers had to live on the terraces of the paddy fields ... (Meyer 1992:347)

Thus, during the 1930s the colonial administration resorted to 'mapping out operations', particularly in the area of Bandarawela, in order to establish a 'dual system' of estate and village development (Meyer E. 1992:347,330).

During the history of land alienation for plantation establishment large parts of the diverse components of the pre-colonial socio-ecological systems were severed from their relationships with the landscape and the indigenous economy as a whole, and converted into cultivation of monocrops for export to Britain. This process of fragmentation effected new relationships between the remaining components of the older socio-ecological structure and the plantations. Eric Meyer shows that the economic system in the villages was forced to adapt its tripartite foundation in the landscape - paddy cultivation, homegardens and chenas - to the altered opportunities and constraints created by transformed landuse and property relations in the highland components. Paddy cultivation persisted tenaciously. The homegardens were increasingly cultivated with cash crops, which supplied the coffee market and thereafter the South Indian plantation laborers with vegetables. Employment on the margins of the plantation economy served as a flexible substitute for the lost chenas (Meyer E. 1983:52,58,49). The colonial appropriation of local resources was linked to the outflow of the cash earned in wage labor and cash crop cultivation through new markets. Cash was not only significant as a means of tax payment, but became a necessity in an economy, which imported a large proportion of its rice supplies from India, and where the indigenous artisan industries and their associated service relationships had been replaced with imported consumer goods, such as garments, kero-

49 sine and agricultural implements. In addition, the importance of the liquor trade, which absorbed much of the farmers' cash earnings and served as a foundation for capital accumulation among an emerging indigenous bourgeoisie, predominantly from the low-country, cannot be underestimated (Gunasinghe 1990:52,58,49).

Plantation establishment had a number of problematic ecological effects on the remaining components of the village ecosystem. Meyer E. cites reports of declining water yields, the silting of paddy fields, and the alteration of local fertility flows (Meyer E.

1983;32-33,51).

In Kitulwatte the introduction of tea plantations occured during the late phase of land alienation, most likely as part of the 'mapping out' process, which is indicated by the title deeds of one of the tea estate owners, which date back to the 1930s. The land, according to information from villagers, had been mostly uninhabited and consisted of patana and riparian forests. Settlement on the eastern slopes was considered undesirable by goigama inhabitants on the west side of the village, as they associated the road and the adjacent areas with low caste homesteads and itinerant folk, who were deemed threatening to their integrity. The reduction of available land for the expansion of homesteads would have effected the growing human population of Kitulwatte, particuarly from the 1930s which marked the beginning of 'land hunger' among the village population in Sri Lanka.

The colonial period was the beginning of fragmentation processes in the ecological situation in the Uva basin and in the hill country generally. The landuse practices of the

Kandyan kingdom were based on the integration of the landscape's components through the participation of human households and the flow of biomass and water. Households derived their subsistence from activities in all of these components. The surplus consum-

50 ers did not participate in the organisation of the production process, but accomplished surplus appropriation by extra-economic means. Capitalistic plantation owners and their management staff, by contrast, organised the process of production as a profit making enterprise. Profit is derived from the high productivity output of a single species, under conditions of low production costs (labor and land). All human participants to the enterprise exchange their participation for money. The diverse components of the ecosystem, which support the livelihoods of subsistence producers, are largely irrelevant to capitalistic producers. This mode of production requires space, land with useful soils and a general climatically conducive environment in which to propagate a cash crop. It was possible to successively establish plantations on forest land, on chena land, on patanas and on homegarden land, irrespective of the uses and effects these systems had for the landscape as a whole and for its previous human participants.

From an ecological perspective the colonial period has initiated a perpetual movement from diversity and integration towards simplification and fragmentation. This process is however not absolute and unidirectional as it occurs in the conflictual interplay of the plantation and the village economies. As the capitalistic mode of production increasingly enters the village economy, from 'peasant coffee' to vegetable cultivation, the contradictory processes of fragmentation and integration, of subsistence and the cash economy operate within every household of the village community.

During the transition from the late colonial to the post-colonial period two significant landuse changes in the Uva basin were initiated, the cultivation of 'exotic' tree plantations and of 'exotic' European vegetables. The emergence of the universal adult franchise and shared governance by Sri Lankans in the wake of the Donoughmore Constitution in 1931,

51 enabled then agricultural minister D.S. Senanayake to instruct the Forest Department to

're-establish' the tree cover on the patanas (de Rosayro 1945/46, IV:139). During World

War II Ceylon became a major location for stationing British troops. Their presence created a flourishing market in European vegetables (Weitzel 1971:144,157; Schweinfurth

1982:147-148).

Human productive activities and the evolution of property relations after independence

(1948) need to be assessed in relation to the specific features of the Sri Lankan polity, as it emerged after the introduction of the universal adult franchise in 1931. The Sri Lankan political system is not merely representing a 'popular will' or antagonistic class relations, but it comprises a complex and selective mechanism for access to or exclusion from power and economic goods under the central control of the state. From the central government to the village level, a network of political patrons maintain their positions and legitimacy by supplying their clientele with resources such as land, jobs, subsidies, village infra-structure development, etc. (Perera J. 1985:162-172; Moore 1985:224; Spencer

1990:210,217; Gunasinghe 1990:70; Morrison, Moore, Ishak Lebbe 1979:33-34; Herring

1987:160,164). "Competitive democratic patronage politics" induced the emergence of what Ronald Herring has termed the "dependent welfare state" (Herring 1987:158-159).

Mick Moore claims that party political affiliation among the Sinhalese roughly corre- lates with socio-economic status. He states that "the poor support the LSSP, the rich the

UNP, and the in-betweens the SLFP" and cites as support for this assumption survey data generated in one village during the 1977 election.14 He argues that class categories have little clear-cut correspondence to people's experiences in rural society and that stratification categories ("the rich, middling people, the poor") figure more significantly in peo-

52 ple's discourse about themselves and others. Identity and corresponding voting behaviour are thus determined by status, which is a composite resulting from the multiple class and occupational positions a person or the members of a household may occupy in the pursuit of livelihoods (Moore 1985:221-224).

Jonathan Spencer has criticised Moore's fundamental claim of correspondence between socio-economic status and party affiliation. He noted a conspicuous absence of ideological polarization in village politics. He found both richer and poorer villagers among the supporters of the SLFP and the UNP, and leaders from the richer stratum in both parties. The political discourse in the village was dominated by issues concerning the distribution of state resources, and participation in party politics generally provided opportunities for upward economic mobility through access to such resources (Spencer

1990:210-217).

The situation in Kitulwatte confirms Spencer's observation that in the village loyalty to a political party is a matter of family tradition. It appears to be a fundamental means of the construction of 'otherness' within the village microcosm, of greater significance than caste or class. People refer to themselves or to others as being "Sri Lanka" (SLFP) or

"UNP", and their statements can be imbued with considerable emotional charge. On the other hand, there were also drifters among the SLFP families who were attracted by the populist message of the UNP in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The variance between

Moore's and Spencer's findings is most likely a result of the specificity of their samples.

Each studied one particular village, a circumstance which makes generalisation precarious.

53 The national leadership of all parties of the Sinhalese ethnic majority is controlled by the urban and rural elites from either the radala aristocracy or the indigenous bourgeoisie

(Moore 1985:203-212). Their political discourse, however, as much as Sinhalese political consciousness in general, is infused by ethno-nationalism, an ideology centred on the

'peasantry' as the foundation of Sinhalese culture. This collective myth contends that the

Sinhalese Buddhists were an 'ancient and glorious' civilisation, which came to be dominated and corrupted by Indian invaders during the times of the kingdoms of Anuradhapu- ra and Polonaruwa, and by European colonial powers in recent history. The restoration of this cultural identity emerged as a major rallying point in the competition for the votes of the ethnic majority, and the rural population in particular (Moore 1989:187-193; see also

Nissan & Stirrat 1990; Gunawardana, R.A.L.H. 1990). Welfarism was geared towards the preservation of the small holder cultivators, by "subsidising the small peasantry on a large scale at both the production and the consumption levels" (Bastian 1993:11) and by restoring the 'great ancient' irrigation works in the northern dry zone, where the surplus population of the over-crowded southwestern wet zone was to be settled.

Land has thus been one of the two major indigenous resources of the welfare state, which is in possession of the vast crown lands as a result of the colonial legacy. Present- ly, the Sri Lankan state owns approximately 80 percent of the entire land (Land Commis- sion Report of 1987, quoted in Wijetunga 1991:27; NARESA 1991:111). The plantation economy has been the prime source of revenue to finance welfarism (Herring 1987:159;

Moore 1985:101-102,232-234). Taxation of the exports of the tea, rubber and coconut industries have procured the foreign currency resources which facilitated the import of basic necessities. Sri Lanka is neither self-sufficient in food production nor endowed with

54 any significant non-agricultural resources. Irrigation and hydro-electricity systems, food imports, price controls of basic consumer goods, import and subsidies of agricultural inputs, agricultural credit, price guarantees for agricultural products, and a free education and health system were among the welfare items financed by a revenue basis combining taxation transfers from the plantations and foreign aid. Prior to 1977 all political parties supported this policy orientation. As a result, Sri Lanka gained a reputation of providing its citizens with a relatively high standard of welfare, by comparison with other South

Asian countries, as measured by the Physical Quality of Life Index.15

However, patronage and welfarism operating within a capitalistic context cause the socio-economic system to experience the stresses and contradictions endemic to the welfare state. It needs to maintain a sufficient rate of revenue flow from capitalistic production to finance welfare measures. Investment in growth sectors may be limited or prevented by the allocation of capital resources to consumption and the productive investment in small holder cultivation. The transfer of surplus from estate production proved insufficient to maintain the welfare state in the long run. The system was vulnerable, as a result of the structural dependency of the interrelated Sri Lankan export and import sectors on price developments in international markets. The import-substitution policy of the

Bandaranaike government (SLFP) during the 1970s, designed to deal with this vulnerability, remained unable to avert the serious fiscal crisis resulting from the deterioration of the country's terms of trade during the period from 1950 to the mid-1970s.

Although the volume of exports increased by more than 35 percent over that twenty-five-year period, the purchasing power of exports fell by nearly 70 percent. Im- ports did not decline proportionately ...; part of the gap was met by borrowing or importing on credit. As a result, the debt service ratio rose from negligible levels in the 1950s to more than 20 percent in 1975, creating an additional claim on hard-

55 currency export earnings while aggravating mounting budget deficits. (Herring 1987:163)

The drastic rise in external fuel and food prices, sluggish internal economic growth at an annual rate of 2 percent, and the simultaneous growth of the labour force produced unprecedented levels of inflation and unemployment, at a time when the state's capacity to provide welfare services deteriorated (Herring 1987:165; SSA [Social Scientists Asso- ciation] 1993:9-10). The government reacted with a total stop on imports, excepting basic requirements in fuel and some food items, and imposed an austerity programme which rationed food and lowered consumption levels. Although these measures enabled the country to keep external debt relatively low (Rs. 13.32 billion) and to achieve surpluses in its balance of payment (+ Rs. 3.31 billion) and trade balance (+ Rs. 0.65 billion) by

1977 (de Silva, M.D. 1991:13), the ensuing legitimation crisis caused the defeat of the ruling SLFP in the 1977 general elections. The election of the UNP and its 'liberalisation' programme are considered a major watershed in Sri Lanka's post-colonial society.

During the import-substitution and food crisis period the two most serious landuse changes in Kitulwatte's recent history were effected: the expansion of vegetable cultivation into the paddy fields and the establishment of tree plantations in the patana hills.

The diffusion of 'exotic' vegetable cultivation and especially of the paddy/vegetable rotation system in the Uva basin has not been researched systematically. In his 1967 study of eight Uva basin villages Klaus Weitzel notes the diversity and site-specificity of their agro-ecological structures (Weitzel 1970; 1971).16 Kitulwatte's relatively late adoption of new vegetable crops and cultivation techniques among all farmers occurred, as the ban on imports and the promotion of local production caused a significant rise in opportunities for cash incomes from cultivation of European vegetable varieties in the singularly suit- 56 able ecosystem of the Uva basin. The agricultural production programme of the Bandara- naike regime sought to "provide adequate supplies of vegetables to consumers in urban areas, particularly in Colombo" (Abeysekara & Senanayake 1974:i), which were most affected by food shortages during this time. An explicit objective of the programme was the off-season cultivation of vegetables among paddy farmers (Gunawardena & Chan- drasiri 1980:31-33), i.e. the adoption of the rotation system. Whereas the vegetable boom of the 1970s was largely a result of government policy, the development of the vegetable sector itself evolved predominantly through market forces. The establishment of two paper mills and the cultivation of tree plantations with fast growing species aimed at the development of an indigenous pulp and paper industry.

During the 1950 to 1977 period several legal reform and land distribution programmes were initiated which affected property relations and production among the cultivators, most of them under the auspices of the SLFP. They reflected the spirit of preserving the peasantry while abolishing 'feudal vestiges', as perceived by the competing elites of the dominant political parties, who imputed needs and demands to a peasantry, which by itself articulated little demand for such reforms, as Moore has observed (Moore 1985:84).

All of these measures attempted to extend the control or influence of the state over production and thereby to create opportunities for patronage politics.

The Paddy Lands Act of 1958 intended to institute a landreform which would alter the balance of power in tenancy relationships without transferring land to the tiller (Herring

1983:55). It made provisions for reducing the landlord's share from 1/2 (ande) to 1/4, for increasing the security of occupancy by tenants by for example making tenancy rights inheritable, and for institutional control of production relations by so-called 'cultivation

57 committees'. The politics and ideology of the act were complex and contradictory.17 In essence it reflected the compromise nature of welfare statist measures and of deals among diverse political forces in the context of parliamentary democracy, in so far as it legislat- ed 'in the interest' of the cultivators without infringing too seriously on the rights of the proprietors. As Herring observed, the act was nevertheless based on a theoretical perception of agrarian relations as antagonistic in class terms (Herring 1983:60-61). The resistance of the proprietors, who were after all a significant part of the political, legislative and judiciary establishment, as well as of the electorate, and the widespread unwilling- ness of the tenant cultivators to fight for the implementation of the act, betrayed its proponents' ignorance of both actual power relations and the character of the culture of rural production relations. The act caused large-scale eviction of tenants who registered their tenancy and tied up the parties involved in the conflict in endless court battles.

Tenancy may constitute one component among others in the pursuit of a household's livelihood from diverse sources. Extreme smallholdership, especially in the hill-country, prompted both the giving of one's plot in ande to other cultivators while engaging in other economic activities, or the sharecropping of someone else's plot in addition to the cultivator's own land. Sharecropping exists therefore both as vertical long-term stable relationships in the classical landlord-tenant pattern, and as a flexible means of piecing together livelihoods among horizontally related actors. The participants to traditional tenancy relationships incur moral and economic commitments, such as the provision of agricultural inputs by landlords, employment opportunities for tenants outside paddy cultivation, assistance in times of need and in the case of marriages and funerals, and the provision of free labour services from the tenant to the landlord for all sorts of cultural and

58 economic purposes. In addition, andes are a means of regulating relationships between or within families, or between political leaders and their followers. The cultivation committees provided an uncertain formalistic substitute unable to take over such functions. In any event, these were subverted and boycotted by the proprietors, as well as abused by partisan interest in the petty struggles for goods and services and as a means to punish political opponents. Herring sums up the reasons the cultivators' reluctance to fight for the bill's successful implementation:

Because an ande relationship is embedded in a complex social and economic matrix, the tenant typically risks more than loss of income by opposing the landlord. ... The alienation of a patron may thus entail greater costs than the benefits which can be reasonably expected from the reform procedures; the rationality of initiating action to receive reform benefits in the existing institutional framework then becomes moot. (Herring 1983:67,68-69)

In Kitulwatte as elsewhere in the Kandyan region, the act remains largely ignored, as the majority of tenants continue to pay what one of the cultivators called "the rightful share" [hari ande] of one half of the crop. The engagement in and withdrawal from tenancy relations continues as a flexible means of managing the components of household internal economic activities and of regulating relations within the wider village community.

The Land Reform Law No. 1 of 1972 in conjunction with the Agricultural Produc- tivity Law placed a ceiling on landownership, 25 acres per person on paddy lands and 50 acres per person on all lands, and provided for redistributive measures to the actual cultivators with the aim of increasing productivity and food production. Temple lands and the large tea estates, which were by then in the hands of public companies, most notably Brit- ish agency houses, were exempted from the reform (Herring 1983:141-144). The strin- gent implementation of the 1972 reform is widely accepted as being the consequence of 59 the 1971 youth insurrection organised by the JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna = Peo- ple's Liberation Front), a Maoist and nationalist movement, which reflected a situation of growing land hunger, unemployment and discontent with the lack of radical reform in property relations among parts of the electorate. The mainstream power structure experienced the insurrection as a serious and surprising threat, which prompted the elite to sacrifice considerable proportions of their wealth, in order to procure renewed legitimacy

(Moore 1985:78-79). However, large families were capable of splitting sizable extents of their properties among their various adult members (Herring 1983:144). Only a fraction of the land was redistributed to individual cultivators and the lion's share went to cooper- atives and state institutions, which allowed for an ongoing politicised control of economic resources.

The nationalisation of the large foreign and domestically owned tea estates in 1975 had essentially the same effect of reinforcing the structure of competitive democratic patronage politics, rather than bringing about fundamental changes in the situation of ownership among the 'peasantry' or in the labour relations on the estates. Moore has shown that by 1978 roughly 10 percent of the alienated lands had been redistributed in small plots to individual villagers, while the rest was allotted to various state institutions or co- operatives (Moore 1985:80).

Neither of the reforms of the 1970s affected villages such as Kitulwatte, since all individual holdings in paddy lands, highlands and tea estates were below the ceiling stipula- tions. Of more important consequence were the allocation of land for homesteads under the Village Expansion schemes and the legalisation of squatters. Under the Land Devel- opment Ordinance of 1935 43 percent of all land distributed to individual families island-

60 wide between 1935 and 1986, fell under Village Expansion, where between 0.25 and 2.00 acres of land, typically in the upper highlands, are given to landless families (Abeysinghe

1991:130-131; Wickremasekera 1986:162). As I have indicated above, both forms of land acquisition by landless families have taken place in Kitulwatte, predominantly in the

1970s, and have created dense sub-urban hamlets. The 'colonisation' schemes in the dry zone irrigation projects, such as the Mahaweli River Basin Development Project, are the other major form of land allocation to landless cultivators, the earliest of which were initiated in the 1930s. Only two or three families in Kitulwatte opted for dry zone settlement.

During the 1970s the partial adoption of "green revolution" agricultural technologies in Sri Lanka became generalized. Sri Lanka had developed its own 'high yielding varieties' (HYV) of paddy from the early 1950s (Bastian 1985:141-166). The country's preoccupation with self-sufficiency in rice production motivated several production expansion and productivity increase drives during the 1960s and 1970s, in which the use of HYVs and agrochemicals was promoted. The development of indigenous HYVs or their cross- breeding with varieties from the International Rice Research Institute predominated, due to the requirements of specific local ecological conditions. Fertilizer import and distribution was dominated by the Ceylon Fertilizer Corporation, a state company, and heavily subsidised. Nevertheless, due to limited availability and lack of funds at the farm level, fertilizer consumption regularly fell short of recommended levels. Fifty percent of the import and distribution of pesticides were in the hands of private firms and traders. Pesti- cides are not subsidised. To this date, use is erratic due to financial constraints.18 Vegeta- ble cultivation is the main consumer of both fertilizers and pesticides in the Uva basin.

61 Mechanization has been marginal in the basin, except for pesticide sprayers, as well as occasional hand-tractors, winnowing fans and mechanical threshers.

Green revolution techniques create dependencies on imports and thus on the foreign markets supplying the required inputs. Bastian reports that in 1979 Sri Lanka spent 23.5 percent of aid from the Worldbank sponsored Aid Consortium on fertilizer imports. The development of local fertilizer production plants involved the purchase of foreign technology and licensing of foreign patents, i.e. further dependency on aid. Sri Lankan private companies in the agrochemical business act as partners or subsidiaries of transnational corporations. During the 1970s they were able to sell at 400 percent profit, which was limited in 1979 through government regulation to a 100-125 percent mark up. In the case of subsidiary firms, transfer pricing mechanisms provide for opportunities to move extra profits abroad (Bastian 1985:157-160). The dependency of HYVs and exotic vegetable cultivation on chemical fertilizers and pesticides engenders a chain of financial dependencies. The national economy is forced to spend scarce foreign currency resources on imports, the prices of which are determined by foreign markets and transnational corporations. Farmers are dependent on procuring their inputs from national and local supply and trade networks, which translate international price levels into local prices while adding a considerable mark up. Costs incurred by cultivators can only be recovered through the intensification of cultivation. Agricultural input commodities therefore emerge as a crucial new mechanism of extracting surplus from cash crop farmers.

From 1977 the UNP government has pursued the integration of Sri Lanka into the global economy. The emphasis of state policy has shifted from welfarism to the promotion of export-led growth. This objective required increased investment into infra-

62 structure and manufacturing industries, and consequently increasing imports of raw materials and intermediate products. Lacking sufficient resources and foreign currency re- serves, the new government applied to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) for support in form of loans and policy advise. As a result, Sri Lanka has discontinued many of its welfare programmes, privatised a large part of the state sector, opened its economy to foreign investment and commodities, and has incurred unprecedented levels of foreign debt.

The policy logic suggested that despite temporal aggravation of the trade balance and balance of payment deficits, the investment in new export-oriented industries would eventually produce foreign exchange resources in excess of import requirements. Up until the present these expectations are far from being met, as the fiscal crisis of the state has worsened and the collapse of the Sri Lankan economy is averted only by continued and increasing borrowing. At the same time, the country has been successfully forced by the

'stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes' of the IMF and World Bank to re- structure its socio-economic system. Continued receipt of aid has become contingent on tightly monitored compliance with the imposed conditions of these programmes

(Uyangoda 1992:7-9). In the process the contradictory imperatives of welfarism and economic growth continue to constrain policy makers and generate persistent legitimation crises both among the electorate and within the donor community.

The state has phased out and discontinued consumer subsidy programmes to private households and production-oriented subsidies to the small holder sector. Food subsidies in form of rations and price controls were, nevertheless, replaced by a foodstamp programme which allocates comparatively lower levels of benefits to families with incomes

63 below Rs. 3000 per month, placing no less than one half of the population on the foodstamp lists. The benefits derived from this programme are declining persistently because stamp values and income ceilings are not indexed for inflation. Edirisinghe reports that

"the real value of food stamps received by low-income households declined almost by half by 1981/82" (Edirisinghe 1988:113). The percentage of government spending and gross domestic product allocated to food subsidies has therefore been decreasing (Herring

1987:174-175; Bastian 1993:12-13). In the early 1990s the programme was reduced again, by excluding able-bodied males and limiting the maximum number of possible recipients.

The prices of agricultural inputs were deregulated and all fertilizer subsidies phased out. The state institutions involved in their procurement and distribution are in the process of being privatized or abolished. Loan guarantees by the Central Bank for small farmers have been withdrawn. Price guarantees for paddy producers have been removed.

Instead, farmers are encouraged to grow other cash crops (vegetables, tobacco, sugar cane). The measures impose increased participation of farmers in the market economy.

Simultaneously, the development of agrarian entrepreneurship and capitalist agrobusiness is promoted, particularly in the dry zone irrigation project areas. The state and foreign aid donors, notably USAID, are funding infra-structure development in form of ready-made investment packages (fenced land, water, electricity and road connections to the farm gate, credit, tax shelters, central storage and cooling facilities) and solicit international and domestic investment (Bastian 1993:13-14; The Island 6 March, 1992; 3, 13 and 26

May 1992).

64 Privatisation of the state sector has been accelerated in the early 1990s. Transport, public utilities, telecommunications, banking, management of the tea plantations, tourism, and the fertilizer corporation are among the sectors targeted or already transfered into private ownership. Furthermore, the state sector was obliged to curtail or close departments and programmes and to cut its labour force (Uyangoda 1992:9; SSA 1993:13).

Foreign investment and participation in the economy have been sought by devaluing the rupee, by providing tax-shelters and infra-structure to foreign companies, and by removing restrictions on imports. The elimination of exchange controls permits the increasing transfer of financial resources to other countries. Free trade zones and similar protective arrangements supply foreign firms with cheap labor, a political environment free of labor unions, and the ability to freely export manufactured goods to foreign markets. At the same time, local consumer markets have become accessible to foreign products, which has precipitated both the expansion of the local trading sector and conspicuous consumption among the affluent urban strata of the country. The success of the promotion of private investment and economic activity, especially in regard to the improvement of the balance of trade, the key to self-sustaining economic growth, healthy state finance and the capacity to repay debt, appears more than doubtful. Concessionary conditions for foreign and local investors undercut the generation of resources for state expenditure

(SSA 1993:13).

The feasibility of supplying foreign markets with agricultural products and garments remains uncertain. Transnational buyers with local subsidiaries have failed to purchase new export-vegetable crops promoted in the Mahaweli, despite state mediated agreements. The authorities were consequently forced to pay partial compensations to local

65 farmers, as the unfamiliar produce proved difficult to sell in local markets (The Island 10

September 1992). The heavy promotion of garment production may lead to a sectoral overproduction crisis, because international competition among Third World producers and the political pressures from western garment industries have caused the restriction of imports to consumer countries by means of quotas. Nevertheless, reliance of the export sector on garments continues to grow. The proportion of garments among all exports rose from 31 to 39.5 percent from 1990 to 1991. While all other industrial exports grew as well, plantation export crops are on the decline (The Island 1 May, 1992). Indus- trialisation necessitates the import of intermediate products, which accounted for for 44 percent of all imports in 1985-86 (SSA 1993:12-13), thus reducing the ameliorating effects of export-oriented production on the trade balance deficit.

In addition, the conditions of ethnic warfare and the renewed JVP insurgency during the 1980s have caused increasing government defense expenditures; from 2.6 percent of the government budget in the 1970s to 17 percent in 1991 (Kuhathasan 1992:13). Con- currently, the precarious security situation has prevented foreign investment. Finally, the rate of private savings and the generation of local capital resources remained too low

(SSA 1993:11,13).

Consequently, the rate of economic growth has been slow, after an initial boost in the late 1970s. From 3.8 percent in 1977 the growth rate jumped to 7.4 percent in 1978, after which it declined steadily to 1.6 percent in 1987; in 1990 GDP grew by 6.2 percent again and in 1991 by 4.8 percent (Kuhathasan 1992:13). Only continued influx of foreign aid was able to sustain this level of economic activity, given that it was based on costly imports and state investment through deficit spending. Between 1977 and 1990 external

66 debt rose steadily from Rs. 13.32 billion to Rs. 232.71 billion, which is a 1747 percent or

17.5 fold increase.

During the same time period the balance of payment and trade balance have continued to deteriorate. The balance of payment was predominantly negative, excepting the initial

3 years and the years 1983, 1984 and 1990. 1983 and 1984 were the years of a surprising tea boom; and as aid in form of loans and grants as well as investments are figured into the balance, all figures are raised 'artificially' by receipts in foreign aid. A more straightforward indicator of the fiscal state of affairs is the balance of trade which developed almost steadily from a slight Rs. 0.65 billion surplus in 1977 to a Rs. 42.27 billion deficit in

1991 (de Silva, M.D. 1991:13; The Island 1 May 1992; The Sunday Times 26 May 1991;

SSA 1993:12).

It must be concluded that the economic policy of the post-1977 governments has failed to generate self-sustained economic growth and that the measures adopted, rather than indicating trends towards fiscal health, have exacerbated the crisis situation since its in- ception in the 1970s. The singular response to this failure by both the local government and the global development institutions has been increased borrowing, in order to enable the country to service its debt and to continue spending. The initial dependency on imports from foreign markets has been deepened and confounded by dependency on loans of staggering proportions. In the process, the imposition of stabilization and structural adjustment measures has diverted resources away from the welfare sector and shifted state controlled financial support towards the development of private enterprise and the dominance of market relations in economic activity.

67 This shift in priorities has produced a social crisis and subsequent legitimation crisis which in the wake of the 1988 presidential election motivated the UNP to undertake a populist revision of its liberalisation programme. Unemployment had fallen from 20 percent in 1977 to 12 percent in 1981-82, but started to rise again to 16 percent in 1986-87.

In the early 1990s the rate stayed at roughly 14 percent (SSA 1993:12; Kuhathasan

1992:13). Unemployment was particularly pronounced among the younger generation, i.e. first-time job-seekers and the relatively better educated.

During the period from 1978 to 1986 relative social inequality increased. In 1978-79 the poorest 20 percent of households earned 3.8 percent of the total income of all households. By 1985-86 this group's income share had declined to 1.5 percent. The income share of the poorer half of the population declined from 18.1 percent to 12 percent. In fact, the income shares of 90 percent of households declined during the period in question from 61 percent to 50.7 percent. Only the richest 10 percent of households gained in relative income, which rose from 39 percent to 49.3 percent (Department of Census and Sta- tistics 1991:122).

Potential absolute gains in income due to overall economic growth would have been off-set by the rate of inflation which would have lowered the capacity especially of the poorer segments of the population to obtain basic necessities. The overall rate of inflation during the 1970s was 12 percent, during the 1980s 14 percent, and in the year 1990 it rose to 21.5 percent, while declining again to 12.2 percent in 1991 (The Island 1 May,

1992; Kuhathasan 1992:13). The cost of living indexes for 1981-82 reveal a 94 percent price increase for food in comparison to 1978/79 levels (Edirisinghe 1988:113). Observ- ers have claimed that since early 1980 the nutritional situation of the poorer 20 to 30 per-

68 cent of the population has deteriorated, and aroused government concerns about serious malnutrition in the late 1980s (SSA 1993:12; Herring 1987:175; Edirisinghe 1988:112-

113; Perera J. 1991:6).

Since the mid-1980s the clandestine activities of the maoist-nationalist JVP were intensifying and gathering support among the rural youth, particularly its well-educated segments, who were experiencing both an economic and a moral crisis. By 1988 the island's south, southwest and hill-country were in the grip of a brutal JVP insurrection and the no less violent counter-insurgency by the forces of the state and the paramilitary groups attached to political patrons.

Once again, as in 1971, the mounting crisis culminating in revolutionary activities, prompted the government to react with welfarist measures. The populist UNP presidential candidate Ranasinghe Premadasa, of low-income and low-caste background, successfully asserted his claim to power, when he swept the 1988 elections on a 'new deal' and law and order platform. As opposed to the old welfare orientation towards perpetual subsidies and income redistribution, the new strategy mirrors the thrust of liberalisation for capitalist take-off fostered through state policy and foreign loans, by attempting to implement a production oriented welfare programme. The two main components of this approach are

Janasaviya [people's strength] and Gamudawa [village awakening]. Both emerged from long years of political activity, during which Premadasa had built his power bases among the urban and rural poor and within government itself. In Kitulwatte more than 200 households are participating in both programmes.

Janasaviya is a self-help initiative for the poor. Its ideological focus stresses the capacity of the poor to rely on self-employment for their livelihoods (The Island 13 April,

69 1991). Premadasa's organisation has initiated and supported 'micro-enterprises' and has thereby strengthened and to some degree formalised economic activities which in other contexts might be classified as the 'informal sector'. In 1991 Janasaviya became the primary recipient of a new Rs. 2280 million loan facility by the World Bank's International

Development Association, which responded to growing concern within the Bank and within the Sri Lankan government about poverty, malnutrition and unemployment. The

World Bank considers roughly 5 million Sri Lankans to be living in poverty, based on their low levels of daily calorie consumption (The Island 18 May, 1991), which amounts to approximately 28 percent of the population.

The centre piece of the Janasaviya Trust Fund poverty alleviation programme is the allocation of financial credit to poor 'micro-entrepreneurs' at near market rates. While in the programme, participants receive training in "the productive use of credit". This approach treats individual recipients as petty-capitalists which are able to incur the same level of responsibility towards financing agencies, ultimately the World Bank, as corporate enterprises or the Sri Lankan government. The lenders hope to recover loans more economically in comparison to subsidy based welfare programmes, which rely on the society's collective capacity to generate resources for debt service and repayment. They also expect to undercut deep-seated popular expectations towards being serviced by a paternalistic state. However, Janasaviya maintains two 'traditional' welfarist components, a public works programme and a nutrition augmentation programme for pregnant and lac- tating mothers and for children (The Island 18 May, 1991).

The 'new deal' for the poor suffers from the same structural drawbacks as the overall policy which it mirrors. The recipients are expected to be self-reliant within a one to two

70 year period (Bastian 1993:13). At this point payments to families are terminated and claims on their income for loan repayment are made. However, the overwhelming part of the enterprises specialise in home-industry production, such as handicrafts and garments.

Marketing of their commodities has so far proven difficult, because no coordinated planning by which production and markets would be linked, had been carried out. There was no strategy to align small enterprise productions with the requirements of national or international corporations, which would act as buyers of raw materials, semi-processed goods or parts, in order to assure the micro-enterprises' longterm viability and profitability (SSA 1993:15). Consequently, the government saw itself forced to organise fairs in the capital city, at which it hoped to attract foreign and local traders to buy the considerable surplus of Janasaviya products.

The writers of the Sri Lankan Social Scientists Association therefore argue that the actual purpose of the new welfare programmes is largely 'rhetorical', i.e. designed to

"keep at bay the resentment of the people" towards the social consequences of growth oriented policies subsidising the corporate sector (SSA 1993:13,15). Bastian points out that these programmes have nevertheless become crucial components in the daily survival of the poor, since they offer opportunities for receiving cash income in the absence of other alternatives (Bastian 1993:15). Given the overall national economic trends so far, the ability to attain the long-term objective of 'trickling down' economic growth by generating demand from above for products from below, is doubtful. This raises the question, whether the market oriented poverty alleviation programmes will be anything more than a temporary source of cash for its poor recipients, who cannot afford to worry about tomor-

71 row's consequences of today's commitments. In this way, productivist welfarism may mirror the country's overall development practice most consistently.

Realising these difficulties, in 1992 the government prodded several garment entrepreneurs into setting up 100 additional garment factories within a year in rural areas all over the island. These employ primarily young women from families registered on the lists of Janasaviya, at above average levels of wages and benefits. With this programme the policy orientation moved from the initiation of petty capitalism to state subsidised proletarianisation. The characteristic marketing problems of the sector are however likely to be exacerbated.

Gamudawa shares the problems of the Janasaviya approach, in so far as it encumbers village people with debts, which pay for a significant portion of the cost of 'awakening'.

At the centre of this programme is the provision or improvement of housing in a target village, a policy orientation deriving from the President's 'One Million Houses Pro- gramme' he initiated as the prime minister between 1977 and 1988. Proclaiming that

'shelter' is fundamental to survival and a family's capacity for economic activity, the programme makes below market rate credit available to persons unlikely to have access to credit by conventional channels. Attached to the housing component are various other improvement measures addressing specific village needs. Roads as a means of transport of goods and people and loans for agricultural inputs play a significant role in rural contexts where cash cropping is a major means of income generation and thus loan repayment. However, the uncertaincies of agricultural production as well as persistently rising expenditures for inputs undermine the cultivators' capacity for regular and reliable repayment. The logic of retrieving loans in steady increments from a segment of the popu-

72 lation which does not command income resources from regular and reliable economic activity, as in the case of a middle class household, appears flawed and promises to run into serious problems.

The Gamudawa programme concentrates its activites in a new geographical region every year, where it celebrates its achievements in an elaborate and well-publicized annual mass spectacle. This lavish cultural pageant of mass popular performances, political rallies and self-indulgent exhibitions serves significantly and successfully to procure legitimation for the president's populist agenda.19 It also allows for symbolic mass participation in the rush of conspicuous consumption, evident particularly among the urban affluent strata since 1977. Both Gamudawa and Janasaviya manage to provide a composite economic and symbolic mirror image in which the poorer citizens can recognise themselves as part of the overall logic of liberalised capitalist development.

In the corporate centre of contemporary development, structural adjustment continues in populist fashion by combining privatisation with "peoplisation". A small fraction of the shares of a former state enterprise (generally about ten percent) is handed over to its employees, while the remainder is sold in the stock market and to direct bidders. The proportions of this deal reflect the relative weight of the corporate and the welfarist components in the new policy. The significance of the revision of the liberalisation programme consists not so much in the benefits it bestows on the losers of the new deal, as in the recognition of the tensions in a polity with a history of competitive democratic patronage politics, which give occasion to ever renewed attempts at juggling contradictory imperatives.

73 The Premadasa years reflect a volatile mix of strands in contemporary Sri Lankan politics: an almost fetish-like desire to attain the status of a NIC [newly industrializing country] by the year 2000; the 'upliftment' of the poor segements of the population through market oriented welfare measures; policy legitimation by means of 'bread and circuses'; and the reliance on extra-legal activities of paramilitary groups inside and outside the state structure in the resolution of political conflict. Premadasa was killed under obscure circumstances. His assassination was immediately preceded by the murder of one of his chief political rivals. Premadasa's killer was a suicide bomber, a style generally associated with with the Liberation Tigers of Eelam. Premadasa was speedily and smoothly replaced with personnel from the old power structure of the radala and urban bourgeoisie. While these retracted immediately from his ostentatious style, they continue to pay homage to the populist values proclaimed by his welfare politics.

In assessing the meaning of a policy which generated astounding levels of foreign debt and worsened the balance of trade while lowering its people's status of wellbeing, a policy which was after all initiated with the express purpose of attacking the vexing problem of trade balance deficits, one feels compelled to consider the possibility that the actual intention of liberalisation was not the improvement of the economy's fiscal foundation. It may be reasonably argued, that the Jayawardana and Premadasa regimes after 1977 simply bargained for access to money, since the resource situation of the country would not afford any other opportunity to the local bourgeoisie to participate in global affluence.

The Sri Lankan part of the deal with the global finance agencies was the opening of its only plentiful resource, labour power, to exploitation by transnational and local capital, and the opening of its consumer markets to international trade. As popular resentment

74 towards these developments grew, a piece of the loan pie was allocated to the poor. Nei- ther the poor nor the rich, however, appear in a position to repay. As the pressure to repay will be attached to the conditionalities of new loans there will be pressure to intensify production. Intensified production implies intensified landuse and resource competition.

In the case of Kitulwatte resource competition involves foremost the problem of differential access to water. Simultaneously, the interactions of a range of human and non- human participants in the Kitulwatte micro-watershed adversely affect the conditions of production of water. The destruction of those conditions jeopardizes the ability of human actors to generate the economic resources ensuring their survival and their capacity to repay their debts. In Kitulwatte the consequences of debt incurred from being 'awakened' will be intensified cash cropping among farmers. This, however, increases human water demands and aggravates the damage of the conditions of production of water. The local system confronts an apparently insurmountable contradiction. By intensifying production on all levels, the system is expected to overcome the contradictions of the welfare state.

The ecological consequences of this intensified productivism, however, radically undercut the viability of the economic objective.

NOTES

1. Computed from the Kitulwatte Development Project Household Survey, 1991. Sev- en large landowners, who did not receive or return the questionaire have been added to the total number of households, based on field data.

2. Small plots of grassland or forest were cleared by cutting and burning of the vegetation, and cultivated for a few cropping cycles, after which they were abandoned to a regenerative succession process.

3. I have distilled this basic simplified description of the climatic situation of Sri Lanka from several sources in the meteorological and related literature (Jayamaha 1956; Morgan & Morgan 1986:268-269; Barry & Chorley:242-284; Swan 1987:21-23; Meyer P. 1989:6-10). The state of knowledge appears to be incomplete and the explanations of the dynamics of the monsoons are at variance. The most complex and sophisticated analysis is provided by Barry and Chorley, who question the simplicity and regularity implied in older models, and stress factors of disturbance, irregularity and variation. Cyclical patterns recur within wide ranges of variation, and chaotic, extreme or counterfactual events may undermine neat models of order.

4. Computed from the list of monthly precipitation for Bandarawela/Diyatalawa, issued by the Sri Lankan Department of Meteorology.

5. Computed from the list of monthly precipitation for Dyraaba Estate, issued by the Sri Lankan Department of Meteorology.

6. To filter out short frequency fluctuations, the Gaussian Low Pass Filter was applied to the selected time series of annual rainfall data from the two stations. A linear re- gression analysis was done to find the long and short period trends.

7. In the hillocks of the drier lowlands north of the Uva basin live contemporary de- scendants of the only tribal people of Sri Lanka, the Veddhas, who hunt, gather and cultivate swiddens. These people have been living in the forests as small scattered communities, interacting consistently with neighbouring Tamil and Sinhalese communities (Meegaskumbura 1983). Although their mode of production requires a comparatively larger territory than permanent cultivation, their population to land ratio is very small, so that inference of seasonal or occasional excursions into the cool hill-country for livelihood purposes by Veddhas is less than compelling, but not un- reasonable. Forests and water courses are a prime source of livelihoods for the Ved- dhas as they provide meat, fish, honey, plants, wood and of course drinking water. Except for the clearing of isolated patches for slash-and-burn cultivation, which are abandoned after some cultivation cycles, deforestation is not attributed to the Ved- dhas. If they were occasional participants in the ecological systems of the Uva basin, their non-intensive landuse practices and their impermanent presence would suggest little human restructuring and designed intervention in the ecosystems they encountered.

8. Through the construction of a 'great history', the arrival and experiences of the Sin- halese people, and the organization of the Buddhist state in the island up until the coming of the Portuguese colonisers are related. The authors are all of the Buddhist clergy and lived centuries past many of the events they describe (Bechert 1978:1- 12).

9. The collapse of these hydraulic societies is a matter of controversy among concerned scholars. The most widely accepted explanation argues that invasions of conquering

South Indian armies led to the destruction of the irrigation bureaucracy and of irrigation works, to the expulsion of large parts of the peasant population, and to famines and diseases, all of which precipitated the exodus of the Sinhalese to the hill country and the lowlands of the south-western wet zone (Brohier 1975:35-38; 44-47; Para- navitana 1960; Arasaratnam 1964; Roberts 1971). This perspective is criticised or expanded by an economic and an ecological argument. Gananath Obeyesekere maintains that commercial opportunities on the south-western coast of the island, located along the Arab trade route, motivated the migration of Sinhalese to the wet and intermediate zones, from both the Rajarata and from the Ruhuna, the hydraulic society in the south-eastern dry zone which was not subject to Indian invasions (Obeyesekere 1987:7-8). Infertility of the soil and declining crop yields as a consequence of centuries of irrigation of the vast tracts of paddy lands, which caused waterlogging and salinization, is advanced as an explanation for the disintegration of the Rajarata and the resulting migration of its population by Gamini Iriyagolle (1978).

10. According to Ryan, at the time of Sinhalese settlement of the island (fifth century B.C.) the Sinhalese caste structure, derived from India's incipient caste organisation, was only loosely organised. Successive South Indian migrations to Sri Lanka, particularly during the medieval period, influenced the evolution of a caste system close to that of South India (Ryan 1953:11-15).

11. The concept of village may be misleading in this context, although the term gam or gama is generally translated as village. As I have already indicated above, a village is usually a cluster of hamlets, rather than a European type settlement with a core to which all surrounding settlement and activity relates. The notion of village may therefore have been a colonial import. Property and tenurial classifications do thus relate to land as opposed to whole villages. At most, a type of social relation might have been attached to a hamlet and its associated paddy lands. In the area of today's Kitulwatte we traced the existence of nindagam, viharagam and koralegam.

12. The first quote is from the 1681 edition of the Historical Relation, which was edited by Knox's initial publishers. The second quote is from material written by Knox for a second edition, which was only published in 1989. Knox's original spelling was retained in the text.

13. All Kandyan administrators were placed under the authority of British bureaucrats. Gabadagam and the service tenure were abolished, and a general grain tax was enacted. Temple lands were exempted from these regulations. The services of Kan- dyan administrators to the Crown were remunerated with salaries rather than properties. The Crown reserved the right to appropriate compulsory service labor for the government from all persons (Proclamation by Sir Robert Brownrigg of 1818, in Davy [1821] 1983:378-382; Bandarage 1985:52). Although nindagam were not abolished in the Kandyan provinces, the grain tax generated a conflict between cultivators and landlords, because the tenants, on account of paying the grain tax for 77

their pangu lands, claimed proprietorship and refused to cultivate muttetu lands, except on ande terms (Hettiarachchy 1982:48,55-57).

14. LSSP - Lanka Sama Samaja Pakshaya [Lanka Equal Society Party], a Marxist Trot- skyite Party; UNP - United Natonal Party; SLFP - Sri Lanka Freedom Party. The competition between the SLFP and the UNP dominates the political system, while the significance of Marxist parties has been declining throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

15. The Physical Quality of Life Index relates the average real annual growth rates, or GNP per capita, with the crude death rate, infant mortality rate, life expectancy at birth, and the degree of literacy. Grouped among all South Asian countries and Chi- na, Sri Lanka achieved a score (82) twice as high as all its neighbours, except for China (75), during the late 1970s (Herring 1987:161).

16. At this time, the village of Horatota was still primarily cultivating 'traditional' subsistence crops, while Palugama (Keppetipola) near Welimada was the centre of a thriving vegetable cash crop economy. Weitzel attributes the gradual adoption of Eu- ropean vegetables in Palugama during the 20th century to an interaction of factors. The nearby presence of a colonial military post acquainted local farmers with the 'exotics'. Growing consumer demand from both the British army during World War II and from the local population created persistent opportunities. The location alongside a major trunk route to Nuwara Eliya, Kandy and Colombo allowed for relatively convenient transport. Population growth in Palugama caused vegetable cultivation on all available fields, including the paddy fields. Finally, the establishment of a co- operatives network provided agricultural inputs and marketing channels (Weitzel 1971:155-158).

17. Herring (1983:50-84) and Moore (1985:50-63) offer useful analyses of the complicated political and ideological dynamics of this failed land reform.

18. Blatant overuse among 76 percent of farmers in Badulla District with levels of up to 200 percent of recommended concentration as well as higher than normal frequen- cies of application were discovered in a survey by the National Co-operative Council (Priyantha 1990:3).

19. I wish to thank Pradeep Jeganathan for insightful discussions concerning this issue. According to his calculations, during the 1993 provincial council elections, the UNP was able to increase its lead by a significant margin in comparison to the preceeding 1990 regional council elections, wherever a gamudawa celebration had taken place.

5. THE RESEARCH ENCOUNTER

In this chapter I will discuss the evolution of my research methods, conceptual framework and personal experience in the field. These are inseparable components of the research process. In this approach I am following Shulamit Reinharz' proposition:

My goals for any search for knowledge (research) became tripartite: insight into the person, the problem, and the method. (Reinharz 1979:124)

An inquiry is a creative interplay of person, problem and method in the encounter with other actors. The research experience is interactive, as it involves observation and communication. The sociologist becomes a participant to a socio-ecological setting which so- cializes him/her in his/her particular role. Furthermore, constructing methods and concepts adequate to the problem of inquiry requires openness to surprise:

The creative product results from the reseacher's suspension of method pre- spriptions, of probable findings, and of fixed definitions of personal identity before entering the field. (Reinharz 1979:236)

The emergence of self and method

I went to Kitulwatte with some definite preconceptions about what I wanted to encounter and would be doing in my field research. I assumed that farming communities in a hill- country watershed would be confronted with a deforestation crisis and its negative effects on the availability of resources, such as water, firewood, food, etc. Afforestation with fast growing tree species in monocrop plantations would exacerbate this crisis. The affected 1 actors living in these deteriorating ecological systems would be the victims of state policy and of profit-hungry timber capitalists. Forest-based human communities would react by organising social movements seeking to reclaim control over their resources and to restore ecological integrity as a basis of their livelihoods. Their strategies might include the petitioning and lobbying of state agenicies for remedial action and 'direct action', such as tree planting campaigns or blockades and sit-ins. My research methods would therefore emphasize 'participatory action research', an approach which seeks to integrate the production of knowledge with social struggles. Accordingly, the researcher attempts to initiate collaborative research between the affected actors and him/herself, guided by an egalitarian ethos. This 'research community' investigates the problem situation from a local perspective and intervenes in the process of socio-ecological change from an empowered position. Power is expected to derive from improved (self)-knowledge and from an emergent political movement.

My expectations combined an image of the preeminence of the forest, with the desire for a social movement, amongst which social research would become a political tool.

This logic of academic activism was attractive as it appeared coherent and purposeful.

The approach seemed to offer an alternative to the researcher's alienation from and lack of commitment to the people studied, characteristic of standard research procedures and the practice of development, in which social scientists are becoming increasingly involved.

Doing research with and in the interest of 'the people and their forest' was supported by a growing body of literature, particularly in the Indian subcontinent. This new 'advo- cacy science' stresses the significance of the 'culture of the forest' and portrays social (in

2 particular women's) movements, such as the Chipko Andolan in North India, as the representatives and defenders of a rich and harmonious tradition which is threatened by the non-sustainable resource demands of technocratic and capitalistic modernity. Academic researchers would therefore need to take sides. It is postulated that a 'new ecological science' could be practiced in solidarity with 'forest cultures', by integrating 'people's traditional knowledge' of their ecosystems with models and research practices derived from modern science.1

My preconception of the research encounter was fortified by values and experiences rooted in my upbringing in Western Europe and North America during the 1970s and

1980s. The disposition for an activist social science was formed in my training as a sociology student at the Free University of Berlin and at Brandeis University, both of which stressed the necessity for knowledge to be of consequence to social action and change in the interest of disempowered social groups. At the same time, for my generation ecological disasters, such as in Harrisburg or Chernobyl, became significant landmarks of our experience, and we learned to be increasingly concerned about the slowly accumulating destructive effects of our industrial way of life on ecological systems. Thus, my sociological concern with the disempowered shifted more and more explicitly to the perception of a crisis in nature. I understood that not only human beings, but other living creatures and inorganic phenomena, such as water, were among the adversely affected and disempowered actors, and that all of us shared a common crisis. From the late 1970s I had been a participant in the European and American green movements, which gave this expansion of perspective a practical and political expression.

3 During my initial months of research in the Uva basin I experienced an increasingly evident dissonance between my preconceptions and the actual realities I was encounter- ing. Although I searched adamently for the violated forests, for ecologically sound traditions, for social movements and for an emerging research community, I had to realise that

I was imposing an intellectual construction on my new surroundings, which was in no way warranted. Reality was more complicated, contradictory and far less controlable than my worldview was able to encompass. For the first time I was able to grasp both intellectually and emotionally the meaning of Kurt Wolff's idea of "surrender and catch".

Passion for knowledge motivates surrender to the experience of the 'other'. The passionate knower accepts "total involvement, suspension of received notions, pertinence of everything, identification, and risk of being hurt" (Wolff 1976:20). Research in the mode of surrender is subversive, as it defies the historically dominant mode of consciousness and research practice, by which human beings have come to act in the world:

The irony of 'surrender' is its opposition to the official Western, and now potentially worldwide, consciousness, in which the relation to the world, both natural and human, is not surrender but mastery, control, efficiency, handling, manipulation. (Wolff 1976:21)

The suspension of received notions enables me to test my way of perceiving and thinking, of being in the world. Wolff does not request us to abandon our notions, unless the catch warrants abandonment. Suspension puts in question my convictions: "not affirmed, not denied".

To study human actors as participants in nature requires my surrender to my fellow human beings as well as to the other species and phenomena with whom we relate.

The very act of surrendering to them will determine which of their elements or aspects is done justice to by the usual procedures of science (such as describing, de-

4 fining, reducing to instances of generalizations), and which, instead, by procedures that will emerge from the encounter with them. (Wolff 1976:79)

Truth is based on a mixed foundation, combining scientific and existential modes. As

Wolff puts it, truth is an attribute of existence and of discourse (1976:79-80). Truth must hence be recognised as a tentative state which is susceptible to change as the experience of both the knower and the subject changes.

The catch is "a beginning, a new being-in-the-world", "the cognitive or existential result" of surrender (Wolff 1976:20). In reflecting upon the experience, I bring back into play the concepts which were suspended, in order to test, to reconceptualize, to arrive at something new, in my case a knowledge which was absent before I engaged in surrender.

The catch reasserts my being in the world through the full range of modalities of power. I now rest the primacy of surrender to assert my specific apperception of the experience and its meaning within the context of my endeavour, which is afterall social science. The metaphor 'catch' brings me closer to domination, to acquisition. From the experience I take something which is exclusively mine: my catch, which has been separated from the community and the landscape.

The experience recedes from the surrenderer like water from a net; it challenges him to explore it, to invent ('come into'), and to inspect the catch. (Wolff 1976:20)

As I analyse and create, I take responsibility for the product. Surrender and catch is a play with and between the modalities of power. In the field I confront the risk of being hurt, of getting lost in surrender. The creative yield of surrender makes me a whole person again.

From the suspension of my notions I move to the reflection of my research experience, and finally to a discourse with the scientific community to which I am a participant.

5 That I should follow this lead is not at all self-evident. Trying surrender evolved in the interplay of a knowledge I received from Kurt Wolff, as one of my teachers, and my experience in the Uva basin. Through my dissonances in the experience I openend myself to

Wolff's idea, which up to now had remained a peculiar though intriguing proposition. My resistances to surrender were only overcome when I recognized the limits of control and the intellectually stifling effect of a rigid approach to the phenomena which my preconceptions had kept at an unproductive distance. I wish to commence this methodological discussion by narrating the process through which I came to follow Wolff's lead and began to chart my own course through the socio-ecological terrain I have called Kitulwatte.

I was attracted to working in the Uva basin by the Neo-Synthesis Research Centre

(NSRC), a small ecological research station located in the village of Mirahawatte, not far from Kitulwatte. This organisation was established on Belipola Estate, a small 14 acre tea estate on the mid- and lower slopes of the Mahatotila Oya valley, and operated by an international group. A biologist, an anthropologist, a forestry student, three naturalists without formal academic education, and several manual labourers were engaged in research and experimentation in forest conservation and so-called 'analog forestry', as well as in tea cultivation. A number of Sri Lankan and foreign academics had been associated with NSRC during their research projects in the Uva basin. NSRC sponsored a youth group in its village, the Young Conservationists, who attempted to undertake annual tree planting campaigns and met for weekly nature education sessions. As the upper hills of

Mirahawatte were the sites of tree plantations, the villagers and especially the Young

Conservationists had become highly critical of the problematic effects of pinus and eucalyptus on their water and soils. The setting of the centre seemed to come close to meeting

6 my expectations for ecologically oriented action research. Yet, through my experiences at

NSRC I came to recognize the limitations of my approach.

My co-researcher and companion, our little son and I rented a house in a neighbouring village, Kitulwatte, after a long and difficult search. Housing is very scarce in the area, especially if one requires a nearby and easily accessible water source. Kitulwatte had the added attraction of being situated under a vast expanse of tree plantations. However, in those initial months I had fairly little interest in Kitulwatte itself.

At NSRC my friendship with one of the resident naturalists grew from my initiation into the features and lore of Uva basin ecology into an ongoing and lasting, if often controversial, dialogue, a source of learning I greatly appreciated. During the first weeks of my stay we spent many hours walking in the herbarium of the centre, in its 'analog forest' and in the hills, talking about natural succession, land degradation, the watershed functions of forests, homegardens, and the problems of generating livelihoods in an ecologically sound way.

I began to grasp, that at NSRC forests were viewed as the ultimate state of nature and as the point of reference for the evaluation of all human landuse activity. The argument was both historical and functionalistic. Forests were identified as the 'original' vegetation of the Uva basin and the hill-country in general. The original state refers to a time without 'human interference'. Forests were perceived as the final developmental stage of biotic succession, the stable climax community, and therefore as the most fecund sources of biomass, oxygen and water. In this perspective, neither Sri Lanka's diverse natural systems, nor the human socio-cultural systems, based on irrigated paddy cultivation, would have emerged without the existence of forests. The destruction of a natural forest cover in

7 the Uva basin was attributed to human agricultural activities, both prehistoric and colonial. The establishment and subsequent abandonment of tea plantations by British planters was seen as the main cause for the replacement of forests by patana grasslands. The patanas were classified as an inferior form of landuse. Considerable scorn was directed at the farmers' practices of grazing and firing, which would prevent 'natural' or human efforts at regeneration of tree cover (Everett 1989:3-4; NSRC 1991:2; Senanayake

1987:25-26; Meyer 1989:19-20). Thus, NSRC was committed to the protection and regeneration of the remaining forest cover through research, afforestation, and the attempt to create a wildlife sanctuary in the forest fragments surrounding the research station.

However, it was realized that human actors were an inevitable feature of the landscape. In order to check human destructive landuse, systems modelled on the forest would have to be promoted as an alternative to vegetable cultivation, tea estates and tree plantations. The researchers viewed the 'traditional' homegardens of the villagers as an

'analog' to forests, because both were considered to share structural and functional features. The scientific management of these 'traditional' models would be the basis for an ecologically and economically viable alternative to conventional landuse (Senanayake

1987; 1989; Everett 1987; 1989; Palihawadana 1992a).

It was suggested by the team at NSRC that my participation in the centre was contingent upon making a practical contribution to further the goals of the centre in accordance with these theoretical assumptions. I was to revive a so far failed and temporarily abandoned project of afforesting the grasslands surrounding a small forest fragment located right above NSRC, a micro-watershed feeding into some of NSRC's wells. The grazing of cattle by surrounding farmers, which prevented the growth of newly planted or self-

8 germinated tree seedlings, was stated by NSRC members as a reason for the so far unsuc- cessful project. By means of an action research approach I would involve these farmers in the project and motivate them to shift their interest from grazing to watershed protection, possibly by introducing tree species, which were assumed to be of economic use to farmers.

In pondering these newly acquired fragments of information and responsibilities, dissonances emerged as I became sensitized to a fundamental streak of misanthropy which pervaded the work and thinking at NSRC. By making the natural forest the point of reference of their analyses and evaluations, the ecologists perceived human actors inevitably as external invaders of the integrated, harmonious and benevolent world of the forest.

Human landuse a priori implied disturbance. In her discussion of the prevalence of socio- economic decision making over natural succession in the determination of species composition in 'village forests' (i.e. homegardens), Everett remarks:

Depending on one's perspective, this period of human inhabitance of the site might just be a blip in time of human biotic dominance over vegetation which would re- cede if people were removed. (Everett 1987:70)

The staff at NSRC were entangled in an ongoing battle of words, threats and court cases with one of its neighbours, a squatter who encroached upon the estate's land to make use of resources which to him looked left idle. Relations with the nearest neighbours were generally unfavourable and marred by social distancing and a mutual lack of understanding. The farmers in the valley thus referred to the research station not as a scientific institution associated with conservation, but simply as "Ranil Mahattaya's tea estate". Mahattaya is a deferential term of address, conventionally translated as 'gentleman'.

A closer rendition might be 'one of great status', typically a landlord, an educated,

9 wealthy or politically well-connected person. The owner of the tea estate and director of the research station embodied all of these role descriptions. To people at NSRC, who were identified with the conservation of the forest, encroachment on their territory, whether on their director's property or on land where they undertook conservation projects, was an insult and threat to their very identity. Only a visiting Australian Ph.D. student had actually crossed the line and inquired into the living and working conditions of the valley's farmers. The farmers readily acknowledged this distinction with a sense of appreciation. The scholar was, however, caught in a tangle of conflicts, which left him vulnerable to manipulation by the interested parties.

I was maneuvering myself into an untenable situation. As a total stranger, barely familiar with people's language, culture, landuse practices and with the local ecosystem in general, I was expecting to engage in 'action research' with suspicious farmers whom I was to turn into conservationists. They were to follow the directives of an ideology they had had no share in formulating and which ran counter to their livelihood strategies. Sev- eral questions arose: How did farmers derive livelihoods from their use of the land? What were the significant components of the landscape and how had they evolved historically?

Who else besides farmers was using the land for what purposes? What were the ecological and social effects of the interactions between human beings, with their specific social relations and landuse practices, on one hand, and non-human actors and phenomena on the other? Were patanas an inferior and degraded form of land? What was the extent of natural forests in the area? What were the meanings of the forest and the patanas in the farmers' perspective?

10 The fundamental divide between the farmers and the conservationists galvanized my sense of the presumption involved in my theoretical and methodological approach. I was caught in a net of preconceptions, which I sensed would entangle me in the same distrust- ful and conflictual relationships with the farmers, as the members of NSRC. I would be committed to an ecological ideology, which, by identifying itself with an idealised image of the forest, was ignoring the historically grown socio-ecological realities of the landscape and its participants.

The early British travellers to the Uva basin, Knox and Davy, had described the basin as a grassland formation interspersed with small forest fragments in sheltered locations

(Knox [1681] 1989:10,12; Davy [1821] 1983:301,302,309,343). This pattern could still be discerned in the immediate surroundings of NSRC, although the transformation of patanas into tree plantations prevents the observer from readily grasping the significance of the grasslands in the local ecological system.

The fixation of the NSRC ecologists on 'analog forestry' and homegardens as the next best thing to forests, isolated one component of the multiple landuse practices of local farmers. A selective image of 'traditional knowledge' was constructed from inquiring into farmers' understanding of the evolution and management of their homegardens (Everett

1989). NSRC went as far as claiming that a family of six was able to prosper on one and a quarter acre of homegarden 'analog' (Lokuge 1991). No one at NSRC had, however, successfully maintained a family of six on one and a quarter acre of homegarden over any length of time. No research into the marketability of homegarden crops and their capacity to support people at current price levels and standards of living had been undertaken. No one knew in any systematic way, how people generated livelihoods within prevalent

11 forms of landuse and socio-economic conditions. Accordingly, it was unknown that most farmers did not own or control one and a quarter acre of highland, not to speak of paddy land. The fusion of an idealised image of the ecologically sound knowledge and practices of the pre-colonial Sinhalese, or whatever remnants thereof could be discerned in contemporary practices, with an eco-scientifically improved management model, all of which was to culminate in a 'neo-synthesis', rendered NSRC sociologically unsophisticated, as well as insensitive to the conditions under which farmers pieced together their livelihoods. On the contrary, those who failed to conform to the selective idealisation of tradition were treated with often unconcealed contempt.

Moreover, I had to realise that despite talk of an ecological resource crisis, no social movement had emerged among the people affected. The only group engaging in what looked like social movement activities, was the Young Conservationists. I learned, however, that the group's finances, activities and worldview were tightly controlled by the professionalised environmentalists at NSRC. The leader of the youth group was one of the resident-naturalists who had come to NSRC from the semi-rural suburbs of Colombo.

In his weekly lectures and field trips he merged naturalist exploration with ecological functionalism and Sinhalese nationalist political ideology. In a deeply fundamentalist and resentful perspective, the threat to Sri Lanka's natural heritage intertwined with the threat to the traditions of the Sinhala peasant people. Tamils, the British colonisers and modern- ization in the image of the West were defensively construed a as a menace to cultural and ecological integrity. The radicalism of his lectures was of great concern to the American forestry student who competed with the youth leader for the direction of the group. Signi- ficantly, the influence of their teachings on the Young Conservationists' parents was neg-

12 ligible, as these continued to cultivate in their conventional ways. They viewed their children's involvements at NSRC as an opportunity for play, rather than as a serious source of new directions in landuse.

Participatory action research in this setting seemed an unlikely proposition. I would be subject to social dynamics in whose perpetuation I wanted no stake. I was no longer able to give my unqualified support to the ideology of the preeminence of the forest as the highest form of ecological integration, of the salience of social movements as a response to ecological crisis, and of the appropriateness of participatory action research as a mode of academic involvement. Both the knowledge and the action I had encountered at NSRC were deficient. Rather than promoting NSRC's cause, I needed to learn about the socio- ecological system in which I was living. Knowledge needed to take precedence over intervention. It seemed to me that activism would have to be based on a sound understanding of the people and the landscape and on rapport between the farmers and myself.

Knowledge and rapport can only be earned in a patient and unprejudiced encounter.

I needed to start afresh. During our third month in the field we took a distinct turn onto different trails and into a different mode of doing research. We started to focus our attention on the realities of the place we were living in. The socio-ecological transformation of a community was happening right at our doorstep. We had finally arrived in Kitulwatte.

A fieldnote from our first walk in Kitulwatte characterises these new beginnings, the manner in which we would continue to work during the entire period of our residence in the village, and the situations we would encounter.

We take a sharp right turn at the kade corner, where the Oya flows around the bend and crosses Welimada Road, and follow a steep path up into homegardens, forest remnants and secondary forest growth. The area is densely populated by families

13 living in moda gadol [a sun-baked brick made from local soil materials; literally 'stupid brick'] houses surrounded by trees and small vegetable plots. Electricity seems to be available. Some youths who blast Hindi and Sinhala pop music curiously study our peculiar team: a suddha [white], a Sinhalese women and a little baby on the man's back in a carry-pack. Many smaller paths branch off from the main thoroughfare into the homesteads up and downhill. Occasionally the view is free all the way up to the pinus trees crowning the hilltops in utter sameness, and convey- ing the image of a fake Black Forest. We halt at the site of a dry well shadowed by a beautiful tall bamboo patch. Close by, a new well is under construction and contains murky water. To the right a fairly large primary forest fragment stretches uphill. From it flows a steady trickle of water diverted into a bamboo pilla [spout] under which an aluminum kale [pot] collects drinking water for someone not in sight. The forest seems fairly thick and moist. Leeches threaten to creep up our legs at our tacit approach. Below we observe paddy fields and a small patch of tomatoes cree- ping up pine sticks.

We are greeted by an old woman, some young people in their twenties and a boy. They live in the houses behind the wells and the bamboo. They tell us that the forest extends more than a mile up the hill and used to have a gushing little stream before the pinus was planted. The paddy fields which are irrigated by the remaining water flow belong to five families living in the houses along the opposite side of the fields. The old woman asks us to return and visit her house.

We continue to walk uphill until we reach the edge of the pines. We walk through strange mixes of grassland, forest trees (I recognise damba), and homegarden utility trees (mango, erythrina, jak and gliricidia) under which bubbles a thick undergrowth. As soon as we reach the pines the scene changes drastically. The pine trees line up like a disorderly bunch of wobbly soldiers. The windspeed increases. Pine needles and pebbles cover the ground; no undergrowth is noticable. Deep grooves in the soil show the traces of water and silt run-off, resulting from the gushing rains as they hit the unprotected ground. The trees' curved stems are caused by the lack of firm root support in the ground. They are actually moving slowly downhill. They are pulp and paper candidates. Yet, village people seem to find all kinds of other uses, illegal of course, since these trees are government property. A man walks by, carrying an axe and a tree; branches and needles are lopped. It goes to feed the fire. Walking in the pinus plantations is difficult. I slip on the needles, which spread like a carpet under my feet.

Finally we reach a crossroad under a bo-tree, which has been elaborated into a wayside shrine to the Buddha. It is flanked by two more old forest trees. Otherwise the paths into various directions are lined by pinus. The next wood lot starts just across on the next hill. From the shrine we look down to the river. Paddy and vegetable fields sprawl along the Oya.

14 The process of gaining knowledge by means of participation in a setting is always experiential. Participant observation hinges on this very circumstance. The researcher gains an understanding by exposing her/himself to the experiences of the field. More traditional practitioners do not reflect explicitly on the interactive nature of the research encounter.

Exposure serves as a means of perception and collection of external data. The researcher as a social actor remains invisible. However, research communications are a dialogue and the experiences in the field impact the researcher's body, feelings and rationalizations.

The researcher is socialized by the encounter and his/her presence makes a difference to the process to which s/he is a participant. Experiential analysis, suggests Shulamit Rein- harz, should make this dimension explicit and turn it into an analytical tool (Reinharz

1979:241,256f.). The explication of the process of learning and of the knower's experience renders his/her knowledge claims more accessible to discourse and evaluation, and thus ultimately more credible (Reinharz 1979:248). In experiential analysis conviction and certainty of knowledge derive "from the irrefutability of the researcher's having lived through whatever is being studied" (Reinharz 1979:362). At this level of reflection the researcher comes close to the world of experience of the social actors of concern. Their knowledge and experience, which is her/his subject of inquiry, can be appreciated because the experience matters to her/him existentially.

Nevertheless, I suggest that it is important to remain aware of two factors: the non- identity of the researcher and the subjects and the need to retain a capacity for criticism of the very people with whom the researcher has risked involvement and identification. The first problem is recognized by Reinharz:

15 I will never know the experience of others, but I can know my own, and I can approximate theirs by entering their world. This approximation marks the tragic, per- petually inadequate aspect of social research. (Reinharz 1979:365)

As a way out she proposes that a combination of self- and other-awareness may provide the closest insight possible (Reinharz 1979:366). While I follow her in this suggestion, I would go further by proposing that the tension between the subjects' existential dependence on the situation under study and the researcher's capacity to move in and out is the basis for her/his ability to be critical, rather than to 'go native'.

I can have no illusions about becoming an insider to the field of inquiry. Rather, I need to include the analysis of my role as the outsider in my reflection of the experience. Parti- cipant observation in my mind denotes participation as a sociologist who observes and communicates in the field. Obviously, there are varying degrees of immersion, depending on the circumstances. In some cases a researcher may learn to behave as a farmer and derive valuable insights from this experience. S/he still lacks complete existential dependence and open-ended participation.

I was prevented from becoming a temporary farmer by the attitudes of the community, our perceived needs as a family, and by the limited availability of housing. Once they knew that I took their concerns seriously, the villagers in Kitulwatte wanted me in the role of the social scientist to whom they could tell their story. My attempts at doing agricultural work alongside the farmers or to participate in events of communal labour dona- tion, so-called shramadanas, were met by villagers with amused resistance and evasion.

They considered it inappropriate that a person such as myself should doing 'their' manual labour.

16 I maintained this social distance by living on the middle-class margins of the community, in the comfort of holiday bungalows with supposedly safe water supplies. We chose these residences for lack of alternatives in an area with an acute shortage of housing. We also assumed that our one and a half year old son required reliable and safe water. Fur- thermore, we reasoned that certain conveniences would save us time better spent doing research. These expectations would not quite be fulfilled. By living in these particular circumstances I nevertheless had experiences which are of analytical interest. Foremost, I learned from a privileged position to understand the meaning of coping with water shortages and contamination. We were not spared from the effects. I also learned about the meaning and structure of status relationships by failing to connect proper status signi- fications with my role in the village. As status entered my horizon, I learnt to accept and surrendered, although it violated my worldview.

We related to the people and landscape of Kitulwatte from different levels of closeness and distance. We moved between different perspectives, socially as well as spatially. We avoided being identified with the interests and perspectives of the villagers. Thereby we retained the capacity to view them not only as victims of ecological damage, but as participants to a process in which human actors are compelled to simultaneously cause damage and to suffer its consequences. The contradiction between capitalist production and production in nature is literally embodied by each person, each household and each organisation active in the landscape. As social systems are stratified and power is unequally distributed, the extent to which different groups of actors are victims and perpetrators varies. Learning to understand how we all participate in the making of ecological crises, required me to be critical towards all participants.

17 As we focussed on the relationship between human actors and the landscape, we developed a research method we came to term 'walk and talk'. Throughout our entire period of residence in the research area we continued to walk through the landscape to observe its features and the activities of people and other creatures. On our walks we met people as they went about their work in the various components of the landscape and here we talked. Our observations thus became connected with the meanings people gave to their experiences. Some took us to their houses where they generously treated us to cups of notoriously sugary tea and oftentimes to hearty meals. We were obliged to satisfy their curiosity about our unlikely research team. Our curiosity sparked off long conversations about topics of common interest: their experiences and worries in generating livelihoods.

H.R. Bernard has classified communication and observation during a research process in neatly delineated categories as informal, unstructured, semi-structured and structured interviews, as well as unobtrusive and direct, reactive observation (Bernard 1988:204-

205,225f.,271f.,290f.). In our research all of these 'techniques' emerged as we developed relationships with our acquaintences and with the landscape in Kitulwatte, and as our understanding of the subject matter unfolded. From cautious but curious, if unsure initial encounters between villagers and ourselves evolved relationships at various levels of closeness. From an open-minded exploration of our field evolved analytic themes and eventually structure. We moved from a keen but undifferentiated appreciation of the local landscape, to an intimate knowledge of many of its constituent parts and their dynamic interactions. We were careful, however, to hold on to some of the freshness of an encounter of people and the landscape with a 'beginner's mind', so as not to miss what may be hidden by the structure we and our partners in conversation had constructed already.

18 In the beginner's mind there are many possibilites, but in the expert's there are few. (Suzuki 1972:17)

The data gathering process was a collaborative effort between Nireka Weeratunge and myself. Nireka is Sri Lankan and speaks both Sinhalese and English. As an anthropology graduate student she studied the effects of socio-ecological change on the livelihoods of women.2 Our one and a half year old son accompanied us on all our walks. As a three- some we were difficult to place at first sight. Tourists do not usually bother to walk in the valley, although some may visit the spice factory on Welimada Road. Development workers do not carry their children into the village and most do not ever stray from the main roads. Despite our unlikely appearance, some people suspected us to be from the agricultural extension service due to the nature of the questions we asked. This assumption led some to impress upon us their great need for government support. Thus, we learned to identify ourselves as academic researchers from the outset. There had been a few academics conducting research in the village, a German forestry student, who surveyed forest fragments in the Uva basin (Meyer 1989) and two Dutch household science students who studied the spice factory workers (Struik & Struik 1987). To most villagers interaction with researchers was a novelty. As a result, we were not easily categorised.

We needed to diffuse attempts to attach familiar labels and expectations to us, and had to confront ambivalent feelings about 'race'. Once people in the village were able to identify us with our proper role as researchers, our relations were on the whole open and friendly.

Our son was a crucial player in the encounter. The people we met almost invariably were terribly curious about the sudhu baba [white baby] and were eager to touch and carry him. Sri Lankans struck me as being generally very excited about children. As the child of a 'native' and a foreigner Chendru was a topic of great interest and conversation 19 was effortlessly underway. Nireka's fluency in Sinhalese, her familiarity with the nuances of Sinhalese culture and her training as a social scientist were invaluable skills. She was able to translate not only between two languages but also between the culture of the village and the culture of anthropology/sociology. Among the villagers she was treated as a nona [lady] from the big city, who was of higher educational and class status. As closeness grew between us and some families, she was addressed as akka [older sister] by the younger generation women or as duva [daughter] by older people. She addressed these people as nangi [younger sister] and siya [grandfather] and achchi [grandmother]. Refe- rence between non-kin in kinship terms indicates closeness and affection.

One of the lessons I learned in Kitulwatte aimed directly at teaching me my proper role and thereby socialized me as a researcher. I came to accept the distinctness of the roles and identities and the complex structure of meanings attached to status, which govern local human relations and which people in Kitulwatte never let me forget. The structure of status relations was entirely at variance with my preconceptions of diffuse indi- vidualism combined with an egalitarian and cooperative ethos. Before people came to understand the purpose of our presence I was at times initially referred to as a suddha

[white], which has a fairly derogatory meaning signifying at the same time astonishment and resentment. Small children love to chase after the cars of white tourists and hurl out the insult with a convincing ring of spite. In such first encounters, the term fuses surprise at an unusual presence with a keen awareness of a white person's privilege. Such encounters hurt, since I believed that given my intentions to meet people as respected equals, I was entitled to a different treatment. My intentions, however, were neither obvious nor appropriate to the cultural setting.

20 Once I was associated with my proper task I became a suddhu mahattaya, and was directly addressed as mahattaya. This term reflects the ambivalent mix of respect and resentment which marks people's feelings in a hierarchical encounter, particularly as racial and ethnic dimensions come into play. The term stuck with me throughout our research in the village. My white skin and blond hair, origin in the West, my educational status and my gender in combination prevented a show of closeness. Some young people would refer to me as aiya [older brother] when talking to Nireka about me, but never in direct speech. Although our encounters were generally sincere, the lines drawn by status were never crossed. I clearly remained the suddhu mahattaya from the university in America, and the villagers remained the villagers. Despite my ignorant and clumsy attempts at creating more egalitarian familiarity over the months of my research, by for example suggesting to address each other by first names, the people in Kitulwatte successfully resist- ed the breaches of respectful and proper relationships. Among the few people who spoke

English some settled for calling me "Mister Ralf". Afterall, my status and thereby theirs were at stake.

Not calling you mahattaya, is bad for our status [thatwaya] and for the village. Im- proper address is against the ways of the village where we make a distinction, a small one, between learned people who wear pants and farmers in sarongs [local male attire]. (Gunasekera, fieldnotes)

Our visits to people's fields and houses and our interest in their lives made them important in the eyes of their fellow villagers, a circumstance which helped us to sustain our often trying queries into their realities.

We, the researchers, and they, the villagers, had to find ways of negotiating closeness in an unfamiliar relationship. Some of our acquaintences expressed closeness by remark- ing on how our research relationship had brought us together. We knew people now so 21 well that we were "like friends" and "like family". 'Friends' and 'family' remained metaphors, as we did not get to share most of the intimacies which are the fabric of such relationships. Our research focussed on other themes. Furthermore, although we were asked about our lives as well and never hesitated to answer, we learned incomparably more about the research subjects, which left our relationship clearly lopsided. However, being

'like' what signifies closeness in local terms, as elsewhere, was a way of expressing connectedness for those who had experienced the research encounter as important. Yet, people also expressed surprise, that we should be able to know about significant parts of their lives so much and so systematically. Strangers are not usually let in that much.

But then, strangeness remained, as we felt that there was always a good deal of guar- dedness which defended the good standing of our interviewees. Yet, this defence is at work with just about everyone. There are levels of distancing and intimacy at which specific relationships can be placed. Thus, with some we grew to be closer, while others kept us at a safer distance. I hope that the unusual encounter with the researchers did not leave people with a feeling of discomfort or vulnerability. I think that in those instances were people did open themselves to us considerably, the mutual sense of sincerity was apparent to all participants. Since I experienced the villagers generally as skillful managers of their standing and appearances, I trust that no one went beyond what they were willing to share.

I learned to establish rapport and closeness not despite but through the maintenance of proper status difference. My ability to do research in the community depended on remaining a distinct anomaly. In fact, I finally started to acquire an identity as a social researcher. I surrendered to my role which was constructed in the encounter between the subjects

22 and myself. I was by now a far cry from being an activist researcher. I simply learned to ask questions, to listen and to observe.

We talked about whatever activities people were engaged in as we met: harvesting, fetching water, watering crops, cutting firewood and the like. Both our questions and the people's own sense of relevance of a topic determined the drift of a conversation. We were eager to hear anything they found worth talking about and encouraged exploring topics of personal interest. On repeat visits we referred to themes which had already been discussed, asked for clarification of unresolved issues and moved to the discussion of new material. Meeting at the sites of particular activities provided a context of immediate relevance for our conversations.

Our relaxed and informal approach put people at ease. We avoided 'talking down' or showing off our knowledge or status. We were aware of the fact that we were doing the learning. People taught us the names and characteristics of the plant and animal species in their ecosystem, they taught us their understanding of how this ecosystem worked and how they lived and made use of their world. Cameras, notepads, tape recorders and other such devises which overtly record people's communications and activities were avoided, unless we had established closer relations with particular actors. Usually we postponed recording data until we returned to our home. Our informal style enabled people to express themselves in a familiar idiom and helped us to avoid being categorised as government or development officials, which would base our relationships on entirely different terms. Signs of officialdom would turn people into recipients of services and benefits, and into inferiors. The question of what benefits could be derived from our presence was always in the air. Some people were initially disappointed about not receiving advice

23 about new techniques in agriculture. Some expected to receive financial handouts, a practice politicians in particular seemed to find expedient. We offered an opportunity to talk.

Our informality did, however, not imply an unsystematic approach. Throughout the research process systematisation was generated in the communication between us and the villagers, as well as from the reflections between Nireka and myself. The social and spatial distance of the houses we occupied in Kitulwatte allowed Nireka and me to retreat from the encounters with villagers into the privacy of our family-life and of our study- room. Here we were undisturbed to write our fieldnotes and together reflected on our experiences in an ongoing flow of discussion. The movement between this reflective privacy and the public sphere of 'the field' was of great value in developing and refining our work. In time the interlacing of these two spheres of discourse produced significant themes, our questions became more refined and new topics opened up. Eventually, structure or the matrix of relationships which comprises the social-ecology of Kitulwatte would take shape.

Many of our interviewees asked questions from us as well. They wanted to know what crops were grown in Germany and the United States, what tools were being used, what climatic conditions prevailed, and how difficult it was to make a living as a farmer in the

West. Information about employment opportunities was of particular interest to young men.

I also took many solitary walks through Kitulwatte valley on which I went to more distant places and was mostly absorbed in observation. My limited knowledge of Sinha- lese restricted my ability to talk with people. This limitation was, however, useful as I emphasized seeing, hearing, smelling and touching what was going on in the landscape

24 and was not influenced by immediate verbal interpretation. Although speech figured decisively in our learning, it was rewarding to return to straight observation and to simply being a 'saunterer' in the landscape (Thoreau 1979). Here I was able to experience and re- experience in light of my persistently accumulating understanding. This continous back and forth between verbal and sensual understanding provided a wholeness and a conviction which were based on my bodily presence. Knowing became indeed existential as well as discursive.

My research involved me with all my senses. Eyes and ears were the most active as I observed and communicated. My tactile senses felt the air and the soil, and thus gauged differences in moisture and dryness in different eco-systems, such as pinus and natural forests, and through the varying seasons. My sense of taste became accustomed to the food stuffs and food culture of the Uva. I smelled the spices while being cooked in the curry pots and the cowdung as it rots with kitchen garbage and leaf matter. I was nourished by the very place I lived in. I drank its water, ate its rice, vegetables, fruits and meats: jak, tea, mango, kitul, tomato, cherimo, collard green, guava, mutton, and ratu ke- kulu [red rice]. This sensuality of experience tunes the mind within the body. When doing sociology I am making sense of what I hear, see, smell, feel and taste. I am in and of nature.

Spatial perspective and timing were crucial in many respects. The quality of our knowledge is dependent on where we go to look, hear and talk, and how much time we spend. Close knowledge demands that we are willing to surrender to the field's patterns of space and flow of time. As Robert Chambers has observed, development workers tend to hesitate to leave their four-wheel-drive vehicles and the 'safety', convenience and limita-

25 tions of the tarmac roads, and fail to take time to get acquainted with people and landscapes (Chambers 1991; 1983). They may never experience the radical differences caused by seasonal change. They consequently see, hear and know very little of the actual sites where their projects operate. Chambers has thus come a long way from hasty con- sultancies, through "rapid rural appraisal" to finally proposing "relaxed and participatory rural appraisal" (Chambers 1991:8).

Curiosity and basic research, rather than management and engineering, motivated my approach. I feel kinship with a scientific tradition which generates knowledge by patient and unobtrusive observation in habitats. Anthropologist Fredrik Barth has modelled his method of socio-cultural inquiry on the approach of the wondering interpretive naturalist in the Darwinian tradition.

His strategy was to focus on small parts of the picture, closely observed and reveal- ingly interpreted. ... He looked for generalizable features in the particular situation which might give cumulative direction to small increments of change. (Barth 1987:24)

Understanding is based on the experience of observing nature in process, while doing its thing, including human actors. The attitudes and habits valued in interpretive naturalism are "being absorbed", "patience and persistence", having "the time and inclination to build up an intimate acquaintance", "devotion" and "determination" (Roth 1984:xi-xii).

Central to this effort is the development of perceptual skills, of the ability to 'see'. This skill involves the entire body, the mind and senses, a person's presence in a habitat to be explored and known. A landscape, which to the unsensitized passer-by may be a undifferentiated green tunnel, may unfold as a richly differentiated ensemble of myriads of interactive participants, of colors, shapes, actions, patterns (Roth 1984:2-5).

26 By walking I experienced Kitulwatte from many viewpoints. Being in the upper hills afforded sights which remained hidden from the valley floor. There were forests, springs, cultivated fields, and water courses, and their changes over the cycles of the seasons, which would be invisible if not for my repeated visits. The stark and eery feeling of the pinus plantations, their barrenness, erosion and slippery needle mats needed to be experienced, to grasp the radical change which had been imposed on the patana hills. Our two places of residence provided us with two radically different perspectives in the landscape.

Our first domicile was located on the lower mid-slope in the northend of Kitulwatte, just above the valley-fields and right below the main road. We saw actors and events from close up. Contact with neighbours was rather immediate. Talking and fragmented details were more prevalent in this early phase of our research. When we moved to a tea estate in the southern part of the village, we were located higher up on the slope and were afforded a magnificent view of the entire valley. From our lookout we observed the cultivation activities in the valley, the homegarden belt and the upper hills simultanously and were able to see the details within the larger pattern. The landscape was laid out in front of our eyes like an odd quilt.

I also walked with several of my closest male informants. We took long hikes into the upper hills, where I was shown what people had talked about when they described the problematic changes in their lives. Some of these hikes were initiated by my acquaintences:

Talking is not enough. You have to see things. Come back to go for a walk up in the hills. (Lokubanda, fieldnotes)

Seeing was believing in a rather direct and unequivical sense. I was to be presented with evidence. At the same time, my sincerity was tested. By walking and seeing for myself, 27 their stories would gain credibility and I was to come to know for sure. These villagers had talked to government officials about the pinus problem and their claims had been brushed aside as naive and unscientific. Foresters wanted to maintain a belief in the benefits of the plantations and politicians insisted on the benefits of their measures for their constituencies. They did not join the farmers to 'go and see for themselves'. Although these mahattayas had not respected their knowledge, the villagers who experienced their landscape every day held on to their knowledge with conviction. They kept this knowledge among themselves in the face of the futility of trying to be heard by the relevant authorities. Since I wanted to understand their side of the story, they took me to the source of their knowledge, the landscape.

As a result of my surrender to the field, local concerns and categories determined the central theme and the conceptual framework of my study. An inquiry into the social ecology of the water crisis in Kitulwatte is my response to what the villagers indicated as their most pressing problem. On our very first walk we were told about the decline in water yield of the forest streams. Meeting people in their paddy fields, they first complained to us about insufficient supplies or a complete lack water in their stream-fed irrigation systems. If they owned kerosine pumps, they complained about the new costs and physical effort that had become necessary in obtaining, maintaining and handling this form of irrigation. Users of the local water supply scheme remarked upon the lack of reliability and limited availability of supplies. Women procuring household water from wells and spouts complained about the declining yields or drying up of sources, and the need to walk further in search for water. Yet, my final catch moved the analysis of my data far beyond the local discourse. Investigation into the causes of the water crisis revealed a

28 multifaceted and complex process of change, which defies mono-causal explanations and blame of one particular set of actors.

During the research process we experienced a decisive shift in our category framework. We had entered the field with the categories of social science in mind. My early fieldnote entries were organised in a bureaucratic fashion, classifying observations and information under neat headings, such as property relations, tool use, crops, gender etc.

Everything was immediately pigeon-holded. I found this procedure both cumbersome and somehow untrue to the way people spoke of their activities. I was already fragmenting what was presenting itself as a whole, a process, a matrix of relations and actions. People were using a different categorical grid, which was spatial, not abstract analytical: the components of the landscape and the spatial situatedness of the activities which produced their livelihoods or interefered with this pursuit. Villagers used the following categories: mada [muddy land, irrigated fields], goda [highland], kande uda [upper hills and side valleys], kaele [forest], patana [grassland], gedera [house], (ge)-watte [(home or house) garden], kumbura [paddy field], elavalu kotuva [vegetable plot], hena or chena [slash-and- burn cultivation], tewatte [small tea estate, homegarden tea], pinus [pinus plantations]. In the context of these designations the various aspects of activity were narrated. The gain of livelihoods is still to a large part dependent on agricultural landuse. Speaking in terms of the land and people's work in distinct places was primary.

We accepted these local categories. I started to record fieldnotes in the flow of my movement through these spaces over time. While doing this, a new categorical system emerged, which embedded the concerns of social scientists within the local designations of experience. Nireka Weeratunge and I termed our new framework the livelihood sys-

29 tem, which is comprised of distinct components, i.e. spaces in which a specific structure of interaction among resident species, including human activities, can be discerned.3 This systematic concept is derived from the communication between social science and local knowledge. We consider this approach to be consistent with the local way of speaking and with our observations in the 'field'.

There was some imprecision in the local spatial categories. Most often the fields in the mada were referred to as kumbura, and the fields in the hills (kande uda) as elavalu kotu, which made sense historically, as there was a spatial separation between the two crops.

However, some families have been cultivating paddy in the hill-fields for over 100 years and vegetables were introduced in the paddy fields of the main valley in the mid-twen- tieth century. Goda is too inclusive a term and has to be differentiated. Chena proper is not practiced any longer and we subsumed whatever older people called their hena under the hill-fields.

To achieve conceptual clarity the following livelihood system components were constructed: patana grasslands in the mid to upper slopes and hills; forest fragments occuring in sheltered locations along water courses and merging with homegardens on the mid- and lower slopes; tree plantations comprising predominantly of pinus species and to a lesser degree of eucalyptus species, planted on patana; hill-fields on patana and forest land cultivated permanently with paddy and vegetables; homesteads comprising of a house and various kinds of surrounding homegardens, including annual vegetable and perennial tree species; tea estates on the mid and lower slopes, including houses, gardens and other livelihood activities operating inside the estates; valley-fields including both

30 paddy and vegetable cultivation on the floor and the lower to mid-slopes of the main valley along Kitulwatte Oya.

Each component of the system provides a scenario in which the interactions among the different human participants, local and beyond, and between these human actors and other non-human participants can be discerned. I assume that all actors have a livelihood or self-maintenance seeking interest in the system, and I am cognizant of their dependence on the presence and activity of other system participants. This activity significantly includes such abiotic phenomena as water and fire. The use of a human centred local category system is justified on grounds that social ecology focusses on the interface of nature and society, that only human actors are able to communicate their local categories to human observers, and that human actors are disproportionately powerful, by comparison to most other system participants of an eco-system, in shaping the properties of the system. A systematic framework based on the categories and practices of local actors enables me to show how non-resident landusers enter into a system of interactive components, which are linked by among others the local human landusers, rather than into a random assem- blage of discrete spaces. However, although local users may be aware of such linkages, they themselves contribute to the fragmentation of system components as their livelihood strategies are transformed by changing economic incentives and pressures.

The concept of the livelihood system is an analytic expression of how the interface between nature and society works in practice. The livelihood seeking activities of human actors relate individuals, households, families, hamlets, the village and other non-resident groups of actors, such as state organisations and private enterprises, to various components of the landscape. By emphasising livelihood seeking activities, social ecology

31 can integrate analysis of ecological relations (biomass flow, water flow) with social analysis. We can grasp, how the activities of human actors organized in social institutions, such as households or enterprises, are intimately linked to the participation of other species and phenomena.

The delineation of a livelihood system in terms of local spatial categories proved to be incomplete, though, because people in Kitulwatte earn income from non-agricultural occupations as well. Some of the various types of wage labour and self-employment are not situated within the local ecosystem and relate people to their location of activity through the cash nexus. Relationships to space are therefore more variable or indeterminate. If these income generating activities are located outside Kitulwatte, they cause villagers to travel anywhere from nearby Bandarawela town to the oil-producing countries of West

Asia. Nevertheless, non-agricultural income activities are linked to other livelihood system components in multiple ways, for example as a source of cash inflow, and by consuming locally produced resources such as water or human labour power. In addition, income is derived from a number of social security benefits, such as pensions and food stamps.

In Kitulwatte households act as the smallest social unit which pools and shares resources, according to both our observations and the self-perception of the villagers. We designated the household as the basic unit of social analysis in the village. A household is defined as comprised of those individuals who share a house and a cooking stove. This division is not clear-cut, because members of some families may share some cooking and meals, as well as other resources, although they may live in different houses. Family

32 members living in different households also share land and its products, and they exchange labour. We only encountered kin, by blood or marriage, in households.

Deere and de Janvry have characterised a farming household as "both a unit of direct production and a unit of reproduction of familial labor power on both a daily and genera- tional basis" (Deere & de Janvry 1979:602). In Kitulwatte livelihoods are produced on the level of households by the contributions of household members. Contributions may be procured from activities in any of the livelihood system components outlined above. A household member would provide her/his household with labour, goods and/or monetary income and derive sustenance from all its members' activities. The specific composition of these activities and the composition of households vary over time.

Households in Kitulwatte generate livelihoods by their members' participation in multiple relations of production. They combine subsistence production with participation in markets through simple commodity production (Chevalier 1983:157,176f.), wage labour and trade. Labour is utilized both in waged and unwaged form. Within households the unwaged labour power of its members is the primary source of labour in cashcrop and subsistence production, as well as in reproductive tasks. Between households reciprocal labour exchange relations provide non-commoditized labour resources. Farmers also hire each other's labour. Communal labour efforts utilize unwaged labour for infra-structure measures. Household members sell their labour power to private entrepreneurs and the state. Tenancy relationships link households through the exchange of access to land for a produce or money rent. Households may cultivate both owned and sharecropped or rented land for both subsistence and cashcrops. Within households property ownership and the division of labour are structured by gender and age. An individual's position and

33 power in a household is also determined by the status and income s/he receives from non- agricultural occupations. This multiplicity of social relations is further complicated by caste relations and by the relationship of individuals and households to the state and the political structure, which act as mechanisms for the distribution of power and economic goods.

Pre-capitalist feudal relations have persisted among farm households. Households are, however, invariably dependent on capitalist commodity markets, where they sell their labour power and farm products, and purchase a proportion of their means of consumption and production. As I have shown in the previous chapter, in Sri Lanka the interaction between a dominant capitalist context and persistent non-capitalist relations resulted from a political and ideological process, which was concerned with 'the preservation of the peasantry' and the interests of various landowning strata. While 'peasants' were only partially 'proletarianised', smallholdership as well as various permutations of tenancy relationships and exchange labour have adjusted themselves to the contingencies of the market economy. Therefore, commoditized and non-commoditized relations are interdependent (Smith G. 1985:101; 1990:52), and farm households can only survive by drawing on the multiple locations and relations of production subsumed under the concept of the livelihood system.

The multiplicity of livelihood generating activities and social relations, and their fluid- ity over time make it difficult and not very meaningful to categorise and rank households or individuals in definite class positions on the basis of property relations or monetary income, as for example in Gunasinghe (1990), Silva (1979) and Morrison (1979). Status as a composite of multiple social positions (Moore 1985:223-224) may be the most ap-

34 propriate indicator of social stratification, especially since it is deeply ingrained in the consciousness of local social actors. Social analysis will have to cope with the complexity of status by investigating and discussing the composite nature of social relations in specific empirical cases. Unfortunately, this procedure leaves the analyst with a degree of uncertainty, as quantitative measurement and ranking, in for example monetary terms, is difficult and no convenient inference from the structural social position of actors to their interests or behaviour can be made.

Multiple occupations and class relations among farming households have been studied in other parts of the world (Collins 1988:8-20; Deere 1990:11,15,266; Smith G. 1990:52-

53;). The livelihood system concept locates these variable structural features within different components of ecological systems. In this perspective I can reconstruct how income generating activities among farm households and their various relations of production contribute to the transformation of the ecosystems in which they participate, and how in turn the interactive processes in ecosystems affect the production of livelihoods in these households.

Based on our knowledge gained from 'walking and talking', and on the concept of the livelihood system, we constructed a systematic interview schedule which aimed at what we perceived as a fairly inclusive view of our subject matter. So far we had pieced together an analytic and synthetic perspective from the many bits of information gathered from whomever we had met and became involved with at various levels of closeness.

Now we wanted to gain an in-depth insight into how specific households acted in the various components of the local livelihoods system. Since we had observed that each household pieced together livelihoods in a specific way which changed over time, we wanted

35 to study a limited set of households, which reflected a range of significant social characteristics by which the human actors of the village were differentiated. We reasoned that in this way we could test both the sensibility of our analysis so far, as well as the veracity of the information we had received. The interviews would show whether our generalisations and construction of socio-ecological linkeages would work and how they worked in the case of specific households.

Our household centred interview schedule dealt with each livelihood system component separately. It covered such aspects as resource use, tool use, property and labor relations, species participation, knowledge of the eco-system, water uses and problems, marketing, income and consumption. We probed into present and past practices and conditions. In addition, we inquired about the local udagama development project, religious practices and a few historically relevant points.

We decided to ask questions about the different aspects and components of the livelihood system from different household members. Within each household there was a flexible but distinct division of labor and realms (spaces) according to gender and age. Dif- ferent members' competence could thus be tapped. As we built a historical dimension into our interviews, we could learn from different generations about different time periods. In some cases, we linked two households, when close kin who cooperated in their livelihood activities, lived in separate houses. This approach would be realistic and expedient, because we anticipated that our extensive interviews would be too tiring and time consuming for a single person to deal with.

The sample of households we selected was small for a number of reasons. The interviews, as already indicated, were long as they covered a lot of ground. This circumstance

36 implied constraints of time and the need for rapport. Only people who had come to ap- preciate the sensibility of our project and trusted our sincerity would bother to put up with our prolonged inquisitiveness. We expected a higher degree of veracity from people we already knew well and for whom we could compare interview results with our fieldnotes. We sensed that the more formalised and official atmosphere of the encounter would change and possibly strain our relations with people, compared to the conversa- tional approach they had come to expect from us and which was more consistent with their own ways of communicating. Again, only rapport would sustain this change in style.

Rapport would restrict our selection of households to those we had become acquainted with fairly closely. However, we also decided to select households according to characteristics we considered significant and representative of the community, based on our field work knowledge.

H.R. Bernard classifies this approach as judgement sampling, a type of non- probability sampling. While this technique does not provide for high 'external validity', it is considered to generate credible data if intensive and comprehensive case studies are analysed in the context of a larger ethnographic data set (Bernard 1988:95,97). My research project is not an anthropological ethnography in the traditional sense of exhaus- tivly charting a 'strange culture'. I am interested in explaining a specific problem which the community presented to me, Kitulwatte's water crisis. Ethnographic information was collected to provide relevant knowledge towards this goal.

Out of the altogether 86 households we had been communicating with in Kitulwatte on varying levels of involvement, we chose to interview thirteen. Our selection included two households with whom we had not established sufficient rapport, since we needed to sat-

37 isfy our requirement of stratified representation. Consequently, we had to struggle to build ad hoc rapport as we encountered scepticism and resistance. Our sample included cultivators who did both paddy and vegetable cultivation, and those who had abandoned paddy cultivation. We selected people who owned and others who sharecropped or leased the fields they cultivated. We interviewed farmers who cultivated in the hill-fields only.

One household lived predominantly from the agricultural wage labor income of the female head of household. One of the tea estate owners was interviewed. We selected two related low caste households and two related Muslim households. Almost all of our households had members engaged in non-agricultural income activities. We selected for a wide range of age groups, from teenagers to the oldest members of the community, and the representation of different hamlets.

All interviews were personal face-to-face communications between the interviewees and ourselves. No outside interviewers were employed, as our effort depended on rapport. The interviews were structured by a fixed interview schedule, but open-ended. We gave all participants room to pursue issues of their particular interest and always asked them if we had covered all the significant points or whether they wished to speak about additional themes. We had to learn from our mistakes and improve our questions throughout the process. Most importantly, we learned to manage time. We had to break up the lengthy process and returned several times to cover the various sections of the interview. Due to its comprehensive nature, we estimate that we spent altogether between four and six hours with each household. Particularly motivated respondents took longer.

It was often difficult to find people or to meet them at a time when they were free, because they were, of course, busy with their livelihood activities. Talking about them-

38 selves was an unpaid expenditure of time and energy. Research does pull people away from making a living, a fact that should not be underestimated by the optimism of participatory research activism. In the case of one household this circumstance created visible distress between a politically active respondent, who was highly energized by our work, and his more than reluctant wife. We learned to weave our needs around people's schedules. This situation was in my mind not a reflection of reluctance to participate in our study. All households complied with our requests once we became more skilled in managing timing. One village elder went through the trouble of hiking through the valley in a monsoon downpour after dark to visit us and sit for the interview, because we had missed him twice in his home.

Mutual commitment between myself and the participants in our study developed on a level where I did not initially expect it. People were not so much concerned with using my presence for political action. They were interested in knowledge and appreciated me as a person in the business of knowledge. This did however not imply subservience. They knew that I needed their compliance to do my work and correctly thought of themselves as helping me in my pursuit of an advanced level of education. Some perceived me as someone who could tell their story in an institutional framework and through a communicative medium beyond their reach. Two of my closest acquaintences in Kitulwatte committed me to write about their central concerns in the socio-ecological transformations which affected their lives. The gamarala [farmers' representative] of Lower

Kitulwatte urged me to report on the farmers' experience of the loss of their water. The last buffalo herder, a 79 year old man, requested that, for the benefit of future generations and to instruct the government about the consequences of its action, I should write about

39 the disappearance of the patanas and the buffaloes, which to him were the foundation of a way of life. He was deeply concerned about the loss of righteousness in the human experience.

The two men had a clear sense of the purpose of a book, and that their existential worries mattered enough to warrant the writing of a book for a world where educational cre- dentials counted more than their talk. They also had a sense of appreciation for "good questions", which tapped the deeper layers of existence and its crisis. Issues of a comparative nature, which contrasted the contemporary situation with that of their youth seemed highly relevant. Of course, as anywhere, only the more reflective and sophisticated members of the community shared these meanings of their participation with us. Others won- dered why we should care about such 'trivial' things as what they did with their cowdung or where they planted their coffee trees. And yet, a 16 year old girl, who was a successful highschool student, convinced her harrassed and skeptical mother, a poor agricultural labourer who refused to be interviewed since we were not paying her for her time, to talk to us anyway, because to the girl education mattered and she had grasped that social scientists "needed" to find out about people's lives.

An unresolved problem with difficult ethical implications was our handling of direct or indirect requests for some form of payment, reward or favour in turn for our informants' compliance. In general we did not want to pay people, because we feared we would end up with information that was skewed by acquiring a commodity character. We wanted to talk to people to whom speaking about their problems mattered enough to motivate participation. We also worried that we would get deeply involved in the relations of competition and envy prevalent among the villagers. As we inevitably became social actors in

40 the research setting we were, however, unable to evade this troubling issue. In some way or other we engendered obligations or felt a desire to give. Our ways of giving were in the end inconsistent and somewhat arbitrary, which may be a reflection of the fact that our particular role in the village was 'out of place' and unfamiliar to all actors involved including ourselves. Learning how to give, being made to give, and in certain instances wanting to give taught us again about status, convention and our peculiar role as researchers.4

One way in which I was eager to reciprocate was to intervene on behalf of the villagers at the Forest Department, if an opening in the system would promise even a hint of success. When such an opening actually appeared my attempt at intervention failed. I will discuss this incidence in chapter seven.

While the households of Kitulwatte are the most visible human actors in the local ecosystem, they are not necessarily the most powerful. They are forced to share control and use of the landscape and its resources with human participants who are not residents of the village. Relationships among these different groups of actors comprise a network of power relations, within which conflicting needs and interests are negotiated persistently.

Marianne Schmink's and Charles Wood's characterisation of the general dynamics of resource conflicts in the "Contested Frontiers in Amazonia" is pertinent.

Our analysis of these changes was predicated on the idea that the phenomena we observed and documented in the field -- for example, deforestation, land use and settlement patterns, the rise and decline of economic activities -- were the net outcomes of the contest for resources among social groups capable of mobilizing varying degrees of power. The perspective we endorsed further recognized that the initiatives taken by the participants in a given conflict, as well as power hierarchies that prevailed, were heavily contingent upon the changing alignment of influencing factors. Many of these factors operated within changing economic and political

41 spheres far afield from the site of the contest in question. National and international factors thus comprised a matrix of shaping influences ... (Schmink & Wood 1991:i)

Local actors and the landscape of Kitulwatte were most decisively affected by the Sri

Lankan Forest Department and the National Water Supply and Drainage Board. These were linked to development agencies who provided financing and consultancy. At the

Forest Department's Range, District and Colombo Offices I repeatedly interviewed Sri

Lankan foresters, as well as forestry experts of the British Overseas Development Agen- cy (ODA) involved in policy formulation and plantation management. In addition, I studied these actors and their links to international forestry networks through documents and publications. I maintained contacts with a USAID project evaluator who reviewed her agency's involvement in pinus afforestation in the 1980s. Water engineers and administrators of the Kitulwatte water supply scheme in the National Water Board's Bandarawela office were interviewed. Further interviews were conducted with a hydrologist of the

German Gesellschaft fuer technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and an ODA project team leader both of whom were supporting the Upper Mahaweli Watershed Management Pro- gramme of the Mahaweli Authority in Kandy. Kitulwatte is situated in the periphery of the project area. All interviews were structured but open-ended, and tailored to the specific actors' involvement with landuse in Kitulwatte and its larger context.

I avoided contact with high-level politicians active in Kitulwatte and with the armed forces in Diyatalawa. As a foreign scholar investigating sensitive issues I was concerned about their notorious unpredictability and did not want to jeopardize my ability to carry out my research. In these cases I relied on other people's reports, the media and the visible traces of their activities in the landscape.

42 I studied the local and national campaigns of environmentalist groups, such as the

Public Campaign for Environment and Development, the Sri Lanka Environmental Con- gress, and the Environmental Foundation Ltd., through participant observation and by interviewing several of their staff and committee members.

Concerning the Sri Lankan vegetable trade I relied on the information of the villagers and the comprehensive studies of Abeysekera & Senanayake (1974), and Gunawardena

& Chandrasiri (1980).

I obtained statistical information on landuse, local demography and rainfall from a number of sources. The grama niladari, the village officer, carries out a bi-annual village survey. The Census Department of Sri Lanka provides statistical records from the turn of the century. The local Village Development Society had carried out a fairly comprehensive household survey in 1991, which had never been tabulated or evaluated. The De- partment of Meteorology provided me with rainfall data. In addition, I obtained aerial photographs from the Survey Department of Sri Lanka, which were used by a cartographer to draw two comparative landuse maps of the Kitulwatte micro-watershed for 1954 and 1988, and to calculate the extent of the various forms of landuse. Most of these data are of limited reliability, as a consequence of the lack of skill and care with which they were collected and maintained.5 I nevertheless had to use these sources as a basis for my own computations, to gain at least a rough idea of such factors as size and distribution of property, population growth, and changes in the pattern of landuse. Considering the problems I experienced in finding reliable survey data, I felt confirmed in my own method of inquiry, which stressed rapport and detailed knowledge of a limited number of respondents.

43 Throughout our field research we were concerned about validity issues. I have already indicated that combining an in-depth study of a purposively chosen sample of households with continued and repeated observation and communication with a larger group of people in the village would increase the generalizability of our findings. We strove to attain a degree of validity which can afford both comprehensive in-depth understanding of a specific situation and a general knowledge which may be applied to the study of comparable problems. Following Reason and Rowan, this required us to persistently "re-search" our data and to refine the interplay of data collection and conceptualisation in the field. We combined different modes of inquiry and different actors' perspectives, and scrutinized our findings in an ongoing process of discussion between two co-researchers. We strove to sharpen our full range of senses ("high-quality awareness") as participants in the community we were studying (Reason and Rowan 1981:245-250). Emphasis on specificity remains an important methodological stance, because the complexity of interacting factors in a socio-ecological field defies hasty overgeneralisation. Rather, we hope to have arrived at a conceptual framework which can be used as a valid approach to studying the interface of nature and society.

What was more vexing is the problem of veracity or of judging the truthfulness of statements made by our interview partners. This is a concern about trust (Habermas

1979:2-3). How do we know whether we are told the truth and what do we do with contradictory statements, either from one and the same person or from different informants?

We did what the text books suggest. We probed repeatedly into the issues at question, asked other competent knowers and attempted to compare narratives with direct observation whenever possible (Ellen 1984:235; Bernard 1988:320-321). For example, the gen-

44 der division of labour tends to be explained by informants in terms of ideal normative images, which may frequently deviate from observable practice. Therefore, we designed a check list of the important tasks encountered in the livelihood system and listed male or female participation noted in both informants' narratives and our observations in the field.

Greater difficulty is encountered if informants are reluctant to discuss a topic. Open mention of people's caste membership was such a taboo topic. Although nobody spoke about caste, everybody knew exactly how to act according to caste criteria. Traditional values were in conflict with a modern egalitarian ideology fostered officially in educational institutions. Since we as researchers represented modernity and education in the eyes of the villagers, people were uneasy about revealing their archaic status system. We in turn were uneasy to ask low caste members about their status, since we were aware of their embarrasment. We finally got a grasp on the village's caste structure by asking a teacher of high caste status from a neighbouring village, who was a friend of ours. Know- ing the locally prevalent castes, she was able to identify a person's caste by distinct characteristics of the names listed in the questionnaires of the development project's survey.

Spending long periods of time with a limited number of people in the village increased both our knowledge and the trust our closer acquaintences had in us. As a result, we became more willing to trust. The interviews with the non-resident actors, the representatives of interested organisations, lacked rapport and trust. I encountered outright lying and deceptive schemes, so that a forester may save his face while evading to confront the consequences of his action, or so that a development expert may evade the consequences of his inaction.

45 In all of our encounters it proved to be crucial to move between what Bernard calls the emic (inside) and etic (outside) perspectives, i.e. to remain skeptical (Bernard 1988:320).

The information constructed in the talk between ourselves and our informants, i.e. in the intersubjective mode, needed to be critically reflected from a distance in light of the knowledge we had gained during this inquiry. Validation by means of 'subject approval' alone is unsatisfactory because it risks uncritical identification with the subjects' perspectives. We found it instructive to explain lack of truthfulness by its meaning in the context of the community, rather than to resolve the problem in a positivistic manner. To be sure, we wanted to know how many cows an informant really owned. The reasons why people wanted to underrate their assets were, however, important. It made them look poorer in situations when it may be advantageous to appear poorer, i.e. when government benefits may be in the offing. Furthermore, revealing an accurate number is considered boasting, which produces envy among fellow villagers and provokes the threat of katavaha [evil mouth], which may inflict illness on one's cows.

I have already indicated that actors tend to be selective in their assessment of the causes of and blame for their problems. Generally people tended to emphasize the faults of others rather than their own contributions to, for example, the decline of water or of the cattle population. However, we always found some actors who were willing to take a more differentiated view which stressed multiple causes or provided an entirely dissenting perspective. In many cases what appeared at first sight as a contradiction, became a complementary set of events in the larger context.

A socio-ecological approach to water scarcity

46 My research experience prompted me to venture across disciplinary boundaries, and critically to evaluate the relationship between nature and society, as imagined in dominant scientific models, as well as between the ecological and the social sciences. In this section I propose to translate the yield of these reflections, my personal approach to social ecology, into a framework of analysis, which is tailored to the specific issues I encountered in Kitulwatte, and joins the local categories received in the field with the categories of scientific analysis.

My inquiry into the social construction of water scarcity in Kitulwatte, which commences in chapter six, is structured by the three analytical dimensions of space, action and time. Socio-ecological transformations occur in their nexus. Space refers to situatedness of ecological systems. The identification of the livelihood system components outlined above differentiates Kitulwatte's landscape from the perspective of human actors.

The participants and phenomena present in these components, their particular characteristics and requirements, and their interactive patterns comprise the dimension of action.

Time designates both cyclical and linear trajectories, the interlacing of recurrance and irreversibility in the activity of the participants of livelihood system components. I will place special emphasis on the reciprocal effects between the water cycle and other ecosystem participants. Action moves between the livelihood system components and their linkeages will be indicated. The presentation of the material will follow the flow of water from the upper hills to the valley floor.

The following table summarizes my analytical framework for convenient reference.

Table 5: Analytical Dimensions of Kitulwatte's Livelihood System

SPACE ACTION TIME Micro-Watershed: General Participation: Cyclical: - patana grassland - actors/phenomena - day/night - forest - water flow - seasons - tree plantations - biomass flow - years - hill-fields - life-cycles - homesteads Human Participation: - tea estates - land use/work Linear: - valley-fields - property relations - history - labour mobilisation - biography Uva Basin - status Sri Lanka - knowledge/communication Asia - power Earth

Each livelihood system component will be treated separately according to the following sequence. Moving from the upper hills I will first discuss the patanas and forest fragments, which form the oldest known interdependent components of the landscape.

Tree plantations, which have replaced large expanses of patanas, will be analyzed next.

Then I will deal with specific features of the hill-fields established on forest and patana land. The discussion of homesteads will be divided between the old houses and gardens found predominantly in the westside, and the new suburban settlements established on patanas in the upper and mid-slopes of the east side. Tea estates will be taken up next.

Finally, I will turn to the analysis of the valley-fields. Non-agricultural income generation is spatially variable and subsumes many different occupations. In my analysis I am concentrating on a number of examples which are directly linked to local landuse and the local phase of the water cycle. They will be discussed in the context of the appropriate livelihood system components.

48 Action, which may be also signified as flow, movement, work, exchange, communication and interaction, will be analyzed in each of the livelihood system components. I distinguish between the levels of general participation in nature and human participation. I have characterised social action or human culture as the specifically human mode of participation in nature.

On the level of general participation I will identify the significant human and non- human actors and phenomena of each livelihood system component. Complexity of ecological systems makes selectivity necessary. The importance of an actor or phenomenon for the explanation of Kitulwatte's water crisis is the criterion of selection.

The interactions of flora, fauna, and phenomena such as water, soil, air and fire are conceptualized as biomass flow. I am following here the work by Marcus Moench and

Jayantha Bandyopadhyay, who have studied biomass flow cycles (fuel and fodder) in a

Himalayan micro-watershed (Moench & Bandyopadhyay 1985).

The resource flows maintaining agriculture and animal husbandry can be described in the form of a biomass flow system. (Moench & Bandyopadhyay 1985:58)

Shifting from this human-centred perpective to an eco-centric vantage point, I propose to understand biomass flow as the resource flows maintaining an ecological system and its components. In standard ecology biomass flows would be recognized in form of metabolic activity or throughputs of energy and material in food chains/webs. The analysis of biomass flows is basically concerned with the movement and distribution of fertility and energy. Livelihoods are sustained through the use of resources cycling among ecosystem participants. These resources include biomass which is metabolised as food, but also water, which is a principle means of cycling biomass in the soil as well as in organisms, and

49 fire, which consumes biomass and thereby produces heat and frees nutrients for uptake by plants. Tracing biomass flow provides information about how the participants of ecological systems, or in this specific instance livelihood system components, use or affect each other and thereby transform the state of the system over time. Vandana Shiva's concept of production in nature can thereby be given concrete expression.

My study of longterm rainfall patterns in the Kitulwatte area in chapter four has indicated no appreciable decline in water input to the local livelihood system. Changes in the patterning of water availability are therefore caused by changes which have occurred in the landphase of the hydrological cycle due to altered landuse practices. In my discussion of water flow I am following Malin Falkenmark's and her collaborators' concept of 'rainwater partitioning in the landphase of the hydrological cycle' (Falkenmark 1989b:19;

Falkenmark & Lundqvist 1992:16f.; Chapman 1989:48-61; Kovacs, Zuidema & Mar- salek 1989:109). These authors observe the distribution of water among three major pathways - surface runoff, groundwater recharge and evapotranspiration - , and the decisive effects of the quality of soils and vegetation on the relative distribution of rainwater quantities among these pathways. This relationship is expressed in the following rainfall partitioning diagram adapted from Falkenmark & Lundqvist (1992:17a):

Figure 1: Rainfall Partitioning [p]

air moisture from air moisture to other areas other areas

ATMOSPHERE

rainfall

VEGETATION interception SOIL SURFACE p evapotranspiration

infiltration surface runoff

ROOTZONE p stream flow

ground water ground water recharge discharge

SUBSOIL

I am presenting a qualitative analysis of biomass and water flow, which describes pathways and relationships and establishes causal links between the deterioration of the water cycle and changes in human landuse practices historically. This discussion relies on observations and on the long-term knowledge of the primary landusers, the local farmers, as well as on the discourse in the relevant literature. In the absence of longitudinal data an attempt at quantitative measurement of biomass and water flow would have been meaningless. The procedure of comparing measurements from two sites with different conditions (for example grassland vs. pinus dominated watersheds), in order to compensate for the lack of longitudinal data, is inappropriate for the purpose of studying long-term changes in a particular ecosystem, as it would confuse the dimensions of time and space, and violate the methodological requirement of site specificity.

The analysis of human participation investigates how human actors link with these processes of biomass and water flow through their socio-cultural practices and institutions and thereby co-determine the state of the system while deriving livelihoods from it.

51 I will discuss the following analytical themes within each livelihood system component.

Landuse and work involve the interactions of human beings with the land and its resident species; the tools and technologies utilized; and the products and purposes (subsistence, market) which motivate the landuse practices. Work may take the form of agricultural cultivation, gathering, animal husbandry, hunting, artisans' work, trade, industry and employment in the state apparatus (ranging from professional to unskilled manual labour).

Human actors make claims for access to land and its resources, as well as to the means and products of labour through various forms of property relations. These may not all be recognized legal rights, but involve conflicting claims, and grey areas of tolerated ille- gality, which may eventually be legalized. Considering these qualifications, individual ownership, tenancy, lease, rent, usufruct, state ownership and squatting can be identified in Kitulwatte.

Claims and rights to labour power resources are recognized and organized in various forms of labour mobilisation. These involve waged and contract labour in labour markets, as well as unwaged household, exchange and communal labour. The organization of labour power in specific instances is determined as much by negotiation and manipulation between the parties involved as by the norms implied in the local ideal types of labour mobilisation.

Property and labour relations are the conventional social categories determining class stratification. Claims and rights to property and labour are, however, also stratified by gender, age, ethnicity and caste. Educational attainment and occupational position are involved in stratifying actors' opportunities to generate livelihoods as well. Furthermore, individuals and the community as a whole have to negotiate access to resources and obli-

52 gations with the state, the political system, and global agencies. The positioning of individuals in the matrix of these multiple social relations may be expressed as status.

Action is motivated, justified and coordinated by the knowledge communicated among human actors. Under the category of knowledge I subsume all cognitions relevant to

Kitulwatte's water crisis. These include both conscious and unconscious modes. The expression of knowledge may be directly discursive or coded in metaphors and ritual. Sci- entific knowledge as much as pragmatic local knowledge or ritual knowledge are considered. This approach reflects the insight of the Thomas theorem, that what human actors consider to be real, is real in its consequences. Furthermore, by refusing to privilege the knowledge of particular actors or a particular type of knowledge, I hope to include all pertinent actors in the construction of a discourse on Kitulwatte's water crisis. The channels of communication and the mechanisms of inclusion or exclusion of actors will be traced.

The analysis of power in a system of codependent relations seeks to clarify the differential opportunities of participating actors to transform the state of the system and its components, to appropriate its resources, and to assert and negotiate claims and grievances. Resource conflicts are power struggles and their understanding requires the reconstruction of their dynamics in terms of power. Codependency implies a mutual need for resource sharing among a system's participants. If the relations of power are dominated by one or several groups of actors, who fail to recognize the requirements of codependency, resource conflicts may turn into a resource crisis, in which the sustenance of the system's participants is jeopardised.

53 Ecological systems change persistently as a result of the interactions of their participants. Cyclical patterns of change imply regularized recurrence of sequences of transformation within a range of values. Day follows night, dry seasons follow rainy seasons, species live their lifecycles and set off new lifecycles in their offspring. Cyclical patterns are nevertheless precarious. Catastrophic events may upset the order we observe and construct in nature. No cycle is identical with others of the same sequence. Irreversible historical changes transform the conditions and features of activity in nature more or less perceptibly, and may thereby alter cyclical patterns. In the following chapter I will reconstruct the irreversible process by which human actors have caused critical alterations in the water cycle, which threaten to undermine the capacity of the human residents of

Kitulwatte to produce their livelihoods.

NOTES

1. On the preeminence of the forest, the deforestation crisis, social movements and ad- vocacy science see especially the work of Jayantha Bandyopadhyay and Vandana Shiva (1990; 1989; 1987; 1985) and Shiva (1988), as well as Guha (1983), Guha & Gadgil (1989), Khator (1989) and Weber T. (1987). On participatory action research, social movements and sociological intervention see for example Tandon (1981a,b), Rahman (1985), Grossi (1981) (Heron 1981a,b) and Touraine (1985; 1981; 1977). Hoben (1982) discusses the opportunities for anthropologists in the development field, and Escobar (1991) provides a critical review of development anthropology.

2. While Nireka Weeratunge and I share the responsibility for much of the field research, our analyses are distinct and reflect our individual approaches and research interests. Each of us has produced a separate research report which is the sole responsibility of its author. For her thesis, Socio-Ecological Changes and the Liveli- hoods of Women, Nireka Weeratunge received a Masters Degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton (Weeratunge 1992).

3. Similar approaches locating human activity in interdependent spacial components of "agro-ecocomplexes" or "agro-forestry systems" have been used by Rohana Ulluwishewa (1991) and Dianne E. Rocheleau M. (1987).

4. We gave most often the token gift expected from people making social calls. All local shops stock gift packs of assorted biscuits, which are somewhat bashfully placed on a host's table and never unwrapped until after the guest leaves. We were invited to two festive occasions, a wedding and a girl's puberty rites, as well as to a funeral, which placed us under the conventional obligation to make financial contributions or to give a more valuable gift appropriate to the occasion. At the wedding I was also engaged as one of the wedding photographers and, of course, gifted the film, prints and my services. In the cases of two households we made gifts of clothes. An old man who spent many nights in a watchhut in the hill-fields during the monsoon, had caught a terrible cold and expressed a need for a good raincoat, which we gladly bought for him. A neighbouring family always supplied us with plenty of produce, prepared foods and water from their well, which we reciprocated by giving warm clothes bought in the bigger cities. Yet, there were always other households who may have had equal needs and who received only a token gift or nothing at all. Seve- ral young men had great expectations about us helping them in getting a job in Co- lombo or even in Germany. One young man offered us his services as a driver and handy man, because he desperately wanted to get away from farming and his father who used him as his 'work-horse' in the field and for carrying heavy loads. We were unable to help.

5. For example, the village surveys of 1990 and 1992 use inconsistent landuse categories and the results vary grossly, so as to render these measurements questionable. I could not help but feel that the government official inserted whatever numbers seemed convenient. No one had apparently compared the surveys of different years and my attempt to do so by obtaining records of earlier years from the Divisional Secretariat in Bandarawela failed. The officers claimed that older records were not kept on file; they might have found it too bothersome to search for them. Population figures look the most believable, simply because they rose persistently over the years. A consistent time series is however not available since the administrative unit for which population size was counted was reconstructed several times between 1891 and now, and between 1932 and 1980 no village level data had been kept or published. The development project's survey was constructed by the main activists in the project who used standard census categories, such as occupation, landownership, income and family membership, without bothering to note that their own situations could not be reflected in this set of categories. People have more than one 'occupation', tenancy relations were not queried at all, almost nobody keeps track of their various incomes in monetary terms, and households are not always identical with family membership. As one hamlet was excluded from most of the project's benefits, it was not surveyed at all. The survey was collected in a rather ad hoc fashion by un- trained enumerators. The inaccuracy of the answers and the exact repetition of for- 55 mulations suggest that at times good parts of the questionaire were filled out without even asking the respondents or by suggesting answers to them. Furthermore, the purpose of the exercise, development, would have led the respondents to stress their neediness and thus lower their assets and incomes. Our own data, based on observation and careful repeated querying, betrays gross inaccuracies in the answers to the survey. I discussed and interpreted the aerial photographs with the cartographer to identify the varying landuse forms, which were subsumed under the categories of the livelihood system. It proved difficult to distinguish ambiguous images. Although I had given written instructions and had repeated verbal communications with the cartographer, the final results deviated from my image of how the maps should be. For- getting, guess work, possible lack of care, time pressure to produce some result, and the delegation of part of the work to yet another cartographer (a post-graduate student) possibly conspired to produce inaccurate maps and measurements. When I received the finished product, half the water courses of the catchment and two reservoirs had been omitted or streams were located where no streams exist, the catchment boundaries were drawn inaccurately, and landuse forms had been mixed up or overlooked. These sorts of mistakes are not uncommon. I found similar errors in the official Badulla District Landuse Map of 1982, where in Kitulwatte private homegardens dominated by eucalyptus species had been indicated as forest plantations and natural forests had been omitted entirely.

6. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF WATER SCARCITY

Water scarcity in the Kitulwatte micro-watershed is the result of a complex process of landuse changes effected by human actors. In this chapter I will discuss the specific socio-ecological features, causes and consequences of these changes in detail for each component of the local livelihood system.

On the basis of 1:10,000 enlargements of aerial photographs taken in 1954 and 1988

(Survey Department of Sri Lanka 1954; 1988), two landuse maps were drawn of the area

I have designated as the Kitulwatte micro-watershed (maps 2 and 3). The distribution of landuse forms and their transformation in the 34 year period were calculated from these maps.1

Tables 6 and 7 indicate that although patanas remain the largest landuse form in

Kitulwatte, they have experienced the greatest decline, while tree plantations and homesteads increased most notably. The overall pattern shows a transformation of patanas, forest and tea to tree plantations, homesteads and cultivated fields.

1 Table 6: Pattern of landuse in the Kitulwatte Micro-Watershed

1954 1988 ha % ha % patanas 679 73.3 284 30.7 forest 38.7 4.2 24.5 2.6 tree plantations 0 0 221.2 23.9 homesteads 109.5 11.8 230.2 24.9 tea 32.5 3.5 23.5 2.6 cultivated fields 50.5 5.5 123.5 13.3 other 15.6 1.7 18.9 2 total 925.8 100 925.8 100

Table 7: Change in the pattern of landuse in the Kitulwatte Micro-Watershed between 1954 and 1988

as proportion of land as proportion of total use form [%] land area [%] patanas - 58.2 - 42.6 forest - 36.7 - 1.6 tree plantations +100 + 23.9 homesteads +110.2 + 13.1 tea - 27.7 - 0.9 cultivated fields +144.6 + 7.8 other + 22 + 0.3

2 Map 2: Landuse in the Kitulwatte Micro-Watershed in 1954

3 Map 3: Landuse in the Kitulwatte Micro-Watershed in 1988

4 Patana grasslands

In 1954 the patanas covered 73.3 percent of the total land area of the Kitulwatte micro- watershed. By 1988 their share had declined to 30.7 percent. Although still the largest landuse form, the patanas had experienced a reduction by 58.2 percent, which amounts to a transformation of 42.6 percent of the total land area from patanas to other uses, namely tree plantations, homesteads and cultivated fields. The 1988 landuse map demonstrates that the remaining grasslands are concentrated in two areas in the southwest of the micro- watershed alongside Arakandura, the most fecund water source in the study area. A few small patana fragments are scattered over the western hills.

Grasses are the dominant floristic feature of the Uva basin's hills and valleys, which motivated their designation as patanas (tana = grass). These are interspersed with herbs and ferns, as well as scattered shrubs and trees of small growth. The patanas are not a uniform ecological formation, but are internally differentiated in terms of species composition, soil types and occurrence of water. These variegated features are the result of an interactive relationship between geo-climatic phenomena, such as topography, rainwater, wind and temperatures on one hand, and biotic factors, most significantly the co-dependency between grasses, cattle and human actors, on the other.

Differentiation of micro-habitats in the patanas is reflected in the landuse maps, where

I have distinguished between wet and dry patanas. The scientific literature usually classifies the Uva patanas as dry, while wet patanas are located in the high mountains of the wet zone (de Rosayro 1945/46). However, the farmers in Kitulwatte insisted on recognising the local wet patanas, which are important for hill-field cultivation, due to the availability of water and of a thick layer of dark fertile soil. Plant growth in the compara-

5 tively larger dry patanas is less dense and high, the species are more coarse, and the yellow-podzolic soils exhibit only a shallow A-Horizon. In 1954, 38.3 hectares of wet patanas comprised 4.1 percent of the total land area or 5.6 percent of the total patana area.

In 1988 wet patanas had declined to 26.2 hectares which amounted to 2.8 percent of the total land area, but 9.2 percent of the remaining patanas.

Human activity in the patanas was and continues to be regulated by a set of property relations negotiated between the villagers and the state. Legal title has been claimed by the state since the times of the Kandyan kingdom. The king granted villagers or aristocrats the use of highland for individual cultivation or common use. Landuse activities independent of a specific circumscribed plot of land, such as cattle grazing, gathering of food, medicinal plants and firewood, as well as hunting, were governed by usufruct rights. The cultivation of chenas was regulated by temporary individual titles, which were issued by village headmen in the name of the king. Scattered permanent settlement and cultivation near springs and forests by low-caste and marginal households, who were most often squatters, had occured in the hills.

The Crown Lands Ordinance of 1840 established ownership of highland by the colonial state, and the practices of usufruct, squatting and individual chena entitlements were continued. However, the introduction of private property in the wake of the plantation economy rendered the practice of traditional property relations far more precarious. In

Kitulwatte, village elders reported that the aristocratic family of Dambawinne walauwa managed to establish claims to vast tracts of the hills in Kitulwatte and neighbouring villages, as well as to some paddy land, by producing false sannas (royal Kandyan titles).

These were recognized by the colonial state, particularly since the Dambawinnes had be-

6 come allies of the British during the Uva rebellion which had also earned them the position of dissave and later rate mahattaya (indigenous local chiefs under the British administration). The villagers were able to continue their landuse practices, since the patanas in Kitulwatte were not used for plantation establishment until the 1930s.

The western hills of the Kitulwatte micro-watershed returned into state ownership in the early 20th century, when the Dambawinnes gifted the hills to the British military as exercising grounds for the troops stationed in Diyatalawa. With the military as a new powerful set of actors, who possesed both legal entitlement and the immediate means to enforce their claims in situ, resource competition had entered the patanas. In strategically important sites, such as Galpothuyaya, settlers were evicted and cultivation prohibited. In other gullies hill-fields were tolerated. Cultivation, cattle grazing, gathering, hunting, and people's general movement in the patanas needed from now on to be negotiated with the armed forces.

In the 1930s approximately 35 acres of patana land on the eastern slopes of the valley were sold as private property for the purpose of tea cultivation. Villagers were in principle excluded from the estate, although the use of some resources (for example fuelwood from pruned tea plants or gully forests) may be granted by the owners or contested by the villagers.

The post-colonial state continues to claim property rights to the patanas. It has added new landuse activities to those of the military and thereby has increased resource competition. Several institutions under the Ministry of Lands, Irrigation and Mahaweli Devel- opment have become landusers in the Kitulwatte micro-watershed. The National Water

Supply and Drainage Board operates and controls the public water supply scheme origi-

7 nating in Galpothyaya. The Forest Department has afforested 221.2 hectares of patanas in the western hills of Kitulwatte. Furthermore, the state acts as a grantor of individual land titles to villagers, either by legalizing squatters, or through Village Expansion

Schemes. The growing village population has established homesteads on patana lands and continues to clear gullies and hollows for permanent cultivation. The latter fall within the legal grey zone of tolerated squatting on otherwise unclaimed land.

During the history of landuse practices within this complex set of property relations, the increasing competition for patana lands has progessively diminished the ability of villagers to use the patanas for livelihood generating purposes. The changing landuse activities of various human actors have broken a link of the old livelihood system which was a central component in the production and maintenance of biomass and water flows.

Cattle rearing in the Uva patanas was documented in the late 16th and early 19th century (Knox [1681] 1989:10,12,24,27 ; Davy [1821] 1983:302,344). The vast expanses of grassland provided pastures on which large cattle herds were able to roam freely. The elders of Kitulwatte estimated that during their parent's times (early 20th century) farmers in Kitulwatte owned approximately 1000 batu harak (a small indigenous cattle species prevalent in the hill-country) and mi harak (water buffaloes).2 In this semi-pastoral community, cattle served as the formost source of fertilizer and thereby constituted a crucial link in the local biomass flow pattern. They were also used for draught power and transport, and provided their owners with milk products.

Before the introduction of cash crop vegetables, green revolution technology and tree plantations, cattle husbandry was an integral component of farming in Kitulwatte. The movement of cattle between the patanas, homegardens and valley-fields was synchro-

8 nized with the paddy cultivation cycle. Old varieties of paddy required on average six months for cultivation (November/December through April/May), during which the animals were grazed in the patanas. The buffaloes spent the entire time roaming in the patanas, while the batu harak were fetched every evening and kept overnight in stables or tethered in the homegardens. Throughout the six month fallow period the cattle were brought into the valley-fields. The animals were moved by all family members as required, but men and boys over ten years of age were primarily responsible.3

The mature coarse patana grasses are unpalatable to cattle. To facilitate grazing, limited areas of grassland were burnt by the herders during the end of the dry periods in Au- gust and February, when the roots were dormant and the blades had dried up. The dry grasses burned very fast, which left the roots and most of the top-soil unharmed. With the onset of the rains new tender shoots would grow within ten days and provide nutritious fodder to the cattle.4

Burning and grazing are two processes by which the nutrients contained in grasses are broken down and made available as fertilizer more speedily and efficiently than through decomposition. The tough fibres of grass litter are broken down only very slowly by micro-organisms, and dead plant material accumulating on the ground smothers new growth of herbs and grasses (Duffey et al. 1974:198). The ash of burnt grass contains plant nutrients which are leached into the soil by rainwater. The consumption of grasses by cattle releases nutrients in urine, which is immediately leached into the ground, and in dung

(Sinhalese: goma), which is deposited on the soil and further decomposed by animals and micro-organisms. As goma becomes saturated with rainwater it is leached into the ground.

9 The movement of cattle roaming freely in the patanas is largely self-determined and influenced by fodder availability and their own dunging/urination behavior. The resulting

"mosaic of vegetation structures" enables the establishment of temporary and permanent habitats of other flora and fauna within the grassland formation. The effect of treading by cattle on the grasslands is generally considered to be adverse. It causes reduction in soil aeration, water penetration, regrowth and erosion (Duffey et al. 1974:181-184).5

The dense roots system of the dominant patana grass species and their propensity to form hummocks provides a check on erosion and maintains a degree of porosity which allows for aeration and water infiltration. Dung adds organic matter to the soil and thereby increases its water retention and infiltration capacity. By supplying nutrients to the fauna, dung supports the growth of plants which intercept the torrential rainfall occuring during the monsoonal and intermonsoonal periods, thus protecting the soil. However, people collected some of the dung in the patanas (predominantly a task of the children) and used it for vegetable cultivation in the hill- and valley-fields and in the homegardens.

During the dry season the patanas are effected by the kachchan winds, lack of rain and considerable diurnal temperature variation. Extreme moisture stress arrests or reduces plant growth, a condition to which grasses are adapted by seasonal root dormancy.

Fodder availability was therefore drastically reduced and Kitulwatte's cattle were grazed in the valley fields. During the six months fallow the animals provided the necessary fertilizer for the coming paddy cultivation cycle.

I observed the place where the remaining six buffaloes of the village are kept overnight. Heenbanda, their 76 years old keeper, collects them every evening in the patanas or clearings in between the pinus plantations, and tethers them under the canopy of a

10 small forest fragment near his homestead. Here a thick layer of goma is continously accumulating and leaching into the soil. Heenbanda moves the dung layer occasionally with his mammoty [hoe] to several small mounds located in a half acre fallow hen field right below the forest fragment, which had been predominantly cultivated with subsistence crops. Here the dung is dried and composted amidst leaf matter and decaying tree trunks and branches. This compost leaches into the field, had been systematically applied during cultivation cycles in the hen, and is nowadays taken to other fields. During my visit to this site Heenbanda's wife arrived with an empty 'gunny bag' and filled it with a roughly

25 kilo headload of compost, which she carried downhill to a homegarden bean plot.

Heenbanda dug up some soil and compost, which was of a deep black colour and saturated with moisture. In his hen the top soil layer is more than one foot deep. He adamantly proclaimed: "this is the best there is" (Heenbanda, fieldnotes).

This site is a remnant of the old biomass flow system in Kitulwatte. Goma is the medium by which fertility is transported from the hills to the fields and homegardens. Solar energy, captured in the grasslands and converted by photosynthetic and metabolic processes into plant food, is distributed throughout the local ecosystem. A proportion sus- tains crops for human consumption. The movement of the biomass flow process is ultimately facilitated by the hydro-cycle which transports nutrients in the soil as well as in plants, animals and human beings. The hydrocyle is conversely sustained by the flora which is simultanously the source and consumer of fertility flows. The evident material link between the patanas, the forest fragment and the hen provided a last glimpse of an old system, where energy and nutrients were cycled and remained almost entirely within the local livelihood system.

11 In paddy cultivation buffaloes are used to plow the fields and to thresh the harvested paddy. Batu harak were used for the transport of goods and materials in so called tavalams [cattle caravans]. For their owners these animals were not only an indispensable source of labour power, but also a source of income in cash or kind, from hiring out their cattle to villagers who did not own buffaloes or tavalam animals.

Farmers in Kitulwatte consider ownership of cattle a significant source of wealth. The distribution of this wealth was unequal, although most families were said to have kept at least 2 or three cows. Among the high caste goigama farmers, a few families owned the bulk of the village's batu harak and all of the buffaloes.6 These goigama households thus controlled a crucial source of labour power in paddy cultivation.

Since the late colonial period cattle rearing in the hills was a persistent source of conflict between the military and the farmers. While the British army eventually agreed to tolerate herding and to coordinate their exercises with the herders, the post-colonial Sri

Lankan army declared the hills off-limits. As the livelihood producing activities of people in Kitulwatte were intimately linked with cattle herding and the gathering of plants in the patanas, the villagers continued to use the land illegally.

How can we not walk on our paths which we have always used? (Heenbanda, fieldnotes)

Consequently, villagers have been subjected to arbitrary harassment, such as occasional theft and confiscation of their cattle.

By the early 1990s the cattle population in Kitulwatte has been reduced to about 50, more than half of which are cross-breds. Several uncounted small herds of wild cattle are roaming the hills. Except for Heenbanda's buffaloes none of the village cattle are regularly grazed in the patanas. The new varieties of cross-bred species are kept in homegardens

12 and stables, and graze in the valley fields during the short fallows between cropping cycles.

The majority of farmers blame the disappearance of the village's cattle on the establishment of pinus plantations. The available grazing lands had been reduced by 58.2 percent or 395 hectares, of which 56 percent was afforested land. The farmers maintain that it was difficult for the animals to find sufficient fodder and that they were unable to collect the cattle at night, because the trees obstructed their view over the hills. It would often take hours to track down a herd.

A dissenting opinion in the village, by a full-time farmer, stated that the decline of the cattle started before the tree plantations, as more and more farmers engaged in off-farm employment. Lack of time led to neglect of the herds. Many animals died of diseases and the remainder went wild.

The factors proposed by the farmers - theft, tree plantations and non-agricultural employment - interacted with two additional changes in the farming practices in Kitulwatte.

The cultivation of European vegetables in rotation with paddy eliminated the 6 months fallow from the 1970s onward, which was the basis of sustenance of the cattle population for half of the year. The patanas were unable to sustain large herds of cattle through the dry season. Furthermore, the increasing utilisation of agrochemical fertilizers eliminated the farmers' interest in dung, which was a labour-intensive method of fertilisation. The new hybrid seed materials did not respond well to goma alone and made the application of inorganic fertilizers unavoidable. Year-round vegetable and paddy cultivation is a time consuming effort and the cash crop technologies provided time-saving, although finan-

13 cially costly, alternatives. The costs arising from the new production technologies would in turn reinforce the need for cash crop cultivation to pay for the required cash outlays.

Heenbanda retained his buffaloes tenaciously. The reasons are both material and emotional. The buffaloes play a central role in production and are not easily replaced by machines. The cost of ploughing and threshing machinery is prohibitive to almost all farmers, and the hilly terrain prevents their use in most locations.

Heenbanda is a 'buffalo man', whose identity is intimately linked with the animals, the patanas and the ever recurring cycles of activity, he and his buffaloes move through.

They are part of a fading historical experience which continues to be vivid and desirable in this old man's mind. He is a 'modern' farmer by all standards, as he has accepted green revolution technologies and cash crops cultivation, at which his family is quite adept.

Yet, he knows of the social and ecological limitations of 'the new ways'. He is very much concerned with what he identifies as a lack of rightousness and the decline of Buddhist virtues in the community and the society at large, as a result of "greed".

Heenbanda anticipated the dramatic effect the tree plantations would have for the cattle population in Kitulwatte. With the support of the community he petitioned to several local authorities for a compromise which would allow him to keep his buffaloes. The argument that his buffaloes were vital for paddy cultivation in Lower Kitulwatte was eventually accepted by the Forest Department and one large patana hill above his homestead was exempted from planting. Heenbanda's political clout rested on his and his fellows' prominence as SLFP families, who were able to influence the planting process which had been initiated by the then ruling SLFP. Still, six buffaloes are far too few to support the remaining paddy cultivators in the village.

14 Our observations and interviews revealed that the patana grasslands have been a source of sustenance, whose species diversity provides local human actors with free resources needed in generating their livelihoods. The disappearance of 58.2 percent of the patanas has drastically reduced these opportunities.

In the patanas food plants, such as fruits, berries and mushrooms, are gathered for subsistence purposes by all members of a household during their walks in the hills. Men trap and hunt mammals, such as wild boar and porcupines.7 A wide range of medicinal plants are known and collected, predominantly by men, who also administer treatments to people and animals.8 Women gather ingredients for the seed paddy germination mixture, a vital component of the paddy cultivation cycle. The gathering of fuelwood is also women's work. The patana trees and shrubs provide a range of quality sources of firewood.

The women gather dead wood and lop live branches. These are carried as headloads to the homesteads. Men cut patana trees for both timber (construction, furniture) and poles used in vegetable cultivation. Two year old tree saplings are the most durable source of poles. The high demand for poles due to the intensification of vegetable cash cropping has had a dramatic impact on the decline of trees in both the patanas and in forest fragments. Our interviewees in Kitulwatte listed altogether 71 plant species, which were gathered in the patanas and used for food, animal fodder, medicine, fuelwood, house and furniture construction, and cultivation purposes. In addition, they enumerated 25 animal species, of which five were hunted and trapped.

Located on the upper parts of the Uva basin's undulating hills, the patanas are the primary micro-catchment, from where rainwater is conducted towards other landuse forms either as surface runoff or groundwater recharge. The generally accepted scholarly

15 opinion is that grasslands have low rainwater infiltration capacity and high surface runoff

(Gunawardena 1989:94; Baconguis 1989:42). Yet, Gunawardena's and Baconguis studies indicate that water yields in grasslands are higher than in land dominated by trees.9 This paradoxical situation is explained by differences in the rates of evapotranspiration of the various plant covers. Lawrence Hamilton has shown that shallow rooted grasses have lower evapotranspiration values than deep-rooted tree species (Hamilton 1983:73).

Grasses are less 'thirsty' and do not tap lower layers of the soil. Gunawardena's study in the Sri Lankan wetzone hill-country confirms this argument (Gunawardena 1989:96).

Therefore, higher surface runoff values in grasslands are offset by lower evapotranspiration rates. Surface runoff is the proportion of rainwater which is available to the land only during and shortly after rainfall events. Water infiltrating into the soil is slowly released to evapotranspiration and groundwater recharge, and is therefore available over long time periods, supporting plant growth and stream flow.

Due to the lack of hydrological studies of the Uva patanas, the pattern of water flow in the patanas can only be reconstructed from the reports of the farmers and from observation in the last patana catchment of Kitulwatte's micro-watershed, Galpothuyaya. The emergence of groundwater from at least seven springs located in this hollow, which support the stream flow of Arakandura, indicates considerable rainwater infiltration in the patanas surrounding the springs. People in the village reported that before the establishment of pinus plantations and densely populated homesteads in the 1970s, many springs and waterholes existed in the sheltered locations of hollows and gullies in all of the micro-catchment's grasslands. Flowing with the gradient of the slopes, infiltrated rainwater

16 and surface runoff concentrated in these locations and eventually formed springs and streams, or waterholes.

The sites of springs and waterholes in the patanas were used for hill-field cultivation as they provided easily accessible irrigation water. One large waterhole in the western hills was converted into a wewa [irrigation reservoir] by building a small dam from rocks and diverting a nearby stream into the reservoir. By redirecting the stored water into the stream, the reservoir was used to augment the village's irrigation capacity in times of low stream flow due to rainfall failure or as the cultivation cycle neared the dry season. Both hill- and valley-fields were irrigated from the wewa.

Infiltrated rainwater which percolated to deeper soil layers flowed towards the lower portions of the gullies and discharged in the many springs located all along their slopes to eventually form streams. Both wet patana and forest flora may be found in these locations. The high organic matter content of their soil provided for comparatively high infiltration rates of direct surface runoff from the patanas.

From the perspective of hydrology, patanas and forest fragments formed a unit, which was tuned to the geo-climatic conditions of the Uva basin. Abundant grasses, which were able to survive the drought, and sparse tree growth in the weather exposed land area kept evapotranspiration at low levels. A proportion of the comparatively high runoff of the grasslands was absorbed in the forested gullies and wet patanas. The latter's higher evapotranspiration rates were limited by the spatial limitation of forest growth.

Grazing and firing of the grasslands constituted stress factors for the soil, such as treading and soil exposure, promoting higher surface runoff. Grazing, fire and dung, however, contributed to invigorated plant growth and added organic matter to the soil.

17 Cattle and their keepers thus compensated for the effects of their resource use. Further- more, they contributed to the maintenance of the grassland formation as a whole through the annual recurrence of the grazing cycle.

This ecological structure is not optimal by standards of high productivity landuse, aim- ing at the exploitation of one singular resource, such as trees or water or cattle. Rather, the interactive effect of the participants involved maintained each of them by distributing sufficient resources to meet their requirements under conditions of extreme annual and interannual rainfall variability. Until the 1970s, this structure of landuse facilitated sufficient perennial water flow to sustain paddy and vegetable cultivation and to meet all of the households' water requirements.

The situation changed radically with the concurrence of the establishment of tree plantations, urbanisation and the intensification of cash crop cultivation. Although the new landuse forms provided alternative resources for livelihood generation, their detrimental effects on the water regime in Kitulwatte jeopardise their viability, as I will demonstrate in the sections which follow.

The remaining patanas have been overused by grazing of domesticated buffaloes and wild cattle, and by the intensified use of the last open stretch of land by the military. Con- tinual year round treading by animals, infantry units and vehicles, as well as scorching by bomb shells have resulted in increased erosive runoff and declined groundwater recharge, and have consequently diminshed the dry season flow of Arakandura.

Simultaneously Arakandura has been subjected to increased resource competition. Un- til 1977 the farmers in Ambagahakumbura and in the adjacent southern hamlet were the stream's principal water users. They reported that both hamlets received sufficient water

18 to irrigate both their valley-fields and hill-fields year round. Two cement anicuts had been built with government funding to divert stream flow towards the two hamlets. Ara- kandura was also used for bathing, laundry and drinking water. The more than two feet wide ela [channel] leading from the abstraction point towards Ambagahakumbura still indicates its former high volume of stream flow. A natural pool in Arakandura just below

Galpothuyaya was a favourite bathing spot for both villagers and the exercising troops of the armed forces.

In 1977 the construction of an intake dam across the stream below the point of confluence of Galpothuyaya's seven springs created a reservoir, from which a gravity pipe transports water accross the main valley and into a 20,000 gallon capacity reservoir.

From here water is pumped into the system of the local public water supply scheme, ser- vicing hamlets of four villages located east of Kitulwatte Oya. The system was built by the National Water Supply and Drainage Board [hereafter Water Board] with financial assistence of Rs. 2.2 million from the United Nations International Children and Educa- tion Fund, through the initiative of the current local Member of Parliament, then District

Minister of Badulla District.

The majority of beneficiaries are residents of the new suburban hamlets built in the eastern patana hills from the early seventies. Their population had requested the scheme since their wells were insufficient to sustain the growing population of these areas. The initial system targeted a daily supply of 15,000 gallons for approximately 175 households, most of which receive their water from public taps.

The largest water consumer in the scheme is a government operated holiday resort in

Bandarawela, which was built at the same time. The limited water resources of Banda-

19 rawela town were insufficient to cope with the new water user. The resort consumes 5000 gallons daily or one quarter of the scheme's capacity in addition to the supplies from its own 80 feet deep well.

As a result, the farmers who irrigated their fields from Arakandura lost 50 percent of the streamflow to the new system without receiving even a single standpipe for their household needs. Sudhubanda, a cultivator in Ambagahakumbura, complained that during the dry months the scheme forces the farmers' irrigation capacity below the critical threshold, when yields are insufficient to water their crops adequately. Irrigation supplies need to be rotated between Ambagahakumbura and its southern neighbour, and farmers in each hamlet rotate among themselves. Demands to the Water Board for the release of more water for cultivation were rejected by labelling the farmers squatters, who illegally cultivated crownland.

When the public supply scheme was planned in the mid-seventies, the farmers had sent a delegation to the Distric Minister. The politician was not responsive and suggested that if the farmers' crops should fail, they could plant pinus trees as a new cash crop in their fields. Sudhubanda interpreted this apparent cynicism as ignorance on the District

Minister's part. The District Minister advanced an argument which was difficult to op- pose. The water needs of 20 or 30 farm households were insignificant compared to 175 households in the new hamlets, many of whom were retired state employees. His calculation obviously entailed the consideration of differential voting power among the two constituencies.

The farmers reacted by diverting water from the reservoir by opening a maintenance valve at the dam, in order to augment the stream flow of Arakandura and their irrigation

20 capacity. The farmers' desperate measure constitutes pilferage from the perspective of the

Water Board and is punishable. The officials have so far only issued warnings, as they are aware of the farmers' ability to sabotage the system.

Furthermore, the farmers reported, that during the dry season the armed forces collect the reservoir's water in bowsers when their wells in Diyatalawa, which is entirely surrounded by pinus and eucalyptus plantations, run dry. Water Board officials claim that they cannot intervene, because the armed forces have retained ultimate control of Gal- pothuyaya, and require the Water Board to ask permission of entry for maintenance and inspection.

Another cause for the system's declining yields are the innumerable leaks in the cor- roding corrugated iron pipes, which account for an estimated 15 percent loss of water.

Temporary repairs are generally neglected and funds for replacement (Rs. 4.6 million estimated cost) are not available.

The number of users of the system has increased as well. The Water Board estimates that altogether more than 250 households are supplied by the system. This figure appears too low, given that the 1990 Kitulwatte Village Survey indicates that in Kitulwatte alone

192 households are served by the system. In the 15 years of operation the pipes were extended into new hamlets and more public taps and private house connections were added.10 In 1987 the system was extended into a neighbouring village, where a 10,000 gallon storage tank was built to supply 21 private houses with piped water. No public taps were installed. The extension was financed by a former Member of Parliament with government funds, to provide himself and 20 of his prominent supporters with a convenient source of water.

21 As a result of the combined effects of competition and land degradation, water supplies need to be rationed and rotated most of the year. The former MP's branch of the system receives water on one day, the rest of the system on the following day. The duration of supply may vary between 30 minutes and three hours, depending on water availability.

The holiday resort receives a daily supply. The northern-most downstream users do not receive any water between mid-June and mid-September, since the pressure in the pipe is too weak. Only during the rainy season is water available on a daily basis to everybody.

However differentiated the needs and political power of the various users of the water supply scheme may be, they all share the flawed assumption that by adding pipes, storage tanks and taps, more water for more users may be produced. They fail to recognise that water is a finite resource limited by the input of rainfall and the ecological conditions it encounters in the landphase of the hydrocycle. The water scheme typifies a way of coping with water scarcity which seeks temporary amelioration without resolving the problem of scarcity itself. The water resources in the eastern hills have been taxed beyond capacity by an urbanisation process which simultaneously increases demand for water and undermines the water production capacity of the catchment. A large wewa in the eastern hills used to facilitate ground water infiltration and surface water irrigation to a limited number of households and cultivators. Several springs emerging in the forest fragments on the eastern slopes formed three stable perennial streams. When these sources dried out or diminished, water users pursued the receding water into the ground by building wells.

When the wells declined they started to transport water from elsewhere, as they were able to mobilise the funds and organisational resources required.

22 Since settlement had proceeded without watershed management in mind, irreversible damage had been done when ameliorating action was considered. With the new scheme in place, its users and operators were still unaware of the necessity for watershed management. The pinus plantations surrounding Galpothuyaya were established at the same point in time as the supply system, and the armed forces continue to use the area of the seven springs as their exercising grounds.

The officers in charge of the scheme at the Water Board in Bandarawela disagreed about the 'natural' causes of the decline in the system's yields. The civil engineer claimed that declining rainfall had caused the reduction. Asked whether he had checked the local rainfall records to substantiate his assumption, he declined. His subordinate, an officer in charge of daily maintenance operations, who is well acquainted with the system and its surrounding landscape from inumerable field visits, blamed the pinus plantations. He had observed a progressive decline in yields from the early 1980s.

Neither officer had bothered to gain additional knowledge or gather data, in order to comprehend and address the progressive deterioration of their water supply system. No longterm measurements of water flow patterns and yields were taken at the reservoir.

Both informants were unaware of the impact of troop and vehicle movement, and of shelling and burning by exercising soldiers. The officers were unacquainted with the necessary hydrological knowledge, which can explain low dry season stream flow as a consequence of detrimental landuse practices. Consequently, lack of rainfall during the dry season served as a convenient line of reasoning, and the connection between tree plantations and water decline remained on the level of an observed temporal association of the two phenomena.

23 The establishment of the Galpothuyaya water supply scheme clearly demonstrates the original fecundity of the patanas as a source of water. The fate of the supply system is a glaring example of the multiple effects of conflicting landuse demands which were made on the patanas. The simultaneous, but uncoordinated activities of the armed forces, of the

Water Board and its various customers, as well as of the Forest Department appropriated resources which were an integral part of an older socio-ecological system. Their intrusion demonstrates their utter disregard of local social needs and their ignorance of the ecological relations among the participants of this older system. Ignorance and single- minded pursuit of competing narrow landuse interests are the basic causes for the lack of watershed management in Galpothuyaya, which finally precipitated the failure of the richest water source in the valley.

The water crisis in the Kitulwatte micro-watershed as a whole is moreover rooted in the systematic creation of a knowledge which has denigrated the patanas as a degraded and useless landscape. Looking from the perspective of the village, I was able to show the fecundity of the patanas as an integral component of the farmers' original livelihood system. This image contrasts strikingly with the criticism and contempt with which officials and scholars of the colonial and post-colonial periods have viewed the patanas.

Grasslands and grassland agriculture, especially the use of fire in slash-and-burn cultivation and for grazing have been characterized as inferior and detrimental landuse techniques, causing the destruction of forested lands.

Among the early critics of grassland burning in Sri Lanka is John Davy who attempted to explain the absence of woods as a consequence of the combination of drought, parch- ing winds and burning. He communicated his "disappointment" at the sight of the desi-

24 ccated land and the prevailing "state of conflagration" in emotional and disapproving terms during a visit in the August of 1819 (Davy [1821] 1983:343-344).

Pearson (1899) and Holmes (1951), both Conservators of Forests of the Forest Depart- ment, have considered firing, grazing and clearing to be responsible for the spread of grasslands where natural forests 'should' prevail. Their 'grass-firing theory' proclaimed that the patanas were a so-called 'disclimax' or 'plagioclimax', an early successional stage held in perpetuity by 'anthropogenic intervention', i.e. grazing and burning. De Rosayro's dissenting opinion, the 'climatic climax theory', emphasized the geo-climatic limitations in the Uva basin for plant growth and assumed that the grasslands are a 'natural' climax

(de Rosayro 1945/46III:89-91). He dismissed the interactive effects of grazing and burning as causative factors for grassland establishment and maintenance. These dissenting opinions have been subsequently reviewed and somewhat passionately debated by several local and foreign scholars in Sri Lankan and British academic and professional journals

(see Pemadasa 1984).

As conclusive evidence on the origin of the patanas is shrouded in the mists of natural history, I find no reason for taking sides in the 'patana controversy'. Both sides tend to isolate specific factors, all of which have conceivably contributed to the structure of the grasslands, as they have been in existence for at least several centuries. These writers, furthermore, isolate one ecological component of the landscape which is in fact comprised of several related and changing landuse forms. The patana debate is as far removed from the concerns of the local landusers, as the Colombo head office of the Forest

Department from the Uva basin. The agenda of the foresters has excluded the local grass-

25 land users from debating the origin, meaning and fate of the grasslands. It was in fact designed to legitimate their exclusion from the use of the grasslands altogether.

The significance of the debate lies in its occurence in the context of the colonial and post-colonial afforestation efforts by the Forest Department of Ceylon/Sri Lanka. The debate was predominantly carried on by foresters, as de Rosayro, himself an Assistant

Conservator of Forests, has observed (de Rosayro 1945/46III:84). The commencement of afforestation efforts in the island from the 1890s (de Rosayro 1945/46IV:139) coincides with the publication of the initial text by Pearson (1899) whose grass-fire theory had sparked the controversy. If it could be convincingly argued that the patanas had been natural forests, which were degraded by human landuse practices, afforestation would be a 'fitting' recovery of an original 'natural' state: trees belonged into the hills of the Uva basin. By implying that the farmers' landuses were degrading the land, the role of the patanas in the local livelihood system could be ignored or treated with contempt, thus legitimising the claim of the foresters to the exclusive use of the grassland hills. The establishment of plantations necessitates the exclusion of cattle herds and firewood gatherers.

De Rosayro's competing theory did not, however, discourage the afforestation policy.

To the contrary, it served as a theoretical explanation of the failure of efforts to establish plantations with indigenous tree species. By arguing that his theory provided " a proper understanding of the ecology of the patanas", which would be "of paramount importance

... for the selection of areas for afforestation" (de Rosayro 1945/46I:207), de Rosayro could explain why only eucalyptus species established successfully in the plantation sites in the Uva basin. As geo-climatic conditions were considered to be the decisive variables

26 for causing a paucity of tree cover, afforestation required trees which would withstand prolonged drought and the kachchan winds.

In 1988 W.R.H. Perera, Conservator of Forests during the 1970s, who was lauded as the 'father of pine', could justify the pinus plantations by characterizing the patanas with such significant metaphors as 'denuded' and 'barren' lands, "on which nothing else could grow" (Perera W.R.H. 1988:6-8).

A decision was made to clothe the eyesore of our denuded, degraded, eroded lands, ... with plantations of Pinus caribaea, the only species that thrived on these lands on a large scale. (Perera W.R.H. 1988:7)

The livelihood requirements of the inhabitants of villages such as Kitulwatte entirely eluded the Victorian zeal of the Conservator.

The patana controversy mirrors a larger global context. The Anglo-American debate on grassland succession provided an intellectual stimulus to writers such de Rosayro and

Holmes, who were familiar with the relevant literature and appropriated its concepts and arguments for their purposes. As Donald Worster's history of Anglo-American ecological thought relates, Frederic Clements had defined the North American grassland plains as a climax which was maintained by the factors of "limited rainfall and much exposure to drying winds" (Worster 1977:215). His critic A.G. Tansley argued against the 'natural- ness' of the grassland climax and introduced the concept of an 'anthropogenic climax' in order to account for and legitimize ecological systems dominated by human actors. Thus, the idea that grazing by animals may create a 'biotic climax' and recurrent fires may create a 'fire climax' entered the debate (Worster 1977:239).

A cousin variety of the Sri Lankan patana controversy was carried on by Indian scholars over the origin of the Nilgiris plateau, a South Indian highland ecosystem dominated by grasslands. The Uva basin shares socio-ecological features with the Nilgiris. Again,

27 the debate is polarized around the natural climax versus anthropogenic climax positions, and, as in the Sri Lankan case, "uncertainty" and "insufficiency of our knowledge" pre- clude the resolution of the debate (Lengerke & Blasco 1989:61-62).

Writing on grassland cultivation and animal husbandry in Sumatra, George Sherman shows how colonial agro-economic policies had constructed an image of cultivated grasslands as wastelands in order to promote non-indigenous claims to state land for plantation establishment. Burned grasslands evoked the same disdainful reactions from unfamiliar outsiders in Sumatra as in Sri Lanka. Sherman observes the meaning of "deceptive appearances, of the difficulty of reading the significance of a landscape from its overt appearance" (Sherman 1990:150).

All over the Third World campaigns for the replacement of 'inferior' forms of agriculture with 'rational' cultivation techniques have been waged. These latter usually imply tea, sugar cane, tobacco, coffee and tree plantations, or green revolution peasant agriculture. The contempt of the official 'conservationists' was strongly motivated by competiton for access to land. By delegitimizing the landuse techniques of local farmers, they justified the appropriation of state lands for plantation establishment and the adoption of cash crop cultivation. Most often they ignored the intricate dynamics of the social ecology of grasslands.

Forest fragments

In Kitulwatte, as elsewhere in the Uva basin, relatively dense tree cover is restricted to small patches inside sheltered gullies and hollows. Forest scientist Peter Meyer has identified these as riparian forest fragments, based on their location, species composition and

28 discontinuous occurrence (Meyer P. 1989:62-64). The travelogues of Knox and Davy indicate that forest cover in the Uva has been sparse for several centuries (Knox [1681]

1989:10,12,27; Davy [1821] 1983:302,343).

According to table 6, only 4.2 percent of the Kitulwatte micro-watershed were under forest in 1954, which was reduced to 2.6 percent by 1988. The landuse maps of the micro-watershed demonstrate their scattered occurence.

It may be assumed that reduction of forest cover has been an ongoing process since the settlement of the Uva basin by rice cultivators in the 11th century A.D. Riparian locations are preferred sites for paddy cultivation which requires wet conditions. If in Kitulwatte continuous riparian forests had been the dominant flora along streams, they were replaced with permanent fields in many locations long before 1954, thereby affecting their fragmentation.

The majority of academic writers assume that riparian forests were originally surrounded by dry montane forests, which were destroyed by human landuse practices

(Meyer P. 1989:20,62-64). As I have indicated above, the scant evidence for this theory and its consequently speculative nature, as well as the existence of a plausible competing alternative advanced by de Rosayro (1945/46), render our knowledge of the 'original' flora of the basin uncertain.

The decline of forest cover since 1954 was primarily caused by the clearing of land for permanent cash crop cultivation in hill-fields, a process which was intensified from the early 1970s. A small proportion of Kitulwatte's forest cover disappeared, when the Forest

Department cleared the upper segments of gully forests for plantation establishment. Vil- lagers have been gathering firewood and cutting construction timber for household needs

29 for a long time. Both resources had always been relatively scarce due to the limited extent of forest cover. Population increase and the need for poles used in vegetable cultivation have increased these extractive activities during the past 30 years. As a consequence of these combined impacts, both the extent and the density of forest fragments have declined.11

Gathering and cutting of forest products have been a historical usufruct right of the villagers. The Kandyan king had designated certain 'forbidden forests' [tahansi kaele] which were used exclusively as the monarch's source of forest products, timber in particular. The vast and dense forests of the wet zone hills were maintained as a means of defence against intruding enemies (Knox [1681] 1989:4). All of Kitulwatte's forest fragments appear to have been open to the villagers. People who desired to clear forest land for paddy cultivation and chena were given permanent land titles or temporary permits by the local administration representing the king.

The colonial state claimed forests as crown land property and continued in principle the pre-colonial legal practice regulating villagers' access, but restricted the available area to 'village forests'.

The post-colonial state inherited the crown lands and thereby the forests which were placed under the control of the Forest Department. Forests on crown land were designated as reserved forests, according to the Forest Ordinance No. 16 of 1907, which is still in force although in amended form. Riparian forests, as in Kitulwatte, are defined as river reservations and cutting, lopping and stripping the bark of living trees, as well as burning is prohibited, as their importance for watershed management is recognised. The amend-

30 ment No. 65 of 1979 prohibits extraction of forest products in general, thereby proclaiming a policy of keeping people away from the forest (Withanage 1991:10-20).

The practice of forest use and management in Kitulwatte deviates considerably from legal prescriptions. The Forest Department, which has the mandate to protect riparian forests, is not aware of the existence of forested land in Kitulwatte. The Range Officer in the Haputale Range Office, which has jurisdiction over Kitulwatte's forests and tree plantations, professed complete ignorance of their existence. The Badulla District Landuse

Map of 1982 as well as the Forest Department's plantation maps, do not indicate the existence of forest fragments in Kitulwatte's micro-watershed. In this area, the Forest De- partment is exclusively concerned with the tree plantations. It tolerates illegal forest clearing for cultivation, and has legalised the squatters de facto, by exempting all fenced hill-fields from clearing for tree plantation establishment.

This lack of concern and knowledge is owed to the smallness of the forest fragments.

They are not considered useful either for timber production or for watershed management. The Forest Department deals with forest production and protection on a scale of

'national interest', and focusses on industrial wood and large watersheds. The diversified forest resources required by villagers and the significance of a micro-watershed for local water users are not within its cognitive horizon. The Department uses external administrative control by a hierarchically organized professional staff as an approach to forest management. Community organizing for the purpose of forest resource management is alien to the foresters.12

The use of Kitulwatte's forest fragments is thus entirely in the hands of the village community. The forest fragments provide for contradictory needs of the villagers and

31 their utilisation is therefore a contested terrain. Extractive practices which decimate the number of trees and open the canopy, such as cutting of trees and saplings and overlopping, as well as clear cutting, undermine the ability of the forests to produce food stuffs, medicinal plants, firewood, and their watershed effect. This is of course a matter of degree, as cutting and lopping to a certain extent will not harm the regenerative capacities of the forest, while after a threshold has been overstepped, the forests' productive capacities are impaired.

The regulatory means for the protection of the forests by the village community combine a forest ethic with a legally enforceable rule. People of all social groups know that their forest fragments are important providers of resources. Two elders referred to the forest as a jala viharaya, a water temple. All households enumerated many forest products they were using or had been using in the past, and appreciated the forests as the crucial source of water for cultivation and household use. Therefore, our interviewees recognised the injunction prohibiting the cutting of living trees as proper and desireable conduct. The ideal village code of ethics permits only the gathering of dead branches and trees for firewood and the gathering of food stuffs.

The enforcement of this ethic relies mostly on social pressure among the community's members. Self-interest in situations where the benefits of forested land for cultivation are directly evident appeared to be the most effective motivation for forest protection.

Somawathi, a woman in her late sixties, and her adult children cultivate a 3/4 acre paddy and vegetable field located directly below a tiny forest fragment. The field contains several springs and an ela diverts water into the fields from a narrow stream emerging from

32 the forest fragment. They state that they do not allow anyone to cut trees or branches in the forest fragment and collect only dead wood themselves.

We protect our water source like our life. Without our forest this paddy field would go dry. Nobody can touch any of the trees here. (Somawathi, fieldnotes)

Her knowledge was confirmed by the apparent desiccation of an adjacent field above which all forest cover had been removed. Instead a footpath had been built and the deforested land was overgrown with secondary shrubs. Cultivation in this field was entirely rainfed.

On the village level, the legal enforcement of the rule against cutting was and still is in the hands of the village administrator. Before the grama niladari [village officer], the gamarala [farmers' representative] had the institutional power to punish offenders. Since the current appointed state administrators have shown little concern for forest protection, the former gamarala of Lower Kitulwatte, who still enjoys considerable authority in his hamlets, acts as an adamant protector of the forest fragments. He is, however, reluctant to involve the police in quarrels with his fellow villagers, since he fears to alienate his friends and neighbours. Although he instructs people not to enter the forest with knives and to adhere to the rule of collecting only dead branches, he has to rely on people's recognition of the sensibility of the rule and their voluntary compliance. He thus argues with offenders rather than prosecuting them. Realizing the breakdown of the community's forest ethic and his lack of effective power, he suggested that the community's sense of solidarity and mutual control had dissipated. "Now", he complained, "people listen neither to their neighbours nor their elders" (Gamarala, fieldnotes).

The conflict of needs and interests in forest use is not necessarily polarised between particular social groups. Rather, all social actors share requirements for sustainable and

33 non-sustainable uses. Our respondents were invariably aware of the problematic changes they had caused in the forest fragments, but they also communicated their need to extract scarce resources such as timber and firewood. If alternative sources, such as dead wood or timber from homegardens, are insufficient, they need to cut in the forest. The farmers therefore experience their relationship with the forest as an inner conflict or dilemma.

Quarrels are initiated by those who are adversely affected by another's activity in a particular instance. Some valley-field cultivators reported to have fought with hill-field cultivators over forest or patana clearing, when their irrigation capacity was threatened.

The same valley-field farmers did, however, maintain hill-fields in locations which did not affect irrigation of their particular valley-fields. Outsiders, such as urban youths, who cut or peel entire cinnamon trees for market sale of cinnamon sticks, are scornfully critizised, while many villagers engage in the same practice.

Age difference may be the only social differentiation affecting such conflicts. Elders, who have known the dynamics of their livelihood system from the 1920s, tend to be more aware of the effects of destructive practices. However, owing to the demands of the cash economy, which supplies farmers with both agricultural inputs and consumer goods, these elders and their children are nevertheless involved in the same landuse practices.

Pained laments are more frequent than decisive action for conservation.

The productive capacities of forests are the result of a complex interactive effect of a great diversity of species, living as a tightly knit matrix.13 Trees are the dominant life form of the forest. Growing in close but irregular proximity, they form a canopy which supports the growth of shade loving shrubs, creepers [vines] and herbacious plants, as well as of young trees which regenerate the forest. The canopy is multi-layered as indi-

34 viduals of different species and ages grow together. Creepers traverse the trees' stems and crowns, which form a criss-crossing structure of branches and leaves. Underneath shrubs and herbacious plants grow close to the ground.14

By intercepting both rainfall and sunlight this immense structure regulates the conversion of solar energy into biomass and the infiltration of water by the forest ecosystem.

Torrential rainfall and prolonged dry seasons with intense solar radiation are typical of tropical climatic conditions. The forest is capable of utilising these extreme inputs efficiently.

The canopy and ground cover shelter the soil from the direct impact of rain. Rainwater percolates through the multi-layered structure to the forest floor. The ground is covered by a layer of decomposing leaf litter, which is continously regenerated from the biomass production of the forest flora. In addition, dead wood from fallen branches and dead plants decompose on the ground. The high infiltration capacity of the litter, humus and top soil layers facilitates the retention of water percolating from the canopy and of surface runoff from other areas. The infiltrating water leaches nutrients from the upper soil layers into the root zone where they are absorbed by the plants. The dense lateral root system recycles the forests' biomass production and simultaneously stabilises the forest soil. Vertical tap roots allow the trees to utilize water which has percolated to deeper soil layers. The plants transpire a proportion of infiltrated rainwater which was absorbed for their sustenance and evaporate intercepted rainwater directly from the canopy. The remainder recharges the groundwater and emerges in springs.

35 A closed canopy filters intense tropical solar radiation and allows only intermittent light to energise the shade loving understory species. It lowers the rate of direct evaporation of moisture from the soil and of evapotranspiration from understory plants.

Surface runoff in forests is relatively low, and long term release of soil water to plants and springs is slow. As a result forests are capable of producing dry season flow which can sustain human water users year round. At the same time forests can sustain their participating species under extreme climatic conditions, such as in the Uva basin.

Besides providing biomass in form of food and firewood directly to human users, decomposing biomass in the soil is leached into the ground and surface water flow and is carried to lower lying lifelihood systems, such as homegardens and fields, where nutrients produced in the forest are consumed by cultivated plants.

Peter Meyer has studied six forest fragments in the Uva basin, one of which is located in the Kitulwatte micro-catchment. His study provides evidence for the importance of the relationship between the basin's grasslands and forests. The forest fragments act as a sink for erosive runoff from the patanas. Accumulation of leaf litter and of eroded soil from the grasslands cause the relatively greater depth and porosity of the forest soil. This results in higher water retention and nutrient supply of the forests as compared to grasslands. A transfer of nutrients and water from patanas to forest fragments is taking place

(Meyer P. 1989:43-45).

P. Meyer considers this circumstance the decisive condition for the existence of riparian forest fragments with a high proportion of wet zone species in the Uva basin. His explanation of their prevalence remains, however, reductionist. He argues that a favourable soil water supply causes the existence of riparian forests (Meyer P. 1989:45,62,71).

36 Yet, the individual plants comprising the forest fragments are active participants in the production of conditions which retain and cycle soil water and nutrients. The relationship between forests and the behavior of the water cycle is reciprocal or mutually condi- tioning. Without the creation of favourable soil water retention by the forest, the surface runoff from the grasslands would simply continue to run off and no long-term water release would take place.

The argument whether forests produce water or water produces forests is reflected in the conflicting perpectives among forest scientists and local farmers. Local knowledge states that forests conserve water.

Trees like the walamba [wild mango] and other forest trees circulate and retain water. (Gunasekera, fieldnotes)

An ODA forester stationed in Kandy ridiculed this 'naive' and 'illogical' notion that a certain kind of tree would attract water. He stated that trees 'obviously' grew only where water was available. Therefore, he considered planting trees a useless watershed protection measure. He did not entertain the possibility that the farmers' statement reflected their knowledge of the reciprocal relationship between trees and water. Conventional forestry science thinks in reductionist terms.

The indispensable active involvement of forest species in the landphase of the water cycle, requires consideration in the appreciation of the argument that forests are not optimal flora for watershed management, as advanced by Hamilton (1983), Bruijnzeel (1986) and Bosch & Hewlett (1982). These authors have argued that a shallow rooted floristic cover, such as croplands or grasslands, which are protected by soil and water conservation measures, facilitate higher water yields due to lower evapotranspiration rates.

37 This argument involves two critical qualifications. First, the watershed experiments which supported their viewpoints were able to implement optimal conservation measures.

These clinical conditions either kept people out or controlled their behavior very tightly.

Under average socio-ecological relations this is not possible. Second, it is assumed that optimal water yield is a desirable and exclusive target. This high productivity perspective reduces a watershed to the production of a single 'function' and ignores the diversified requirements of multiple participants.

A complex ecosystem does not require optimal productivity of one variable, but an adequate distribution of resources to the multiple participants of an ecosystem in order to maintain their composite effect. In other words, for trees to produce their watershed effect, they need to sustain themselves and consume a proportion of the water they help to infiltrate. Given the need of human actors to use the patanas as a resource for animal husbandry, and the limiting geo-climatic conditions of the Uva basin, the forest fragments are an indispensable link in the local water cycle. From an economistic perspective it might be argued that the trees need to be paid for their 'services' with a proportion of the water they help to infiltrate.

Optimalism pursues the appropriation of the highest possible yield of a singular good for a specific human purpose without incurring all of the necessary costs. If an ecosystem component, such as the forest fragments, provide for multiple human uses, optimalist exploitation of any particular resource, without regard for its multiple 'services' and the sustenance of the system participants which render these 'services' leads to their impairment and eventual breakdown.

38 The forest fragments support human sustenance by providing food, fuelwood, timber, poles, medicinal plants, and animal fodder. While most plants are extracted, lopped or tapped for subsistence purposes, some, such as the kitul palm or cinnamon trees, are a source of cash income as well. With the disappearance of much of the patanas, the forest fragments have become the only source of many tree products. Women are the primary gatherers of forest products. Men, however, cut timber and poles, and extract goods for market sale. Our respondents in the village enumerated 59 useful plant species derived from forest fragments.

Collecting of fruits, while insignificantly reducing opportunities for seed dispersal, does not impair the integrity of the forest fragments. The quantity of biomass removed for food, medicinal purposes and paddy germination is negligible. Women gather dead branches and lop trees to collect live branches, for firewood. Collection of dead wood reduces the amount of organic matter supplied to living plants. In a situation of tree scarcity and population increase, as in the Uva basin, this may have some effect on nutrient and water flow. Lopping below a certain threshold, which does not impair the photosynthetic activity of trees, has been observed to produce a 'density effect', i.e. increased production of branches and leaves (Moench & Bandyopadhyay 1985:67-68).

The same authors note that overlopping and felling in areas of great demand opens the canopy and allows for the establishment of more sun-tolerant 'invaders'. In the case of the

Uva basin forest fragments, trees and shrubs, rather than grasses, act as so-called gap- opportunists (Meyer P. 1989:133,136f.), due to the limited size and sheltered location of most canopy openings. Some 'invaders', such as the dominant shrub 'queen of the night' crowd out herbacious ground cover and tree saplings.

39 The extraction of poles and timber for both household use and sale, which is a male task, is the primary cause of overlopping and canopy opening. The removal of saplings for poles undermines the regeneration of the forest fragments. Elders reported that in their youth homegardens had supplied sufficient timber for household needs. With the reduction of tree cover in the homegardens for vegetable cultivation, forest fragments became an alternative source of timber.

If these practices strip larger areas of their tree cover the entire species composition of a location is altered. I was shown a gully in the upper hills, where villagers had cut trees for timber, firewood and poles. Over a period of several years the forest fragment had dissappeared and was replaced by shrubs and grasses.

Older informants stated that the forests had been much thicker and 'wilder' in their youth. People had related to the forest with a sense of awe. The hooting of owls, the forest's relative darkness, and common beliefs in the presence of deities and demons

[devata and yakkas], some of them rather malevolent, had restricted people's movement in the forest. These spirits required respectful ritual behavior or instilled fears which motivated their avoidance.15

The hydrological effect of the reduction of the extent of forest fragments is a loss of infiltration capacity and soil moisture, and an increase of erosive surface runoff. This effect is particularly strong in locations cultivated with vegetables, where much of the soil is exposed year round and good drainage is required.

The reduction of plant density and canopy opening reduces the protective effect of the canopy, thus promoting higher evapotranspiration rates among the remaining plants and greater intensity of rainfall impact. Particularly if the plant layers near the soil have been

40 disturbed, crowded out or removed, the kinetic energy of the direct impact of raindrops causes soil erosion. The erosive impact of water which collects on upper canopy layers and drips onto the exposed soil has been shown to be even stronger (Bruijnzeel 1986:8).

Erosion reduces the infiltration capacity of the soil. These effects may be partially offset by the reduction of evapotranspiration resulting from the reduced number of plants in the forest.

Our interviewees recognised that forest fragments were the principle source of water in Kitulwatte. I observed that, except for the springs in Galpothuyaya, all currently existing sources of surface water emanate from forest fragments. The majority of springs, which have dried up since the pinus plantations were established, were located in forest fragments. In the following sketches of the social ecology of five forest fragments in the

Kitulwatte micro-watershed I will establish causal relationships between site-specific landuse changes and water scarcity.

A small forest fragment located in the northern corner of Kitulwatte's western hills has been a source of water and forest products for Fatima, her husband and 12 year old son, as well as for her extended family. They have been living in a compound consisting altogether of six households on a one and three quarters acre property adjacent to the forest fragment since the 1950s. She stated that her father had been given a property title to the half acre forest patch and some cultivated land after a government survey. This Muslim family occupies a distinct social and spatial enclave.

The forest fragment contained a small perennial stream emerging from a single spring.

Above the homestead and the forest fragment had been patanas. The stream was diverted at several locations to irrigate the irregularly cultivated vegetable fields of the extended

41 family. The fields also contained several springs used for cultivation, indicating an abundant groundwater supply of the slope.

In addition to occasional cash crop cultivation, the members of the various households have been gaining their livelihoods through a combination of agricultural and non- agricultural wage labour and self-employment, as well as from forest and grassland resources which are gathered. By village standards these Muslim households are poor and of low status. They are confronted with discrimination and hostility from some of the villagers, as well as from significant outsiders, such as government administrators.

At the lower end of their property a pilla [spout] had been installed in the forest stream. Here the households' women collected water in a kale [10 litre water vessel] for drinking, food preparation and toiletting. The women carry kales on their hips, holding the vessel's rim in the angle of their arm. The full container is heavy and walking without causing the container to slip or spill requires skill. Girls are required to fetch water from an early age. The pilla was also used as a bathing and laundry spot. Fatima remarked on the convenience of their stream, which required only minimal walking time. Since women have to carry between 5 and 25 kales daily, depending on family size and types of uses, a close and reliable water source is an important asset. Fatima emphasized that the water from the forest spring was clean and fresh, as it was flowing water, uncontaminated by upstream users.

In addition to water, the forest fragment satisfied all of Fatima's family's firewood requirements. She stated, that they only collected dead branches. They had cut some timber to build the original house where she had lived during her childhood and youth. All addi-

42 tional buildings used timber bought in the market. The households also gathered food plants in the forest fragment.

For a poor marginalised family, their control over a vital and non-monetised resource base was a means of independence from resources controlled by more powerful villagers or by the state.

This situation has changed since the 1960s. Several new homesteads were built successively in the patanas above the Muslim family's property. Most of these squatters on government land were families of the vahumpura caste, who were poor as well.

According to Fatima, these households cut a great number of trees in the forest fragment as construction timber for their houses, thereby thinning the stand of trees. They became new water users at the pilla and claimed firewood and food resources from the forest fragment. Although the Muslim family argued with their new neighbours over timber cutting, which was reported to have occured mostly during the night hours, water and produce from the forest could not be denied to fellow villagers. Particularly among poor households these free goods are to be shared according to prevailing ethical standards.

In 1975 the patana hills above the forest were transformed into pinus plantations and some of the sqatters planted small dense eucalyptus lots in their homegardens as a cash crop.

The water yield of the forest stream began to decline progressively. The stream stopped flowing during the dry season and in the late 1980s disappeared entirely. Only the surface runoff of rainfall events rushes through the gully during the rainy season.

Fatima reported that the entire forest fragment had slowly started to dry out. When walking inside the forest I noticed the lack of moisture in the air and top soil, which is

43 usually found in an intact forest. No leeches were attacking my feet and legs, a sure indicator of desiccation. Only at the site of the former spring the soil was still moist. This meant that rainwater still infiltrated the ground and percolated towards the former spring, but too little to create stream flow. The water had receded into the ground.

The people in the surrounding homesteads started to dig for water. Below the forest fragment they opened up a shallow well which at first supplied sufficient water but started to decline soon. Now water can only be drawn from the well at any time of the day during the rainy season. During the rest of the year people have to wait until a trickle of groundwater flow has filled the well. To continue cultivation and to find alternative drinking water sources, Fatima's family started to dig holes into the ground all over their fields. Some yielded water some of the time, but as the years went by these declined to levels insufficient to cultivate even a quarter of an acre. Fatima and her neighbours blame the pinus plantations for the loss of their water source.

Now the households have to procure water for cleaning, toiletting and house construction from the Oya, where they also bathe and do their laundry. The Oya is a steep 500 metres walk downhill and the continuous climbs with the kale are tiring.

Drinking and cooking water is fetched from a road tap, located on Welimada Road, a four minute walk from the compound. The road tap is an unreliable source, as it is one of the last down-line taps of the public water supply scheme. Water is only available during certain hours except during the rainy season. In the dry season water may only come every two or three days for an hour, or not at all, if the pressure in the pipe is too low. If this happens, the people served by the tap have to walk up to 15 minutes to find private wells where they are allowed to draw water. As yields may be too low or subside altogether, as

44 in the severe drought of 1992, they may not be given access to other people's wells. In these situations people drink polluted Oya water. When the road tap broke in the fall of

1992 it was not repaired, since the villagers requesting the repair refused to be billed for the repair and future water use.

The loss of their forest stream has made Fatima's family dependent on uncertain water sources controlled by others. That they and their neighbours should blame the Forest De- partment for planting pinus is inevitable. Even though the forest fragment had been over- exploited prior to plantation establishment, their water disappeared with the maturing of the pines. However, the simultaneous increase in the density of human settlement, the degradation of the forest fragment and the planting of private lots of fast growing trees, suggests that the collapse of Fatima's water source is the composite effect of several changes in human landuse practices. Similar interactive processes of degradation and resource competition have precipitated the water crisis in all of Kitulwatte's forest fragments.

Ambagastalawakaele [forest [kaele] of the mango tree grassland] is located further south in the hills above Lower Kitulwatte. It is the longest uninterrupted stretch of forested land in the micro-watershed and covers almost an entire gully, with the exception of an approximately two acre plot between the main foot path and the Oya, which had been converted to paddy fields long ago.

Gunasingha is particularly concerned with protecting this forest fragment and has been comparatively successful. Human settlement has occured only near the bottom part of the fragment, some of which is over a hundred years old. There has been no clearing for cultivation above the footpath, and the forest forms an uninterrupted canopy of old growth

45 trees. The lowest third has been thinned by limited timber, pole and firewood extraction.

Yet, even here the crowns of the tall emergent trees form a closed canopy. Further up the forest becomes almost impenetrable as thorny creepers and thick undergrowth claim all the space between the trees.

Today, Ambagastalawakaele is almost entirely surrounded by pinus trees. As we walk along the forest fragment, Gunasingha shows places where springs and stream flow used to occur. He explains that all of the water sources located in the patanas above, as well as in the upper half of the forest itself, have receded and eventually vanished since the planting of the pine trees. A few springs further below form a narrow water course which runs through a one foot wide stream bed and emerges at the main path. Here a spout had been installed to collect drinking water. Before 1976, our interviewees reported, the stream was over six inches wide and provided a perennial flow of abundant water. Gunasingha stated that a kale was filled in less than one minute, even in the dry season.

A proportion of the flow was diverted below the footpath into an ela [irrigation channel] which irrigated the paddy and vegetable fields in the lower gully. The ela finally reached a public spout constructed from cement and a corrugated iron pipe, which served as a convenient bathing and laundry spot for the households in the centre of Lower

Kitulwatte. The remainder of the main stream flow followed its original stream bed, where it was tapped for irrigation of a few lower lying fields, and finally flowed into the

Oya.

From 1976 this water source has declined progressively. When dry season flow was reduced to a trickle people dug a shallow well in the gully bed, which has also dried up.

Today the stream forms a narrow trickle year round, except when it carries direct runoff

46 from rainfall. The ela is dry and overgrown. The cement spout is unused. The farmers have directed the trickle straight into the gully fields where it irrigates the upmost vegetable plots. Other plots are watered from holes dug into the ground all over the fields. The original stream bed between the footpath and the Oya is dry. Gunasingha has tested the current stream flow at the spout repeatedly and reports that it takes up to 20 minutes to fill a kale. During all months of the year I have observed unattended water containers placed under the spout in the forest bottom by someone who was attending to other chores while her kale filled up slowly.

In 1992, the udagama village development project, in its efforts to address the water problem in the village, dug a ten feet deep well next to the dry shallow well. For the time being it has sufficient yield to provide the community with a convenient water source once again. A note engraved on the well's cement structure proclaims that only drinking water may be drawn and that washing and bathing are prohibited. The pilla above the footpath has meanwhile been destroyed together with a small patch of the forest when a bulldozer widenend the footpath for road development purposes. While this component of the village development project has obstructed the faint remaining stream flow, the road has never been completed.

The example of Ambagastalawakaele indicates that the pinus plantations are a decisive factor in the transformation of the micro-watershed's hydrological regime. By contrast to the forest fragment discussed above, the impact of forest product extraction by human actors was limited and most likely below the threshold of irreparable damage. While walking inside the forest I observed that it was damp and cool. I was attacked by leeches.

Nevertheless, the dramatic increase in water uptake by pines has reduced soil moisture

47 percolation from the surrounding hills and the forest soil is unable to compensate by ab- sorbing the increased surface runoff from the plantations. Once the forest soil is saturated, all excess water runs off through the main streambed.

Waettabaedakaele [forest near the fence] is located above Ambagahakumbura and

Galahitiyawa in the southwestern high hills of Kitulwatte. The hill-fields of Lokubanda, specialist for charms and snake-bites, are situated in one of the clearings separating the various remnants of this forest fragment. Lokubanda took me on a walk through the plantations and gully forests above his hamlet. We observed that the upper portion of the fragment was entirely surrounded by eucalyptus trees on its northern and western sides and by pinus on its southern side. The canopy was closed but no undergrowth was visible. The herbacious plant cover, shrubs and small tree seedlings were grazed by a timid herd of twenty-odd wild cattle running from the forest fragment as we approached. The forest floor is covered with dung, the soil is black and moist. This is the herd's permanent resting place.

Inside the fragment Lokubanda pointed out the locations of several former springs, the clearly defined traces of former rivulets in the soil and the empty bed of a once perennial stream. The soil was moist and tiny stagnant pools had formed in places which had collected rainwater and runoff. There was no streamflow. It was January 1993, the last month of the rainy season, which had been plentiful this time. Yet, groundwater recharge and soil moisture were insufficient to produce stream flow in this part of the forest fragment. The disturbance of ground flora and the compaction of the soil by wild cattle has undermined the forest's infiltration capacity and rendered it vulnerable to erosion and

48 runoff. Most significantly, the proximity of the plantation trees prevented sufficient ground water recharge from the surrounding hills and slopes.

Further down the gully another remnant of the forest fragment has survived. It is surrounded by patanas, rather than plantation trees and has a closed canopy and dense un- dercover. Below this fragment, in the centre of the gully, Lokubanda's hill-fields are located. They are covered by a thick grasses and herbs since they lay fallow for several months. Springs are located in both the forest fragment immediately above and in the fields. A perennial small stream flows alongside the fields and eventually into Galahit- yawa Kandura, which meets the Oya in the main valley. The soil is very moist and we sink into muddy ground between the raised beds where Lokubanda had grown beans last year. He points out a spring which forms a 50 centimetre deep waterhole in the fields. He states that these 3 1/2 acres of cultivated land are located on former forest land which was cleared by his ancestors about 130 years ago. While most farmers were reluctant to admit that many hill-fields had replaced parts of the forest fragments, Lokubanda was explicit about this fact.

In Lokubanda's case, this practice has had no drastic effect on water availability, as demonstrated by the marshy condition of his fields. During the the fallow cylce this site resembled wet patana flora most closely. Lokubanda's fields demonstrate the meaning of the Hamilton-thesis: partial deforestation does not necessarily lead to the disappearance of water. The conditions are, however, site-specific. The fields are situated below a fairly intact forest fragment containing several springs and they are on almost level grounds, thus assuring infiltration capacity and protection from erosion. The most significant fac-

49 tor, however, is the lack of immediate impact of forest plantations and the survival of the grass-cover of the surrounding hills.

Galahitiyawa Kandura, which results from the confluence of four major streams arising in the upper hills, provides irrigation water for the valley fields in Galahitiyawa, as well as household water for its residents. The hamlet's bathing spot, a large cement structure with three iron pillas, indicates the kandura's former capacity. Currently only one pilla carries water. Of the three elas, which used to irrigate valley-fields in Galahitiyawa and Upper Kitulwatte, only the lowest one carries water to a few high-lying fields in

Galahitiyawa. The loss of flow from the stream which used to feed the wewa above Up- per Kitulwatte has reduced this reservoir to a muddy puddle which collects surface runoff and rainwater. Comparison of the aerial photographs of 1954 and 1988, indicates a drastic decline in the water yield of the wewa. It has become useless for irrigation purposes.

Although each of these examples reveals site-specific features, they are indicative of the hydrological consequences of the landuse changes which have occured in the western hills of the micro-watershed. Here all of the forest fragments are surrounded by tree plantations. Most have been reduced and thinned by crop cultivation and extractive activities.

Water flow in all forest gullies has vastly diminished or subsided.

On the southeastern side of the Kitulwatte micro-watershed Gaetawelakaele [forest by the Gaeta-tree field] stretches from the midslope to the Oya. It is surrounded by two tea estates, a dirt road and old homegardens. The forest fragment is one of three gully forests which were surrounded by the original tea estate planted in the 1930s. Tea planters generally conserved some of their gully forests, in order to ensure the availability of water sources. There are no pinus plantations on Kitulwatte's eastside.

50 Gaetawelakaele contains the most reliable and steady streams of all forest fragments in the micro-watershed. Perennial springs are situated in both of the forest's gullies and their streams meet about halfway down the slope to form a strong water course, which retains its flow evenly throughout the year.

In the dry season of 1991 I repeatedly measured the stream flow at a pilla installed with a large kitul-wood spout just below the confluence of the two primary streams. It took between 13 and 17 seconds to fill a kale. None of the other streams on either side of the Oya could match this yield of dry season flow. During the rainy season on clear days

I measured 13 seconds.

A number of landuse practices affect the forest fragment. Towards its top, some members of a household living in the old homesteads have cleared half an acre of forest land adjacent to the dirt road, where they cultivate vegetable cash crops. Some tall trees have been retained in the field for intensive firewood lopping and harvesting of jackfruit. The field is irrigated by pumping water with an electric pump from a 10 feet deep well situated at the top of one of the gullies, where a spring used to be located. These cultivators also pump water for household uses into a storage tank built next to their house across the road.

The estate road carries a heavy load of silt from uphill and is itself eroded during rainfall events. The owner of Glenwood Estate has installed several small channels conducting runoff into the forest, in order to drain and protect his access road. The silt is carried into the streambeds and obstructs streamflow. Fortunately, the forest's water yield is sufficiently high to prevent choking and the streams' disappearance into the ground, a common effect of silting in small streams.

51 Forest product extraction has opened the canopy in a number of areas near the access road. Several footpaths have been cut to provide access to one of the springs, where water is collected, to gather firewood and to reach the spout.

Despite these kinds of disturbances, this forest fragment has remained lush, humid and cool. The soil is moist throughout the year, and except for the driest months in July and

August leeches are rampant. During the dry season, these infallible indicators of good water conditions retreat to the immediate surroundings of the springs. Where the forest fragment has retained a closed canopy, another indicator of good water conditions, the giant tree fern, which requires shade and moisture, thrives alongside the main gully. The canopy is multi-layered and the ground is covered with a thick tangle of herbacious plants. A variety of orchids have established in the cracks of rocks and the bark of trees, and the incessant cacophony of animal calls fills the air.

Living only 200 metres from the edge of this forest fragment, I also heard the sounds of conversation among a persistent stream of visitors to the pilla and the rhythmic beating of laundry on a washing stone. From early morning until after dark people from the surrounding hamlets came to bathe, to wash laundry and to collect water. The spot was a lively meeting point were gossip and flirtations were exchanged. People immersed themselves with obvious pleasure in the broad gush of sparkling cold water running off the spout. Nowhere else did I sense the preciousness of abundant and clean water and the beauty of the forest's gift more clearly.

Further down the gully, a small cement anicut was built to divert part of the streamflow into an ela, which carries water through the last tree-lined river reservation of the

Oya to several fields in the valley bottom. Here Heenbanda cultivates paddy and vegeta-

52 bles in an ande [50/50 sharecrop] relationship with a landowner living in Bandarawela.

He considered these fields to be among the most productive in the village. On account of the abundant water supply he is able to attain the highest paddy yields we have recorded in Kitulwatte.

Still, he scolded the mahattaya from Glenwood Estate and the people who cultivate the vegetable plot in the forest fragment, for having dug three wells in and immediately adjacent to Gaetawelakaele. He reports to have noted a definite decline in water yield once the wells were installed. These wells are private water sources which are accessible exclusively to the residents of the tea-estate and the forest cultivators. The tea planter has even closed his larger well, which taps the forest fragment's groundwater and has never dried up, with an iron-lid, a bar and a huge lock. He stated, that in the past neighbouring villagers had entered his property and taken his water during the dry season.

During 1991 and 1992 two additional wells were dug right above the forest's northern boundary, where a now defunct tea estate has been divided into residential building blocks in hope of attracting affluent buyers. The second of these wells was abandoned as it yielded no water.

The effort of the udagama development project to install a tube-well above the forest fragment, which was intended to tap the groundwater recharge percolating to the forest, failed. The geological survey had overlooked the fragility of the soil and the lack of solid rock layers, which made it impossible to stabilize the tube. Piyadasa, the coordinator of the project, contemplated on pumping the forest fragment's stream water to a storage tank to provide the new settlements with a convenient source of water. Lack of finances prevented this scheme of resource monopolisation.

53 The hydrological situation of Kosgollakaele, a forest fragment located further north, contrasts strikingly with Gaetawelakaele's fecundity. The outflow of its stream into the valley-fields is a mere trickle, although Kosgollakaele is among the largest of the forest fragments in the micro-watershed. It is situated inside Claire Estate, and bordered by the new hamlet of Clairwatte. The top portion of the fragment contains two main gullies which merge below the road to form a steep ravine. These gullies were reported to have carried perennial stream flow up until 20 years ago.

The property rights situation in this fragment is ambiguous. The owners of Clair Estate treat it as part of the estate, although they recognise their legal responsibility to refrain from felling trees. Villagers who extract forest products act on their usufruct right, although they violate the prohibition against cutting of living trees. Some villagers squat on parts of Kosgollakaele.

Several wells have been built inside and above the two gullies covered by this forest fragment. The owners of Clair Estate installed a large agricultural well of approximately

5 metres diameter and another smaller well. These tap the groundwater flow percolating towards Kosgollakaele, and supply five affluent residential properties, their lawns and gardens, estate labourers' quarters, a small dairy farm, and the spice processing factory, all of which are located on the tea estate. Due to the spice factory's water demands, the wells are considered insufficient and a connection to the public water supply scheme was requested. During the dry season the villagers of Clairwatte use the estate wells for drinking water.

54 Two further large wells located immediately above the forest fragment and Welimada

Road were built by the owner of a carpentry shop and a paddy mill, and by the University

College construction project.

As a result, a public spout installed inside the forest 100 metres below the Clair Esta- te's wells yields only a trickle during the wetter months of the year and subsides frequently during the dry season. In response low-income residents of Clairwatte have built a well inside the forest on top of a spring which used to yield the forest fragment's strongest flow. The spring's flow has by now been reduced to a trickle.

Above Welimada Road, inside a forest fragment which used to be connected with

Kosgollakaele, a closed deep well with a pump-house supplies another tea estate bungalow. This fragment has been partially cleared and traces of abandoned vegetable cultivation are visible. A desperate farmer has dug several make-shift wells and waterholes all over the plot, all of which are empty. Two public wells below the small fragment are empty as well. Above the forest fragment several eucalyptus timber lots have been grown on large residential properties. Further up the state-operated National Holiday Resort is located. It has dug an 80 feet deep well into the hill to augment its insufficient provisions from Kitulwatte's public water supply scheme. A resident of Clairwatte explains that 20 years ago a small perennial stream had flown through this forest fragment.

Inside the forest below Clairwatte the owners of Clair Estate have installed a closed well with a pumphouse, which supplies yet another of their residences. Below this well villagers have dug several shallow holes in which they collect the gully's trickle, which is scooped into their kales or used for laundry and bathing. The trickle subsided during the dry seasons of 1991 and 1992.

55 At the bottom of Kosgollakaele the tiny stream leads towards a cement installation with three spouts which were built in the early 1970s to serve as a site for water collection, bathing and laundry. As the remaining flow is diverted into a few fields below, the public spout is defunct and in a state of disrepair.

A precarious contraption of split bamboo rods conducts water from a few trickling springs inside the forest bottom to a rusty oil barrel. Here the family of the chairman of the Village Development Society collects its household water. He complains bitterly about the decline of the forest's waters which used to irrigate all of the fields below. Nev- ertheless, this man had just cleared approximately one acre of Kosgollakaele for the cultivation of beans, which he intended to irrigate with the water collected by his 'bamboo pipes'. I was able to observe the smoldering remains of the removed flora. The felled trees were used as timber for the construction of a house on the same site. He claimed, that he had only cleared his own private land and not public property.

Kosgollakaele shows signs of intensive and careless resource use. Its canopy has been opened in many location. Its undergrowth is sparse. Debris and excess soil from the road widening operation of the udagama project has been thrown downhill into the forest gully, smothering the ground flora, leaf litter and humus layer. The debris is slowly eroding and silting up the streambed. A squatter has built a house alonside the road and has also shoved excess soil and debris into the forest.

The decline of Kosgollakaela's water sources has resulted from the deterioration of the ecological conditions of the production of water inside and outside the forest fragment, as well as from intensified competition for a diminishing resource. Urbanization processes

56 and forest degradation have increased erosive runoff and reduced the infiltration capacity of the soil. At the same time more users demand water supplies.

The various well-building efforts in Gaetawelakaele and Kosgollakaele exemplify socio-ecological dynamics characteristic of the social construction of water scarcity. If a fecund water source is available, human actors tend to treat it as if it was limitless and inviolable. It is rarely recognised, that water in the landphase of the hydrocycle occurs as a finite quantity which is produced by a set of specific ecological conditions.

If there is water in the ground, various human users with differential means of access attempt to extract as much as they need or, in many cases, are capable of wasting. The convenience of access provided by a well, and piped water in particular, induces users to increase their use. People who need to walk some distance to fill only one kale at a time are prone to be more careful with how they use their water.

In addition, the hardware involved to procure and convey water is likely to be faulty, as local plumbing standards and the overall motivation to repair broken and leaking equipment are low. I witnessed many incidences of leaking pipes and tanks, and broken taps, in both private households, as well as in public supply systems.

Furthermore, people tend to treat piped water as if it was a flowing stream, rather than a limited quantity supplied from storage reservoirs. On countless occasions, I observed that users of road taps fail to close the taps after filling their kales.

Users who are situated upstream or uphill, who can make claims to private property, and/or who are able to finance reservoir and well construction, machinery and pipes, are able to monopolize what invariably turns out to be a finite resource. In the case of the tea estate owners, the mill-owner or the buyers of costly residential building blocks, the

57 power to appropriate water resources at the expense of farmers and low-income households is based on their class position. If they control land with a good groundwater supply, as well as the financial means to purchase the necessary hardware and labor power, they enjoy the socially recognised privilege to dig wells. The state as the country's largest landowner is in a comparable position.

This legal status does not recognise that water is not a stationary resource such as land, but flows through and above the soil. These actors enter into de facto resource competition with other water users who are dependent on the same groundwater and stream flow supply, although they may access it in different locations within a watershed.

Forests and streams are nominally state property and public users are considered to be within their rights to install and utilise spouts and anicuts. The tea planter's private pumphouse inside Kosgollakaele monopolises a public resource, since the property status of the forest fragment is ambiguous and his claim is uncontested.

Water competition does, however, not only occur between different classes or status groups, but also among different groups of small-holding farmers. In cases where the same farming households access wells installed upstream from their own valley-fields, the resulting reduction of irrigation water implies competition between uses within the same user group.

Public users with low individual household incomes can increase their capacity to participate in water competition by mobilising state resources, or by making claims to state land and by pooling private financial means and labour power.

All of these various claims of access to water have so far remained uncontested, although multiple downstream users are deprived. The Forest Department fails to exercise

58 regulatory state control over the forest fragments. The high social status of the tea planters and their upper class tenants, based on their wealth, ethnicity and/or political connections, has prevented direct social conflict contesting their right to individual appropriation. The Clairwatte residents exercise usufruct rights which have a long history of legitimacy.

However, in the scramble for water, the increased social and material power of different user groups to appropriate water is not matched by efforts to secure the ecological conditions of the production of water. As a result, a growing number of human water users with escalating needs compete with increasingly powerful means for a declining source. The fact, that they also compete for water with the flora of the forest implies, that the desiccation of the forest will cause the source to decline progressively. As the wells grow deeper, so does the water crisis.

Tree plantations

Looking across the valley from Welimada Road I would see the even and dense tree cover of the western hilltops and upper slopes. Indeed, the patanas have been "clothed" in a dark-green 'coat' of pines, amongst which a scatter of different hues of green remains almost unnoticeable. The silver-green of eucalyptus plantations predominates in a few spots. Narrow stretches of the forests' wild mix of greens and reds stand out in some of the gullies. The yellow tinted green of patana grass has survived here and there. Other- wise, the imposing sameness of the pines' somber darkness surrounds all life on the hills.

Inside the tree plantations prevails an air of desolation. The trees form seemingly endless straight lines, each individual spaced 2.5 metres from its neighbours. The crowns of

59 these 'silent soldiers' entangle their branches to form an uninterrupted canopy. Only dim light enters the desolate landscape which has replaced the once alive patanas. Except for the occasional rustle and creaking caused by the brush of wind against the tree tops the pinus plantations are utterly silent. No birds, frogs or insects raise their voices. A yellowish brown is the dominant color of the plantation floor, as the plantless soil is exposed or covered with patches of dried pine needles. The slopes are heavily eroded, the top-soil has disappeared. Rocks and pebbles of all sizes, washed out by the rains, are strewn over the ground. Only a few gentle slopes around the wewa have retained their upper soil layer. Still, no undergrowth is visible. All over, the lateral roots of the pines are exposed and have been stripped of their outer layer. Many of the trees are spindly, their stems are curved like dancing snakes. Most trunks are charred black from burning and have lost their lower branches. The soil is dry and hard, but criss-crossed by cracks and fissures, forming small ducts and channels everywhere. These are the traces of the erosive runoff, which has carried away fertile humus. The air is dry and warm as well, unless the rains bring temporary moist and cooling relief. Walking amongst the pines is hazardous and tiring. I would slip on the needles and rubble with every step. My movement caused pebbles and smaller stones to tumble downhill.

In 1976 and 1978 the Forest Department of Sri Lanka established 221.2 hectares of tree plantations in the western patana hills of the Kitulwatte micro-watershed. These plantations comprise 21 of 53 connected subblocks in Block X of what the Forest De- partment designates as the Diyatalawa Beat of the Haputale Range. The total size of

Block X is 530 hectares, covering the entire hill range between Mahatotila Oya and

Kitulwatte Oya (Forest Department of Sri Lanka 1991a&b). The Haputale Range Office

60 of the Forest Department, headed by a Range Forest Officer who oversees several Beat

Forest Officers, manages the plantations. Approximately 23.9 percent of the micro-watershed's land area are covered with tree plantions. If only the western half of the watershed, where the plantations occur exclusively, is considered, the figure may be estimated at close to 50 percent. The most frequently planted species is Pinus caribaea. Eucalypti comprise roughly 15 percent of the plantations, of which Eucalyptus grandis is the most prevalent species.

To assess the motivations for the afforestation project, its implementation and its socio-ecological consequences, I had to inquire into a fragmented, contradictory and often deceptive array of information provided by the human actors involved, i.e. the local foresters, foreign forestry consultants and the inhabitants of Kitulwatte. As the water sources of communities living under pinus plantations started to decline all over the Uva basin, the plantations became a conflictual subject matter.

Most often, however, no dialogue occurs between the pertinent actors. The foresters avoid dialogue by excluding farmers from the planning, implementation and management of the plantations. They have been evading farmers' complaints and demands by disqua- lifying their knowledge, by making false promises, and by issuing defensive statements in the wake of growing public pressure. The foreign consultants operate behind the public scene and avoid contact with the local population. The farmers attempted communication on several occasions and have by now resigned themselves to acceptance and coping.

The different human actors involved in the pinus controversy do not, however, speak as monolithic blocks. The voicing of knowledge is affected by the specific actors' level of insight and understanding, their physical and institutional position in relation to the plan-

61 tations, and their perception of how best to mangage their public standing in a volatile political climate.

The pinus and eucalyptus plantations in the Uva basin, as elsewhere in the island's hill-country, were established on grasslands which are owned by the state. These grasslands were and continue to be assessed with a standard formula, "degraded and denuded lands" (Perera W.R.H. 1988:6-9; Bharathie 1990:1; Bandaratilake 1988:11). This assessment delegitimises the landuse practices of local farmers and promotes the appropriation of the patanas by the Forest Department for its exclusive use. Afforestation serves a syndrome of material and ideological purposes of the post-colonial Sri Lankan state.

From the 1890s until 1938 patana afforestation was in an experimental stage, during which the suitability of various species and techniques of planting were tested. The most significant result was the difficulty of raising indigenous forest species in plantation lots on climatically and edaphically adverse sites, and the relative ease with which the Aus- tralian eucalypti could be grown. With careful management indigenous species were established under the canopy of experimental eucalyptus lots (de Rosayro 1945/46IV:139-

147).

Sri Lankan foresters consider the new forestry policy of 1938, pronounced by D.S.

Senanayake, Minister of Agriculture and Lands in the transitional Ceylonese government under the Donoughmore Constitution, the turning point for the afforestation program. Re- sponding to the clearing of vast forest areas for tea and coffee cultivation under the Bri- tish, the anti-colonial nationalist spirit of the times identified the vanished forests as a symbol of the social and ecological disintegration caused by colonial rule. At the same time, the would-be-nation was anticipating the significance of indigenous economic de-

62 velopment. Patana afforestation would contribute to the restoration of the nation and of the 'great forests' of the Sinhalese kings, and simultaneously provide "a satisfactory means of economic use of patana" (de Rosayro 1945/46I:207,IV:139-147; Premachandra

1988:vii; fieldnotes).

Ironically the tea estates remained untouched, as they were private property and a critical source of taxable foreign currency income. Instead, the "useless" grasslands of the

Uva basin, which had not been under tree-cover for hundreds of years, if at all, were identified for the resurrection of the forests and for economic exploitation. The 'alien' eucalypti were to accomplish, what indigenous species were reluctant to do.

Although the beginnings were on a small scale, involving a few plantation blocks providing timber and fuelwood to surrounding towns and villages, afforestation was perceived as a success. Of great symbolic value was the establishment of windbelt plantations in the Uva basin in the late 1940s. During the months of the southwest monsoon the kachchan wind prevented successful agricultural activity and caused damage to homesteads in exposed areas. By planting small eucalyptus blocks on the ridges and hill tops, the power of the wind was broken, and towns such as Palugama near Welimada were able to develop their lucrative year round cashcrop cultivation of exotic vegetables. The FAO forestry consultant to the project had stipulated that sufficient pasture was left around the plantation blocks and should be improved by introducing palatable fodder grasses. The consultant had insisted that "you can't deprive people of their pasture" (Walter de Silva, fieldnotes). The name Palugama [desolate village] was changed to Keppetipola in the early 1960s, in order to commemorate the Kandyan chief who led the failed Uva rebellion in

1817-18.

63 From the 1960s economic considerations and developmentalist ideology dominated the rationale of the country's forest policy. In an editorial of the Forest Department's

Journal The Ceylon Forester of 1961 "the value of research in forestry" in "the so-called under-developed countries" is discussed.

Forest research is directed towards making their vast, untapped and even neglected forest resources contribute their share towards the building up of new industries, and creating a new economic base for the good of society. (The Ceylon Forester 1961:3)

In the effort to make "more, better and cheaper goods" productivity considerations are at the centre of forestry research. Trees pose the vexing problem that their growth patterns are not easily synchronized with the requirements of profitability. Trees are slow.

The maturation of a mahogany tree takes up to 60 years. This circumstance is a serious handicap to the desire for "the highest yield and the best financial return" (The Ceylon

Forester 1961:3-4). Finding 'suitable' fast growing species and speeding up growth by scientific means is thus of foremost interest in the minds of foresters.

The development of faster growing and superior races within a species by genetic research and forest tree breeding could greatly increase the profit factor in forestry. ... Ecological research concerning the growth and vigour of plants in severe environments and under unfavourable climatic conditions, combined with trials with exotics, would be of tremendous value in solving the problem of afforesting waste and arid tracts of land. (The Ceylon Forester 1961:4)

It is noteworthy, that 'ecological research' is here exclusively concerned with the effects of 'severe environments' on different plant species and not with the effects of these plants on the environments.

By 1965 the Forest Department concentrated on planting 'exotics', rather than pursuing lofty genetic research schemes to produce supertrees. The exotics simply required several years of trials to determine the most 'suitable' species.

64 The self-sufficiency orientation of the SLFP governments and the escalating balance- of-payment crisis during the early 1970s motivated the expansion of the afforestation scheme. The development of a local paper industry precipitated the wide-spread introduction of pinus plantations (Bandaratilake 1988:10; Vivekanandan 1988:21).

The evaluation of trials had determined that Pinus caribaea grew best in the hill- country grasslands and provided long fibre pulp adequate for paper production. This species is a tropical pine which grows in the coastal regions of the Caribbean. The significant environmental values taken into consideration in finding proper matches for Sri Lankan plantation sites were annual rainfall, temperature ranges, length of drought periods and pH levels of the soils. P. caribaea thus fell well within the local parameters (Vivekanan- dan 1988:21-22). The ecological context of the tree's Caribbean habitats was not taken into consideration. In particular, no hydrological information is mentioned in Viveka- nandan's report on provenance research, which is exclusively concerned with the trees'

'performance' (Vivekanandan 1988:21-25). Pinus caribaea hondurensis is by now the dominant variety grown in the island (Perera A.H. 1988a:29).

The local choice of pines, and of the Honduran variety in particular, was determined by the given objective of paper production, and the availability of knowledge and seed materials circulating in international forestry development networks. Tropical Common- wealth countries in particular receive assistance from the Oxford Forestry Institute (OFI) in England, which is responsible for the study and popularisation of Pinus caribaea. OFI maintains a databank, which provides foresters of tropical countries with "sound advise on obtaining a matching seed source" for their designated plantation sites (Wood 1988:2).

British Overseas Development Administration (ODA) funded international research con-

65 cluded that Pinus caribaea hondurensis from Belize was superior in performance to any other species and varieties studied (Wood 1988:1). As a result of this single minded determination, P. caribaea is by now "the most widely planted tropical pine in the world"

(Wood 1988:2).

On the entire planet, pinus and eucalyptus are among the most frequently planted genera replacing clear-felled forests and grasslands with monocrop plantations. Pinus and eucalyptus plantations are cultivated in Chile, Brasil, Mexico, India, Nepal, Thailand, Fi- ji, Australia, Kenya, South Africa and Zaire among others. They are an integral component of the Tropical Forestry Action Plan designed by the United Nations in conjunction with the World Bank and the World Resources Institute "to conserve and develop tropical forest resources on a long-term sustainable basis" (FAO 1987; World Resources Institute

1985; Environmental Defense Fund 1987; Shiva 1987; Wood 1988; Hamilton 1983).

By the end of 1990, the Sri Lankan Forest Department had grown 18,570 hectares of eucalyptus and 18,614 hectares of pinus in its Up-Country Division, making these the most frequently planted species in the island's watersheds (Bharatie 1990:34).

The decisive factors in the choice of these genera are the relative ease and speed of establishment, which reduces the cost of labour and other material inputs, and their fast growth, which provides for the earliest possible returns on investments and the greatest volume of timber, fibre, oil and/or resin.

Afforestation is almost exclusively a concern of the Sri Lankan state. Although fast growing species are comparatively more profitable than indigenous forest species, a cropping cycle takes nevertheless 30 years, so that "private institutions or investors are hardly interested in so long-term investments" (Jaakko Poeyry 1986::59). In addition, the

66 state as the largest landowner (ca. 80 percent) is the only actor controlling sufficient space for afforestation purposes. Afforestation is thus an infra-structural service which requires the state to act as a producer of a basic resource.

The plantation establishment in Kitulwatte in 1976 and 1978 falls within the period of single-minded productivism. Between 1965 and 1978, the Forest Department planted in the Uva basin on a large scale without foreign project assistance (Jaakko Poeyry 1986:13;

Perera W.R.H. 1988:8). Approximately 8.8 percent of the land area of the Bandarawela

Assistant Government Agent Division came under tree plantations. As in Kitulwatte they are located invariably where the upper catchments of the hills had remained under grassland. Nobody anticipated yet, that the plantations would drastically alter the eco-hydrological conditions of the human livelihood systems on which they had been imposed.

The timing of planting is determined by the pattern of the rainy season. To ensure a reasonably high survival rate, seedlings need to be in the ground at the onset of the rains in October and stabilize before the first dry period in February.

Seed availability, speed and robustness at the nursery stage render pinus and eucalyptus highly economical plants. The nursery time of pines and eucalypti is comparatively short. After eight to nine months the seedlings are strong enough to be transplanted. This circumstance enables the Forest Department to operate yearly planting cycles without having to rotate between two nurseries. In January the seeds are sprouted in a small amount of soil in polythene bags. They are watered occasionally through the dry season and go into the ground in October. By the end of the year, the nursery and its staff are ready to raise the next cycle of seedlings.

67 By comparison, indigenous species require one and a half years of nursery time and frequent care, before they able to survive in the ground. Each nursery can be transplanted only every other year, which requires the maintenance of two nurseries, in order to plant on a yearly basis. Seed collection from indigenous stock is cumbersome and labour intensive. The simplicity of pinus and eucalyptus rendered them manageable and more productive.

Two months before planting, ground preparation was carried out by private contractors who hired approximately 100 labourers in the village at minimum wage levels. Men and women cleared the ground, men dug holes and women planted the seedlings.

According to the District Forest Officer in Badulla and an Assistant Conservator of

Forests in Colombo, standard ground preparation procedures were designed to prevent soil exposure and erosion in steep areas. Very steep slopes required patch-weeding of 1 square metre, and steep slopes had to be weeded in strips of one foot width, with eight feet of grass-cover left between two strips. The removed plant matter was to be deposited along the contour to arrest erosion. On gentle slopes the entire area was to be cleared by burning and by uprooting plant remnants in the soil. After planting, the ground had to be patch- or strip-weeded three times during the first year, twice in the second year, and once in the third year. After the third year weeding would become unneccesary, as the emerging canopy shades out the patana vegetation.

Karunawathi, a particpating female labourer, reported that the actual practice of ground preparation in Kitulwatte deviated considerably from this complex scheme. The entire planting site was burned and clear-weeded, after which the remaining debris was dried and burned. One single ring-weeding around the plants was carried out one year

68 after planting. This simplified procedure would have saved a considerable amount of labour time and cost. The drying and burning of the root structure of coarse grasses is conducive to reducing future 'weed' establishment and thus the necessity for repeated weeding. As Sherman (1990:145-150) learned from grassland cultivators in Sumatra, the rhi- zomes of the grasses are highly resilient and "resprout with increased vigour" unless they are killed by drying and burning.

The survival of the root structure after burning for fodder production by cattle herders had limited soil erosion in the patanas by keeping the soil in place. By contrast, after the land preparations for plantation establishment, the soil had been exposed in its entirety, had been turned over and treaded during weeding, and had been left without a root structure. It was therefore vulnerable to the erosive impact of unmitigated and prolonged rainfall during the inter-monsoon and monsoon periods from October to January. The process of land degradation in the tree plantations started at the very beginning of plantation establishment.

Our respondents recalled that most villagers at the time had an uncritical attitude towards the plantations. Their right to cultivation of their hill-fields had been established, the plantations offered temporary employment, and an increase of tree cover was considered a desirable change. The fact that the villagers had not been consulted about the afforestation project did not meet with any objections. They recognised the right and power of the state to claim control of the grassland hills and reported invariably that no conflict between villagers and the foresters had occured.

Only Gunasingha and some of his neighbours communicated apprehensions about the possible impact of the trees on the village's water situation to Forest Department officials.

69 He knew that residents of Malpotha, a neighbouring village, were experiencing decline in their water supplies ten years after pines had been planted in their hills. The foresters re- assured the delegation from Kitulwatte that within fifteen years they would have more water than ever before, as increased forest cover would create a better watershed.

In the 1980s, the productivist rationale for tree plantations became linked with environmental concerns. Not only was 'the environment' becoming a central theme in the global development debate of the 1980s in general, but in Sri Lanka local and foreign agencies started to worry about the impact of soil erosion on the viability of their most costly and most prestigious project, the Mahaweli Progamme. A network of large river dams, reservoirs and hydro-electric power stations had been built in the hill-country.

Thousands of families had been resettled in the dry zone lowlands and depend on the irrigation capacity of the scheme. The country's emergent industrial and service sectors, as well as private consumers depend on a growing supply of electricity. The rising costs of imported fuel had motivated a shift to a local and renewable source of energy. By 1990,

49 Billion Rupees had been spent on the Mahaweli Programme (MASL 1991).

Administrators and consultants of the Mahaweli Programme argued, if landuse practices in the Upper Mahaweli watershed caused erosion and unbalanced seasonal waterflow, the reservoirs would silt up and the irrigation and energy capacity of the scheme would be impaired (Tschakert & Decurtins 1989; Schubert 1991; FORLUMP 1992).

Thus, the Mahaweli Authority in conjunction with several foreign aid agencies inaugurat- ed a watershed management progamme in the upper Mahaweli region, which would improve conditions in an integrated effort by targeting various landuse forms in the macro- watershed for erosion control measures.

70 The Forest Department aligned its planting efforts with this objective in several foreign aided projects during the 1980s/90s, involving USAID, the World Bank, FINNIDA,

ODA, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Dutch government. At the centre of these forestry projects is the assumption that trees provide the best protection against erosion and "conserve soil and water resources" (Jaakko Poeyry 1986:74; Banda- ratilake 1988:12). The reduction of forest cover in the upper Mahaweli watershed to eight percent of its land area was accordingly considered 'alarming' (Jaakko Poeyry 1986:4;

Bandaratilake 1988:11). Patanas and abandoned degraded tea estates were singled out for afforestation. The foresters postulated the need for "some kind of vegetative cover which could survive and grow under the adverse conditions of these sites ... to protect the soil from erosion" (Bandaratilake 1988:11). USAID assisted the Forest Department's Refor- estation and Watershed Management Project (RWMP) with US$ 16.15 million in grants and loans. Around 9713 hectares of tree plantations in the upper Mahaweli watershed were raised between 1980 and 1987, 85 percent of which were pinus and eucalyptus

(Bandaratilake 1988:13; Jaakko Poeyry 1986:11).16

The new conservationist orientation within Sri Lankan forestry couched afforestation in the symbolic terms of a global environmental discourse, which is concerned with making development environmentally sustainable (WCED 1987; FAO 1987). By becoming explicitly conservationist, afforestation enhanced its value as it claimed to integrate economic growth and environmental protection. The 1986 draft of the Forestry Masterplan for Sri Lanka states two significant objectives: "to maintain, conserve and create forests for the preservation and amelioration of the environment", and "to work the forest to the highest possible economic advantage" (Jaakko Poeyry 1986:8 [emphasis mine]). While

71 the draft repeatedly asserts that industrial and fuelwood production and environmental protection are the dual purpose of forest plantations (Jaakko Poeyry 1986:s5,s9,57,75), no doubt is left as to the priorities of afforestation:

These plantations will be very important from the protective point of view too even if their primary purpose will be commercial wood production. (Jaakko Poeyry 1986:78)

By the mid-1980s Kitulwatte's farmers were experiencing the same decline of their water sources as their neighbours from Malpotha ten year before. By 1991, fifteen years after planting, the springs and wells under the pinus and eucalyptus hills were still declining and the promised turn-around failed to materialise.

Gunasingha had grasped the fundamental mistake of the environmental concept of the

Forest Department. During our first encounter in the valley-fields of Lower Kitulwatte, he pointed to the pinus plantations and stated:

Fifteen years ago the Forest Department planted a fake forest in our hills and now we don't have water. A real forest should have trees like this. (Gunasingha, fieldnotes)

He was now pointing at Somawathi's forest fragment above her paddy field.

The structures of forests and tree plantations are radically different. Tree plantations are monocrops of individuals of a single species. They are all of the same age, and grow more or less at the same pace and at the same level of height. Pinus and Eucalyptus are fast growing species which reproduce within 15 years, and healthy individuals are harvested after 30 years by clear-cutting. In the Uva basin, as in most locations elsewhere, the pinus plantations have no understory and ground cover at all. They do not attract any birdlife, and only few mammals and reptiles. By contrast, the flora and fauna of forest fragments comprise a complex interactive network of a great diversity of species. The

72 forest's canopy is multilayered and the ground is covered with herbacious plants and shrubs.

The Forest Department claims that by planting trees which occur in forest habitats it has created forests. However, their designation as 'forest plantations' is a deceptive eu- phemism. Far from "maintaining the forest cover" (Jaakko Poeyry 1986:s1) of the island through afforestation, the Forest Department has raised tree monocultures. The method of plantation establishment resembles the monocrop cultivation of vegetables and grains, and has nothing in common with the evolution of forests.

The foresters' second ecologically disastrous assumption stated that patanas were

"grass infested" wastelands and needed to be replaced with trees (Jaakko Poeyry

1986:56). The Uva grasslands are a component of old and stable ecological systems, which are maintained in the interaction of distinct biological actors and geoclimatic phenomena. If the maintenance of Sri Lanka's forest cover for conservation purposes was a sensible objective, the patanas were the wrong location and tree plantations were an inadequate technology for the creation of forests.

If, on the other hand, the production of industrial wood was the true objective of afforestation, the acquisition of the patanas for the planting of pinus trees caused the least resistance to the foresters' efforts. Conversion of forests or of land under active crop cultivation would have met with political obstacles and potentially social conflict. Tea and vegetables are significant cash earners and their cultivation follows the same structural logic as tree plantations. The clearing of forests and their replacement by tree plantations was discontinued from 1970 (Jaakko Poeyry 1986:56), due to environmentalist considerations. By the mid-1970s, herding and resource gathering in the patanas were becom-

73 ing subordinate components of the livelihood system in Kitulwatte. As long as their cash crop cultivation interests were respected, the farmers remained weak adversaries for the foresters.

Furthermore, the tending of a complex forest-like ecological system would have over- taxed the cognitive and organisational capacities of the Forest Department, and would fail to meet its productivist objective. Pinus and eucalyptus trees produce visible results in a relatively short time period with minimal effort. The compatibility of the combined objectives of production and conservation, however, remains questionable.

The explanation of the ecological failure of afforestation by farmers in Kitulwatte rested primarily on the temporal association of the establishment of the tree plantations with the progressive decline of their water. In their experience the water vanished as the trees grew taller. Queried about the causal link between the occurrence of the two phenomena, most respondents stated that "pinus sucks water". Those who admitted to having cut pines and eucalypti in the plantations added that both species contained an exceptional amount of moisture. They were heavy and difficult to transport.

The criticism of the villagers concentrated on the effects of pines, since these made up

85 percent of the plantations and had the worst appearance: "like a desert". All of our respondents recognised the lack of undergrowth, the matting of pine needles, and the dry, hard and eroded soil in the pinus plantations. Yet, only a minority stated that these phenomena caused the reduced infiltration capacity of the soil.

Gunasingha was the most perceptive and inquisitive observer among the villagers. His level of reflexivity included the recognition of the lack of status and power of his knowledge. He offered the following comprehensive explanation:

74 Broadleaved trees in the forest, such as jak and mango, have spreading roots of a depth of about five feet. The roots of pines are very deep. I tried to dig up the tap root of a 13 years old pine I had cut, because I wanted to know how deep they go. At 15 feet depth I had still not reached the end of the root. These roots seek water deep down in the ground and suck it all up. At the same time the ground is covered with needles, like a roof made of patana grass. These needles do not rot even within a year and nothing can grow under the pinus. Broad leaves of jak decay in a month. Without undergrowth there is nothing to retain the moisture. The soil is washed down and the bare rocks show on the surface. The patanas absorbed water and retained it for a long time. Pinus causes the water to slide downhill like on a tin roof. It all runs off during the rainy season. No water is retained in the soil to be available in the dry season. This is only my view. What can I say after all the foresters and scientists have said about the pinus? Afterall, I am just a farmer. (Gunasingha, fieldnotes)

Chandralatha, who squats in a varrichchi [wattle and daub] house directly under a pine lot, observed the following about soil erosion and the pattern of stream flow:

Under the pines the soil is infertile and eroded. They are easily burnt. The rains wash away all the soil. Now, when it rains there is a lot more silt in our streams. During the rainy season there is a lot more water in the streams than before the pinus was planted. Earlier there was a steady flow of water all year. Now there is too much water in the rainy season and too little in the dry season. (Chandralatha, fieldnotes)

The villagers' observations and explanations, which are based on their day to day experience over a period of several years, suggest, that the pinus plantations had the opposite of the presumed conservationist effects. Instead of reducing erosion and balancing uneven seasonal waterflow, they exacerbate both problems.

While land degradation caused by the tree plantations of the Uva basin may have only a limited impact on the reservoirs of the Mahaweli Programme, the irrigation capacity and household water supply of villages such as Kitulwatte have been adversely affected.

Residents of Diyatalawa, Malpotha, Patanawatte, Nawala, Makulella, Matetilla, Banda- rawela and Borelanda reported to us the same experience: as the plantations grew taller, their water sources declined.

75 In addition, people in Kitulwatte complained about the loss of pasture, the loss of land for village expansion, the loss of wildlife habitat, and about the difficulty of walking in hills covered with pine needles and gravel.

The most pressing problem besides water, however, is the drastic increase in the wild boar population. While boars always inhabited forest fragments, their numbers remained small, as long as their habitat remained limited. In the plantations the boars started to thrive. As they prefer the shelter of woodlands during the day, their range was greatly expanded. Most importantly, boars are among the few animals who find sustenance in the pinus plantations. Wild boars appear to be fond of eating mycorrhiza fungi which live on the roots of forest trees. In the plantations they dig up pine roots and gnaw off their outer layer with the fungi.

The Forest Department systematically inoculates pinus seedlings in the nurseries with mycorrhiza fungi (Perera A. 1988a:29), to facilitate water uptake of the plants and a nitrogen-fixing effect in the plantation soil. This enhances the pines' capacity to exploit water resources in an ecosystem which experiences seasonal moisture stress, and compensates for the notorious nitrogen deficiency of pinus plantations (Gunatilleke 1988:41).17

The increase of wild boar poses a threat to crop cultivation. The boars enter the fields and homegardens during the night and raid the farmers' crops. Moreover, by digging up the pines' roots the wild boars cause soil erosion and harm the trees.

Since the late 1980s, the residents of Kitulwatte made a number of attempts to communicate with the Forest Department, as well as with politicians and state administrators, in order to call attention to their predicament. Gunasingha reported that the presidents of the various village welfare and development societies signed letters to the Forest Depart-

76 ment, the Chief Minister of Uva Province, the Minister of Lands of Uva Province, the local Member of Parliament, and the Department of Agriculture. While the Forest and

Agriculture Departments failed to reply altogether, the Uva Lands Minister came for a site visit and was shown the situation in the village. He reported to his Chief Minister, who replied that he could not accept the villagers' statements. He is reported to have declared, that 'American forestry experts' had assured him that the problem did not occur in other countries where pinus had been planted.

During the udagama development project the villagers made the pinus plantations and the water crisis a priority issue. They had met with the Assistant Government Agent of

Bandarawela in 1991, who stated that the pines would be cut or interplanted with indigenous tree species. No action followed this promise.

At the official opening of the 'awakened village' community leaders met with the Pres- ident's wife and presented her with a sandesha [messenger poem]. In pre-colonial times a sandesha as a message between the people and their king was a petition for benevolent intervention to relieve the people's distress. Although no direct reply had been received from the presidential couple, villagers had listened to radio announcements in which the

First Lady stated, that many farmers had voiced complaints about pinus plantations and water scarcity and that an official inquiry should be launched. The farmers should inform the Forest Department and 'measures needed to be taken'.

During the Presidential Mobile Service in Badulla in 1991, an institution designed by the Premadasa government 'to bring government to the people', the coordinator of the udagama project in Kitulwatte, Piyadasa, voiced Kitulwatte's concerns to the President.

77 Premadasa was reported to have replied that this was 'a serious problem' and that 'solutions will have to be found'.

Distrust and a sense of despair permeated the comments of villagers about the evasive responses of their government servants and political leaders.

I don't believe anything will ever be done about the pinus. (Lokubanda, fieldnotes)

What is the use of talking to the authorities? It is the government who planted these trees. We can drink poison and die. That's what has happened to us with the pinus. (Heenbanda, fieldnotes)

We have been destroyed by pinus. (Abeysingha, fieldnotes)

Still, from the late eighties 'pinus' became an issue of public debate. Complaints from villages affected by water decline after the establishment of tree plantations were catching the attention of environmentalist organisations in Colombo. Newspapers picked up the issue and became a forum for the exchange of arguments between foresters, environmentalists and concerned readers. In 1991 environmentalist groups organised a fact finding campaign on various environmental issues across the country and presented its results at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (PCED 1992).

Pinus became a 'hot' issue and made the national headlines. The Forest Department became 'bad news' in an environmentally conscious political climate and was increasingly put on the defensive.

The residents of the affected villages have remained very much at the periphery of this debate. As they assume the victim role in their statements of complaint in public fora, they are treated with a paternalistic attitude by the professional adversaries. The dispute between foresters, scientists and environmentalists is much older than the pinus controversy, which is merely one item on a larger agenda. Accordingly, the farmers play a role in a drama beyond their control or making.

78 I shall return to this issue and to the discussion of three instances of 'activist intervention' in the water crisis of Kitulwatte in the concluding chapter. At this point I will analyse how public criticism has gradually affected cracks in the dogma of the Forest De- partment, which by now can be traced into the ranks of the foresters themselves.

In 1988 Peradeniya University in Kandy in collaboration with the British High Com- mission held a symposium on "Reforestation with Pinus in Sri Lanka". At this event foresters and academics presented papers and engaged in apparently brief discussions with a select audience of concerned professionals. Farmers were conspicuously absent. The discourse was held in English.

Despite this exclusion of one of the main groups of actors, some of the villagers' concerns were raised, and some of the first doubts and admissions of problems were voiced.

The symposium papers and transcripts betray a defensive edge which was entirely absent from the assertive optimism of the Forestry Masterplan.

The symposium was opened by H.P.M. Gunasena, Professor of Agricultural Sciences, who summarized the contentious issues of the pinus controversy: (1) excessive water consumption, (2) soil erodibility, (3) depletion of soil nutrients, and (4) reduction of organic matter in the soil's A-horizon (Gunasena 1988:iv-v).

The defensive arguments of foresters and of academics engaged in USAID funded research for the RWMP, stated that the pinus plantations provided "excellent features for erosion control" (Bandaratilake 1988:10). They asserted that the needle litter protected the soil 'completely' from erosion (Bandaratilake 1988:13) and permitted the percolation of 'some' water (Perera W.R.H. 1988:8). It was said, that water from catchments planted with pinus was 'crystal clear', demonstrating the lack of erosion (ibid). Their research had

79 revealed that in pinus plantations the soil quality was improved, undergrowth and broadleaf tree species established satisfactorily, and erosive runoff was reduced (Perea A.

1988b:56; Gunawardena 1988:55; Bandaratilake 1988:14-15).

The principal reason for land degradation in pinus plantations, the argument continued, was the impact of fire. The plantations pose a fire hazard as the trees produce flam- mable resinous compounds which burn easily under dry conditions. The landuse practices of nearby cultivators and herders were held responsible for causing the frequent plantation fires. While pine trees are fairly fire resistant from their sixth year, the fires destroy potential undergrowth and consequently promote erosion. Where fire protection was practiced, soil and watershed conservation was effective (Bandaratilake 1988:15; Perera

A. 1988a:30,37; 1988b:58; Gunawardena 1988:55).

The evidence for the defensive arguments outlined, is generated predominantly from research carried out by the Forest Department and its scientific consultants in the Gi- nigathena catchments, specifically at the RWMP research station in Wewelthalava (Ban- daratilake 1988:14; Perera A. 1988b:56). This area is located in the highest rainfall region of the western hill-country (5000 mm per year) and experiences no prolonged drought.

The research plantation is permanently staffed, the trees receive proper silvicultural treatment, and fire protection poses no problem (Gunawardena 1989:92-97 [1988]).

The plantations of the Uva basin, as in other locations of the intermediate climatic zone, present an entirely different scenario. Considerably lower rainfall and a long dry season with desiccating wind comprise the dominant limiting factors for undergrowth in the tree plantations. The former Conservator of Forests, W.R.H. Perera, is well aware of this fact.

80 In the dry patanas and on dry denuded lands, the amount of undergrowth is practi- cally nil. (Perera W.R.H. 1988:8)

He also concedes the negative effect of the pinus plantations on groundwater recharge.

It is correct that when fast growing species with high rates of wood production are grown there is a high rate of water use. Thus, depleting the soil water. [sic] (Perera W.R.H. 1988:8)

Forest scientist A. Perera arrived at the same conclusion.

Another site factor is the seasonal dry spells in some pine planted areas (eg. in the Uva basin). This coupled with high evapo-transpiration potential of pines could cause moisture stresses intense enough to suppress undergrowth composition. [sic] (Perera A. 1988b:58)

Furthermore, A. Perera and Gunatilleke indicate that the pinus plantations failed to receive regular silvicultural treatment (Perera A. 1988a:33; Gunatilleke 1988:41-42). This implies foremost, that the plantations were not thinned at prescribed intervals.

However, despite these insights, A. Perera insists on a reductionist conclusion: recurring 'forest' fires are the dominant cause of 'ecological retrogression' (Perera A.

1988b:58). This emphasis on fire damage shifts reponsibility away from the foresters to the residents of adjacent villages. It also begs the question why there are so many fires in just about all of the plantations every year.

In 1992 and 1993 I interviewed five foresters at different levels of the institutional hi- erarchy, in order to learn about the Forest Department's planting practice and to assess the impact of the pinus controversy.

The Range Forest Officer (RFO) in Haputale, who is responsible for managing the tree plantations in the Kitulwatte micro-watershed, was visibly uneasy with my curiosity. He was unable to find the plantations in Kitulwatte on his plantation maps and reported that he had never visited the site or communicated with the residents of the surrounding villages. He repeatedly urged me to address my questions to his superior, the District Forest

81 Officer in Badulla. Since I insisted on knowing his perspective as a local-level bureau- crat, I received a tight-lipped statement of conventional Forest Department dogma. Up- country plantations were established on 'useless, barren' land without any trees in order to produce industrial timber and pulp wood. Asked whether he had any knowledge of water and erosion problems in the plantations, the RFO stated:

There are no water problems caused by pinus plantations at all. Block X of Diyata- lawa Beat is a watershed region for Matathila Oya and other minor streams. Plant- ing trees on useless land strengthens the watershed functions of the area and reduces soil erosion in comparison to barren land. (Haputale Range Forest Officer, fieldnotes)

It seemed quite obvious, that this was a defensive move, designed to avoid criticism from his superiors.

The Assistant Conservator of Forests (ACF) in charge of planning, development and fire protection at the Department's head office in Colombo cautiously pointed out that there had been criticism concerning the excessive water absorption of pinus trees, the lack of undergrowth and the plantation's susceptibility to fires. This was, however, not true everywhere since some sites in the wetzone had lush undergrowth. Nevertheless, the policy regarding pinus was under review.

By contrast, the District Forest Officer in Badulla was rather explicit about the ecological problems of the plantations.

Pinus is not good for soil erosion and water conservation. I cannot reject the opinion of the public, as it is not contrary to fact. (Badulla District Forest Officer, fieldnotes)

He added a critical dimension to the debate. Tree plantations require continuous thinning of unhealthy and excess trees. The DFO assumed that after 20 years only one quarter of the initially planted trees should remain in the plantations. The thinned out biomass would be sold for timber and paper pulp. However, no thinning operations had been car-

82 ried out as the pinus plantations proved to be an economic failure. Up to date, there has been no appreciable commercial demand for pulp, timber, poles or firewood from pinus.

The production of pinus for pulp, the primary purpose of the plantations, involves three distinct organizations. The Forest Department establishes and maintains the plantations as an infra-structural service financed by tax revenue and foreign aid. The State

Timber Corporation would harvest the plantations and pay royalties to the Forest De- partment. The National Paper Corporation is supposed to buy pinus from the State Tim- ber Corporation and to process it in its two paper mills.

The two state corporations operate as profit-making enterprises which procure their inputs from competitive sources in Sri Lanka and on the world market. The State Timber

Corporation prefers eucalyptus for timber and the National Paper Corporation procures cheaper raw material for pulp from private local sources (tea estates, woodlots, homegardens) and through imports. The ACF confirmed, that the 1992 market price for

Albizia wood from private sellers was Rs. 400 per cubic metre, while pinus was Rs. 600 per cubic metre.

The higher price of pinus results from ecological constraints. The hill-country sites, where most pines were planted, are highly erodable and inaccessible terrain. Mechanical harvesting and removal with heavy machinery is therefore not possible. Manual harvesting incurs high labour costs. As pinus proved to be unprofitable, the State Timber Corpo- ration did not carry out thinning operations. The Forest Department lacked funds for sil- vi-cultural treatment after the third year of plantation establishment. As a consequence the plantations were not managed at all.

83 The DFO argued that in improperly managed plantations over-crowding leads to an excessively dense canopy blocking too much sunlight for undergrowth to occur. It also causes extreme needle matting, preventing undergrowth establishment, and inordinate evapotranspiration. In combination with fire damage these phenomena simultaneously cause reduced groundwater infiltration and increased water uptake. If plantations were thinned to 1/4 of the current density, water yields should increase and evolving undergrowth should reduce erosion. The DFO therefore advocated and experimented with canopy opening and underplanting of indigenous and nitrogen-fixing species.

While this argument is the closest foresters have come to matching the explanations of the more sophisticated observers among villagers in Kitulwatte, the reduction of the primary cause to management failure is once again evasive. It shifts blame from the Forest

Department to market forces seemingly beyond the state actors' control, and evades their responsibility for participating in a complex process of environmental degradation.

The DFO's information does, nevertheless, elucidate the incompatibility of conservation and production objectives, and the interdependence of the failure of both the environmental and the economic policies of the Forest Department. The volatility of market processes and the failure of rational management render environmental planning highly vulnerable, regardless of how debatable the policy may have been in the first place. There are, however, no indications that the Forest Department envisioned regular 'market- driven' silvicultural maintenance in the first place, and the DFO's reasoning may involve explanation from hindsight. Furthermore, the explanation fails to deal with the fundamental structural incompatibility of high productivity processes in monocrop cultivation and the requirement for diversified resource sharing in complex codependent eco-

84 logical systems. The issue is not simply a quantitative question of how many pines are too much, but qualitative: what kind of floristic structure is ecologically sensible?

Recognition of the management failures of the Reforestation and Watershed Manage- ment Programme, which was terminated by USAID in 1987, and of earlier afforestation efforts, motivated ODA in collaboration with other foreign agencies to pick up the pieces under the umbrella of the Forestry Sector Development Project, running from 1990 to

1995 (Fernando B.K. 1990). The ODA Forestry Management Project has developed a management plan under which four categories of plantations are designated and regular silvicultural treatment is prescribed. In keeping with the dual goals of production and conservation, the plan identifies 'production' plantations for eventual clear-cutting, 'protection' plantations on erodable sites which may be exploited but not clearcut, 'conservation' sites which may not be afforested but would be enhanced by other means, and 'social forestry' projects afforesting with community participation (Forest Department of Sri

Lanka 1992a: appendix II).

The ODA foresters claimed that they preferred to move away from pinus, but that the combination of harsh site conditions and the lack of care and skill among local foresters made pinus and eucalyptus the only feasible option. ODA thus continues to finance new pinus plantations, some of which are located in the intermediate zone in areas with conditions comparable to Kitulwatte.

In addition, ODA foresters reported that they experienced a 'conceptual mismatch' between their own and the Forest Department's objectives. In his estimation, the Sri Lankan foresters remained committed to production forestry, while ODA had shifted into conser-

85 vation. The ODA plantation management consultant pin-pointed the Department's principal ideological commitment:

The agenda of the Forest Department is to plant as much as possible to increase the forest cover figures and to bring land under the control of the Forest Department. (ODA consultant, fieldnotes)

Since ODA's work is entirely grant based, the British foresters are not concerned with revenue generation. The purpose of their mission is the implementation of a conservation strategy which would protect British development investments in Sri Lanka, such as the costly Victoria dam and hydro-power station.

The Forestry Management Project constitutes a compromise between the divergent objectives. The Forest Department has accepted the 'protection' concept as another way of planting trees while procuring environmental legitimacy. ODA's 'social forestry' component, on the other hand, has been rejected in favour of a 12.6 million US$ social forestry grant from the Asian Development Bank. The ADB's concept prescribes a set of standar- dised model applications in recipient countries worldwide. The ODA's social forestry component, according to the ODA team leader, was less costly and would have given more control over plantation resources to local communites. He claimed that the ADB project enabled the Forest Department to put a lot of trees into the ground while retaining control over the plantations sites. In particular, issues of land and tree tenureship had remained unresolved.

The negotiation of the social forestry project demonstrates that the Forest Department is in a position to play out various development agencies against each other, in order to obtain the most attractive deal, both financially and in terms of the obligations the grants and loans incur. In essence, foreign aided forestry develoment projects seek to buy from

Third World foresters compliance with a particular policy approach. As environmental

86 and social forestry issues are high priority items on the agenda of various global agencies, the Sri Lankan Forest Department is able to choose and pick. In the end, the Sri Lankan foresters acquired finance from both ODA and ADB.

The ODA management consultant for up-country plantations was apparently discom- forted by my information concerning the impact on the local population of the plantations he had been charged with cleaning up. Although he insisted that the farmers' evidence and claims regarding erosion and water decline were 'spurious', as no scientific proof was available, he sought repeated discussions with me and requested me to report on my research to evaluators from ODA's home office in England.

I recommended that he take the evaluators to the Kitulwatte plantations, "to see for themselves". During one of those notorious rushes through the local countryside and through inumerable offices and meetings, the evaluators only found time to view the plantations from Welimada Road while passing in their jeep. I was lucky to catch one of them for five minutes and hastily related a few of my research findings.

Although the ODA forester conceded that patanas had been an unsuitable choice of sites for afforestation, he was not willing to accept the unorthodox implications of community-oriented watershed management. When I pressed the point, that rather than social or protection forestry, the regeneration and improvement of patana grassland may be the only ecologically sound and socially acceptable measure, he replied angrily that clear- felling and the return of the land to local communities was not acceptable to the Forest

Department. Trees are the inevitable objective of forestry. Foresters do not grow grasslands. They are keen to put trees on them, as production is the ultima ratio of forestry.

The management consultant's refusal to resolve the intellectual and ethical tensions he

87 was experiencing, indicated his fundamental commitment to both forestry science and his job.

Curiously enough, the ODA plantation management consultant was in the possession of a document which proposed "hydrological studies to investigate the effects of landuse change in the Upper Mahaweli catchment" in the institutional context of a 'Link Pro- gramme' between the University of Peradeniya and the Oxford Forestry Institute (Calder

1991:5). The "hydrological impact of the Sri Lankan forestry project" (Calder 1991:13-

18) would be a component of particular interest to ODA foresters. The principal research scientist of the proposed study, I.R. Calder of the Institute of Hydrology in Wallingford,

England, concluded after a three and a half weeks exploration visit in Sri Lanka:

Erosion may not be the most important hydrological issue. Recent echo sounding surveys ... in the Kotmale reservoir show no measurable siltation during the seven year life of the reservoir. (Calder 1991:15)

Afforestation may not reduce erosion. ... There is currently no evidence to suggest that erosion under patana grassland is unacceptable and it is possible that unless carefully carried out the management operations involved with forestry, road building, ground preparation and felling operations, may actually increase erosion. Soil erosion following fires is likely to occur on both grasslands and pine plantations. (Calder 1991:15)

Afforestation at low altitudes will reduce water yield. ... In this climatic region [Kandy], afforestation of grassland is likely to reduce river flows by the order of 2000 cubic metres per hectare per annum. (Calder 1991:15-16)

Hydrological benefits from the [afforestation] project are likely to be marginal or negative except where afforestation takes place at high altitudes where cloud interception is important. (Calder 1991:17)

The project design has several flaws. It is restricted to one low altitude and one high altitude site, Kandy and Nuwara Eliya respectively, in the island's wet zone. The extreme conditions of mid-altitude locations in the intermediate zone, i.e. the Uva basin, are not investigated, as their impact on large-scale development projects is considered peripheral

88 and local impacts are of no concern to the study. The annual yield concept ignores the crucial aspect of dry season flow, which is of concern to local cultivators and household users in the intermediate zone.

The project adopts the hydrological philosophy of Hamilton (1983) and others, who emphasize evapotranspiration. The significance of erosion as a cause of reduced infiltration and consequently reduced groundwater rescharge is disregarded. The differential nature and impact on erosion of grassland fires and plantation fires is not recognised. The causation of erosion by the structural properties of pinus and eucalyptus plantations rather than just by bad management practices fails to be emphasised.

No hydrological study of an intact patana/forest formation is proposed. Only by including such a component, a valid comparative data set to assess the problematic consequences of afforestation, would be provided. Yet, the research project comes much too late. A sophisticated and prudent approach to afforestation would have undertaken comparative studies of hydrological processes in various climatically specific patana sites before and after their replacement by trial plantations. Instead, the Calder project raises hydrological considerations thirty years after the beginning of large-scale pinus planting.

All it can do, is to look at the damage already done.

Nevertheless, it gives me pause to think, that despite the serious doubts raised by

Calder's preliminary hydrological investigation, ODA and the Sri Lankan Forest Depart- ment would continue business as usual, instead of halting all further planting and considering possible action for damage repair. By the time Calder and his collaborators have completed the highly complex task of a hydrological assessment, further damage would

89 have been inflicted on local farmers and restitutive action would have been avoided for so much longer.

A GTZ hydrologist in the German component of the Upper Mahaweli Watershed

Management Programme, which deals with the impact of erosive landuse practices on the

German-funded Rantembe and Randenigala reservoirs and hydro-power stations, reported his experiences with problems met by hydrological studies.

It is very difficult and costly to maintain the infrastructure of a longterm hydrological study in a micro-catchment, which by its nature involves a complex set of instruments for a complex set of measurements, in order to establish a complex data base. To be meaningful, data for rainfall, interception, infiltration, soil saturation, evapotranspiration, baseflow, surface runoff and stream flow need to be collected over a period of at least five years and correlated. It seems impossible to keep staff recording diligently, or to keep instruments working and in place, rather than being stolen or in disrepair. GTZ financed the continuation of a faltering USAID hydrological study with a considerable amount of money without getting usable results. (GTZ hydrologist, fieldnotes)

Hydrologists Oyebande and Balek (1989:266-271) and Falkenmark (1989a:5) corroborate these observations about the social and ecological limitations of scientific production of knowledge.

The GTZ hydrologist had therefore come to the conclusion that local landusers are the only knowledgeable longterm observers of their water situation and that their assessments and complaints needed to be seriously considered. As my account of Gunasingha's quest for an understanding of the impact of pinus plantations on the water crisis in Kitulwatte demonstrates, his observations, tests and reasoning are fit for participation in any eco- hydrological discourse.

In considering the credibility and soundness of the arguments advanced in the pinus controversy, as reconstructed in this section, I offer the following account of the eco-

90 hydrological consequences of afforestation with pinus and eucalyptus in the Kitulwatte micro-watershed.

In the tree plantations the interaction of increased evapotranspiration of the flora with reduced infiltration of rainwater causes progressive desiccation.

Fast growing tree species planted densely on 221.2 hectares of grassland hills drastically increase soil water consumption and transpiration (Hamilton 1983:114-115;

Bruijnzeel 1986:5). Increased evaporation of rainwater from the plant surface to the atmosphere is caused by the greater interception capacity of the plantation canopy (Chap- man 1989:50; Kovacs, Zuidema & Marsalek 1989:114).

The reduced infiltration capacity of the plantation soil is a consequence of increased erosion induced by the removal or inhibition of a plant cover at ground level (Chapman

1989:52; Oyebande & Balek 1989:254; Falkenmark 1989b:31). During the land clearing and transplanting activities at the end of the dry season the soil was stripped of its plant cover and root structure. It was therefore exposed to the direct impact of rainfall, resulting in splash erosion and surface runoff.

The failure of undergrowth establishment under the plantation canopy, particularly at the ground level, resulted from a combination of factors. As the plantation canopy closed, sun- and drought-tolerant grasses, herbs and shrubs, which established after land clearing, were shaded out. The import of seed material of shade-tolerant species by animals is minimal. The soil is poor in vital nutrients, especially nitrogen, due to the high uptake level of pine and the slow decay of pine needle litter. Where needle matting occurs, soil contact of deposited seeds and emergence of seedlings from the soil are obstructed. Seed material is washed off by erosive runoff. Most significantly, if seedlings establish during the

91 rainy season, they fail to survive the prolonged dry season of the Uva basin, especially as the pines' high evapotranspiration desiccates the upper soil layer. Fires on the plantation ground, fueled by dry needle litter, exacerbate this effect. While patana grasses are adapted to both seasonal desiccation and fire, shade-tolerant undergrowth requires the moist conditions of riparian forest fragments.

The lack of undergrowth exposes the plantation soil to continuous erosion. The impact of rainfall remains unchecked, as intercepted rainwater falling from the canopy strikes the ground with higher kinetic energy than free-falling rain (Bruijnzeel 1986:8). The litter of fallen pine needles fails to provide an uninterrupted protective layer against the erosive impact of rainfall. Especially on steep slopes, it is washed off together with the soil and gravel. In locations where needles do accumulate, their slow rate of decay reduces the permeability of the litter layer and causes increased runoff.

The absence of absorptive litter and humus layers reduces infiltration capacity. Lack of undergrowth and paucity of animal and microbial life in the soil prevents the formation of macropores in the root zone along which soil water can travel downwards and be redistributed to the soil matrix (Chapman 1989:51-52; Falkenmark 1989b:39; Kovacs,

Zuidema & Marsalek 1989:114; Oyebande & Balek 1989:236-237). In addition, increased evaporation from bare soil causes the upper soil layers to dry out, harden and crack, resulting in both reduced infiltration and vulnerability to erosion (Chapman

1989:55; Oyebande & Balek 1989:237).

These combined processes of degradation prevent the formation and maintenance of a soil structure which is conducive to a high rate of infiltration. During rainfall events the

92 upper soil layer saturates rapidly and the larger proportion of rainfall is lost to immediate surface runoff.

The interactive effects of increased evapotranspiration and reduced infiltration result in the worst possible consequences for the water situation in the western hills of Kitul- watte. While the amount of rainfall in Kitulwatte has remained fairly constant, the transformation of the patana hills from grasslands to tree plantations has decisively altered its relative distribution among the three pathways of the land phase of the hydrological cycle. Surface runoff and evapotranspiration are simultaneously increased relative to groundwater recharge. While less water enters into the soil, more is consumed in the rootzone.

Consequently, groundwater recharge and discharge in springs is reduced and eventually subsides. Increased surface runoff causes high streamflow and frequent floods during and shortly after rainfall events. Dry season flow is reduced or disappears as plantation trees consume an increasing proportion of a diminished quantity of soil water.

Only a slow and steady release of groundwater throughout the year can compensate for the extreme annual variations of rainfall and erratic dry and wet spells experienced in the Uva basin. The failure of groundwater recharge has reduced the irrigation capacity of

Kitulwatte's micro-watershed below the threshold of viability, and has rendered farmers and household water consumers vulnerable to unpredictable climatic events.

Far from providing watershed protection and erosion control, the tree plantations have caused severe land degradation and resource competition in the micro-watershed. The

Forest Department has not only appropriated a large land area and has thereby excluded local residents from its utilisation. By planting fast growing monocrop tree plantations it

93 has imposed a high productivity process which monopolises vital resources at the expense of other participants of the local ecosystem.

The pinus trees are the first upstream water users in the micro-watershed. In addition, they appropriate the area's soil nutrients and available solar energy. Their excessive resource demands are a consequence of the particular requirements of the planted species in combination with their vast numbers. As a result, other plant species fail to receive sufficient sustenance. They cannot establish among the pines at all, and in insufficient numbers under eucalyptus. This circumstance deprives most animal species from food resources and limits their opportunities for participating in a suitable habitat.

Resource competition is therefore the ultimate cause of land degradation. Erosion and reduced infiltration capacity of the soil result from the plantation's lack of species diversity. Consequently, human downstream users are deprived of sufficient supplies of water.

Viewed from this perspective, the Forest Department's appropriation of the patanas has not converted 'useless and barren' land to productive uses. It has rather replaced the production and distribution of indispensable water and biomass flows which have sustained a wide range of local ecosystem participants, including local human actors, with the domination of a highly specialised and resource intensive process of production of industrial biomass for national markets.

The foresters' ignorance of the codependency of grasslands, forests, buffaloes and local farm households has caused the fragmentation of the landscape through the breaking of indispensable links. Their ignorant knowledge is a knowledge born of power, a power determined to appropriate and produce. The rationalisation of its action in terms of a global environmental discourse serves its legitimation and financing. However, the expe-

94 rience of a water crisis in the Uva basin confronts state power with a legitimation crisis.

The presumed integration of growth-oriented production with environmental management has failed tragically.

If the conservation component of afforestation was ever sincerely intended, environmental management was unable to control several crucial volatility factors. (1) The knowledge base informing the afforestation and watershed management policies of the

Forest Department proved to be flawed. (2) International and national forestry planning experts are unable to effectively control the project implementation and maintenance procedures carried out by the various hierarchical levels within the Forest Department, as well as by private sub-contractors. (3) They lack institutional control over the activities of other branches of government involved in plantation management. (4) The unpredictability of national and international markets for timber and pulp wood have caused the neglect of proper plantation management. (5) Competition and resource monopolisation have affected a local resource crisis and have precipitated an adversarial relationship between local human actors and the state.

Resource conflicts and failure rather than the integration of economic development and conservation characterise the socio-ecological field in Kitulwatte. The failure of environmental policy is matched and intensified by the failure of the economic policy, which motivated afforestation with pines in the first place. Ironic as this may be, the irony is a bitter one. The foresters' blunder is causing the failure of vegetable cash-cropping, a thriving productivist business of small-holding farm households, which is sorely dependent on the availability of a reliable water supply.

95 Still, the villagers of Kitulwatte continue to derive limited and precarious resource uses from the tree plantations. They cut and lop the pines, which are used for firewood, poles and construction.18 Most pinewood is cut for household uses, but some poor vahumpura villagers earn income by selling poles to vegetable cultivators.

The pinus plantations have ended the scarcity of wood resources in Kitulwatte. Pro- curement of poles and firewood in the forest fragments has declined. It is, however, important to realize that tree plantations have also intensified the pressure on forests, by depriving farmers of patana land for hill-field establishment. Forest fragments are the only remaining land for the expansion of cultivation in Kitulwatte.

The Forest Department treats cutting and lopping of living trees in the plantations as a violation of the Forest Ordinance. Only the gathering of dead branches is permitted. The definition of forest plantations as 'reserved forest' excludes users who enjoyed a traditional usufruct right over resources in the hills, and permits the Forest Department to assume absolute property rights over the land and its products. In practice, this is of course difficult to carry through, since the Department lacks sufficient personnel to police its plantations. Firewood is a basic need of the villagers and the plantations afford a relatively accessible and abundant source.

Nevertheless, people in the village are ill at ease, particularly since in 1992 the Forest

Department issued warnings and fined people from Kitulwatte who were caught while procuring firewood in the plantations. A family from a neighbouring village reported that a young woman who cut firewood from pines was threatened by a Beat Forest Officer with a gun. The efforts at policing the plantations were stepped up at a time when the

96 Forest Department had decided to sell its failed pulp-wood resources as construction timber, poles and firewood to local communities.

The pinus plantations may offer yet another livelihood generating opportunity to

Kitulwatte's residents. From the late 1980s a business man and politician from the Uva basin leased 1800 acres of pinus plantations from the Forest Department (at a concessionary rate of Rs. 100/acre/year) to tap the pines' oleo resin, a basic compound in the production of turpentine and cosmetics. The enterprise employs approximately 500 people, both men and women. Tapping is part-time work which earns Rs. 45 for four hours during which approximately 300 trees are tapped. This wage is roughly twice the daily wage of a female agricultural worker, who earns Rs. 45 for a full day's work. Processing companies in India and Japan provide steady demand and foreign exchange resources.

Resin tapping offers an unexpected windfall to the Forest Department (fieldnotes; Jay- asekera 1988:66; The Sunday Times, 19 May 1991; The Island 25 June 1991).

In 1992, the leasing programme for tapping operations was expanded, by raising the cost of leasing to Rs. 1000 per acre per year, soliciting additional investors and requiring tapping enterprises to set up processing facilities in Sri Lanka, in order to increase earnings through 'value-added' products (fieldnotes; The Island, 13 January 1992).19

The plantations in Kitulwatte are expected to be leased out for tapping by 1994 or

1995. We asked people in Kitulwatte whether they considered applying for a job as tappers or supervisors, and the reply was almost invariably positive. Considering the comparatively high wages and the paucity of wage labour jobs in agriculture, as well as the declining earnings from vegetable cultivation, our informants were keen to find steady em-

97 ployment, which would permit them to continue other livelihood activities after finishing a four hour morning shift.

The tapping operations provide the Forest Department with a rationale for their pinus plantations. Finally, they would fit into populist development aspirations by contributing to the resolution of the contradictions of the welfare state on strictly capitalistic terms.

Local capitalists would earn profits from investment in a locally produced resource. The leasing programme has an income potential of millions of rupees annually for the Forest

Department, considering that altogether 27,516 hectares of pinus plantations await utilisation in Sri Lanka. The operations will contribute to the country's foreign exchange earnings, without draining existing foreign currency resources with investment in intermediate products. The tapping enterprises generate potentially long-term wage labour employment in rural communities, which would enable villagers to repay debts incurred for welfare measures.

If the industry should prove successful, the creation of an economic infrastructure on which capitalists, the state and wage labourers have come to depend, will perpetuate pinus afforestation indefinitely. Once the tapping potential of a plantation block has been exhausted, replanting will have become an economic necessity.

While this scenario promises to strengthen productivist welfarism, it has the potential to intensify the eco-hydrological crisis in the communities from which wage labour is drawn. These communities will find themselves entangled in a particularly pernicious instance of the contradiction between production in nature and capitalist production. The impairment of the conditions of the production of water by the establishment of pinus plantations threatens to undermine smallholder cultivation and motivates farmers to ac-

98 cept wage labour employment in the same production process which has induced the water crisis. Increased dependence on the pinus plantations as a reliable income source would conflict with their interest in restoring the hydrological conditions of farm and household production. Since both pinus plantations and farming remain necessary components of their livelihood systems, the contradiction between capitalistic production and production in nature is experienced as an existential condition of the individual and of households.

The contradiction affects the socio-ecological system as a whole. Low wage rates in rural capitalistic enterprises fail to afford the full reproduction of the labour power of rural households or families. They continue to rely on livelihood system components, which involve subsistence and and small-scale commodity production. Conversely, the profitability of ventures such as pinus tapping depends on wage rates below the full value of labour power. Smallholder farm production therefore subsidises capitalistic enterprises operating in rural contexts (Mies 1986:6,153; Collins 1990:11).

The adverse ecological effects of pinus plantations undermine the conditions of wage labour exploitation as they threaten the viability of rural subsistence and market production. The impairment of the household water supplies also undermines the capacity of household members to adequately reproduce their labour power. Although pinus tapping may provide an alternative to economic and ecological failures induced by afforestation, this short-term 'solution' fails to take into account the fundamental neccesity of maintaining sufficient and healthy supplies of water by protecting the ecological conditions of its production.

99 I have shown in this section that the establishment of pinus plantations is the dominant cause of water scarcity in the westside of the Kitulwatte micro-watershed. Resource competition and land degradation were identified as the interactive processes by which the Forest Department of Sri Lanka is depriving local landusers of resources which are indispensable for the generation of their livelihoods.

It is obvious from the discussion in the previous sections of this chapter, that the residents of Kitulwatte are engaged in landuse practices which cause resource competition and land degradation as well. In the following sections I will concentrate on the role of local actors in the social construction of Kitulwatte's water crisis.

Hill-fields

By extending cultivation into hill-fields in the forest fragments and patanas, local farmers have contributed to adverse changes in the Kitulwatte micro-watershed. As space for the expansion of valley-fields was already scarce by the 1950s, the increase of cultivated fields by 144.6 percent between 1954 and 1988 (table 7) was predominantly the result of hill-field establishment. The import-substitution and self-reliance policies since the

1960s, as well as changing food-habits among the urban population provided new income opportunities for farmers who adopted cash crop cultivation of exotic vegetables, such as tomatoes, beans, cabbage, potatoes, and the like.

The rotation of paddy and vegetable crops in the valley-fields and the expansion of vegetable cash cropping into the hills enabled Kitulwatte's growing population to secure livelihoods and gain access to commodity markets, which expanded dramatically with the liberalisation of the economy after 1977. Commoditisation of the local agriculture con-

100 tributed to the overall ecological changes affected in the micro-watershed during the past thirty years. The processes of change and their hydrological consequences in the hill- fields differ from those in the valley-fields. I am therefore treating each of these livelihood system components seperately.

A few paddy fields had been cultivated in cleared forest fragments and wet patanas since the mid-19th century. These fields are structurally equivalent to the fields in the main valley. Since they were terraced, located on gentle slopes, cultivated with wet rice, and limited in extent, they had no appreciable affect on water availability before the

1970s.

Rainfed chena [slash-and-burn cultivation] plots had been cultivated, mostly with subsistence crops, in the dry patanas. Their location, limited extent and temporary nature, again, caused little alteration in the behavior of water. The activities of the military, the establishment of the tea estate in the eastern patanas, and population growth increasingly restricted shifting cultivation and led to the gradual disappearance of chenas in

Kitulwatte. Income opportunities from 'market gardens' and the introduction of new crops as well as of agrochemicals motivated farmers to rely on small-scale commodity production in permanent hill-fields as an alternative complement to rice cultivation.20

Hill-field cultivators squat on state property and establish indefinite land claims. These claims are recognised by both fellow farmers and by the Forest Department, which has left all fenced hill-fields untouched. Hill-field cultivation is prevalent among goigama owner-cultivators and ande-farmers (share croppers) of valley-fields, as well as among several households of the and vahumpura and chalia castes. None of the four tea estate owners and four wealthier non-cultivating landlords practice this form of cultivation.

101 The fields are generally larger than the valley-fields. Until the planting of pinus there was sufficient space for cultivation expansion, which is by now limited to the forest fragments. Most hill-fields are in the range of one to three acres.

Locations close to gully streams are generally preferred, to ensure irrigation and soil fertility. These fields have a thick layer of dark peaty soil, indicating that they are located on former wet patanas and forest fragments. However, farmers have moved up into the open hills, where the dry and steep slopes are cultivated by conducting and/or carrying stream water to the fields, by digging water holes, and by applying copious amounts of agrochemicals.

Permanent vegetable cultivation in Ginigathenapatana in the eastern hills has thrived since the completion of the public water supply scheme. A proportion of the water of which farmers in Kitulwatte's westside are deprived, is used by residents of the new suburban hamlet to cultivate cash crops in small plots on steep hills as well as in their homegardens. They connect hoses to the road taps and carry kales or watering cans. During the rainy season, they cultivate a rainfed cycle.

Biomass inputs to the hill-fields involve agrochemical fertilizers and chicken manure, which are procured externally in commercial markets, as well as cowdung and compost generated as local resources in homegardens. In addition, fertility from leached patana and forest soils enters the hill-fields with the flow of ground- and irrigation-water.

Biomass production in form of crops is predominantly transported from the local livelihood system to distant urban centers. Cultivators provision themselves with low grade surplus vegetables. Crop residues are burned and add fertility to the soil. Together with

102 residues of agrochemicals and the original top-soil, these are eventually eroded and leached to lower-lying areas.

Hamilton argues that the conversion of forests to annual cropping increases water yields as a result of lowered evapotranspiration rates of short-rooted annuals. However, infiltration capacities similar to forests would have to be maintained by careful methods of land clearing and by persistent soil and water conservation measures (Hamilton

1983:93-94,101-102). Conversion of patana grassland to permanent crops would increase water consumption, because the vegetables are not adapted to dry climatic conditions and need to be watered frequently from stream flow or groundwater sources.

Conservation measures are costly and time consuming, and are avoided in favour of short-term monetary income. Farmers' profit margins in vegetable cultivation are too small to allow for long-term planning, particularly as input costs are rising continously.

In Kitulwatte I encountered only one field, where cut-flowers for urban markets were grown on terraced fields, which had been stabilized with walls constructed from rocks.

All other fields were exposed to the unmitigated impact of rain, irrigation water and wind. The monocrops require constant weeding, which leaves the soil unprotected, even in terraced fields. To avoid waterlogging and fungi, the fields require deep ploughing and raised beds surrounded by channels for rapid drainage, which necessitates frequent irrigation.

Water is conveyed, carried or pumped into the channels surrounding the beds and then splashed with small bowls onto the plants. This method slowly wears down the soil. If bare fields are prepared for planting, and once the plants have reached sufficient size and

103 strength, cultivators using water pumps hose down the entire plot with gushes of water under high pressure. The erosive impact of this irrigation method is evident.

The fields on the very steep slopes of dry patana hills are particularly vulnerable.

They exhibit no or very little top-soil. Exposed sub-soil layers function to keep the plants anchored to the ground, while nutrients are supplied from external inputs.

Vegetable fields are doused with pesticides and therefore lack a healthy soil fauna, which facilitates the aeration of the soil. In combination with persistent exposure, lack of aeration causes the soil in the vegetable fields eventually to be compacted and infiltration capacity to be lowered, resulting in decreased groundwater recharge. In addition, higher runoff leaches increasing amounts of agrochemical fertilisers and pesticides, which causes pollution and eutrophication in downstream water sources.

The degrading effects of vegetable cultivation on the conditions of production of water interact with water competition resulting from the expansion and intensification of vegetable cultivation. The water requirements of hill-field cultivation compete with both households and valley-field cultivation, as each new field and cropping-cycle adds another increment of demand to a declining supply.

Although evapotranspiration rates may be lowered in the case of the limited conversion of forest fragments to vegetable crops, the overall loss of a watershed effect in the hills of Kitulwatte offsets any possible gains in water yields. As I have shown above, forest fragments act as a sink for erosive runoff from the grassland hills and ensure groundwater recharge. While erosive runoff in the tree plantations is considerably higher than in the patanas, the landuse forms with high infiltration capacities, forest fragments and wet patanas, have declined and experience degradation. The impairment of the conditions of

104 production of water in the westside of Kitulwatte is therefore an interactive effect of the loss of forests and patanas to tree plantations and hill-fields.

Local farmers play an active role in the disruption of the links between the components of their livelihood system. Like the foresters, they have imposed high productivity processes on the upstream areas of the micro-watershed, which simultaneously monoplise water and fertility, and destroy their conditions of production. As the violation of the codependency between patanas, forests, cattle and human actors deprives the entire livelihood system of indispensable water and fertility, the process becomes eventually self- contradictory.

The outflow of biomass from the hill-fields to urban areas is exchanged for cash.

Farmers experience increasing stress over how to allocate these cash resources. Espe- cially under conditions of degradation of locally produced fertility, the dependency of vegetable crops on agrochemical inputs raises the cost of production considerably. These costs increase progressively as fertility and water continue to decline, while input prices increase and government subsidies are eliminated.

Prices for urea fertiliser rose from Rs. 980 per metric ton in 1979 to Rs. 7800 per metric ton in 1990 (table 8). The reduction and final elimination of subsidies caused drastic price increases in February 81, May 83, August 88 and January 90. Between 1987 and

1990 the fertilizer price rose by 180 percent. During the same period, average producer prices for tomatoes in Badulla District rose by 61 percent and retail prices remained consistently at about double the producer price (ARTI 1993). Price developments for other major crop species (beans, cabbage) were similar. Meanwhile, the elimination of fertilizer

105 subsidies in 1990 caused a 119 percent increase over 1989 prices. The overall increase for the period tabulated is 696 percent. Long-term data for pesticides were not available.

Table 8: Selling Prices of Urea Fertilizer (Retail)

Year (month) Rupees per metric ton 1979 (SEP) 980 1981 (FEB) 2140 1981 (SEP) 2785 1983 (MAY) 2850 1984 2850 1985 2850 1986 2850 1987 2850 1988 (AUG) 3650 1989 3650 1990 (JAN) 8000 1990 (MAY) 7800

Source: National Fertilizer Secretariat (ARTI 1993)

The overall rate of inflation during the 1980s was 14 percent, rose to 21.5 percent in

1990 and declined to 12.2 percent in 1991 (The Island 1 May, 1992; Kuhathasan

1992:13).

It is evident that the farmers bear the major share of increases in the cost of production, while the costs of the reproduction of their labour power are increasing as well. The small scale of their production and the limited buying power of the majority of urban consumers, constrains the ability of individual farm households to "make the market responsive to their production costs" (Collins 1990:16). Although in the 1970s farmers received roughly 50 percent of retail prices, they spent 40-50 percent of their incomes on material inputs and 25 percent on the cost of transport to wholesalers (Abeysekera & Se- nanayake 11,13, 56; Gunawardena & Chandrasiri 1980:79).21 As the proportion of mate-

106 rial input costs has increased steadily since the 1970s, income available for household consumption has declined.

Farmers in Kitulwatte fail to account systematically for their expenses and incomes.22

Instead, farmers juggle whatever financial resources are available from all of their livelihood activities and allocate these wherever they are required at a given point in time. If cultivators fail to receive cash income from non-agricultural sources they are particularly disadvantaged:

We farm because we have nothing else to do. If we did calculate all our costs, including our work, we would earn almost nothing. What use is there in keeping books? Farming is only profitable with good land and sufficent water. (Kalubanda, fieldnotes)

Farmers continue to produce under these adverse conditions, because they rely on un- renumerated labour power from their families and the community of fellow cultivators. In

Kitulwatte family labour and udauva, reciprocal but non-symmetrical labour exchange between friends and neighbours, are the dominant forms of labour mobilisation in vegetable cultivation. Opportunities for wage labour income were reported to have declined as a result of the shortage of cash. Only households with non-farm cash income can afford regularly to hire wage labour for labour intensive tasks, such as soil preparation and harvesting.

Peasants and petty commodity producers sell goods more cheaply because they produce them with large quantities of their own unremunerated labor rather than purchased inputs. (Collins 1990:16)

If, however, the need for purchased inputs grows as a consequence of increasing resource competition and land degradation, the deterioration of the standard of living of farmers is inevitable. The relative decline of the self-provisioning component of the local livelihood system increases people's dependency on costly consumer products purchased

107 in commercial markets. Consequently, farm households can only reproduce their labour power, if they continue to produce and intensify production whenever possible, with the hope of receiving a bumper crop the next time around. They raise the necessary capital by incurring debt from traders or banks, by pawning their assets (typically the women's jew- ellery), and by subsidising farming with income from other livelihood system components. In the end, they hope that their juggling strategies will somehow work out.

Nevertheless, no amount of money can produce fecund local water sources with a steady dry season flow. While they contribute to the destabilisation of the micro- watershed, the hill-fields are themselves adversely affected by resource competition and land degradation from the tree plantations. Since the springs and waterholes began to re- cede, the hill-fields receive less irrigation water, and many have reverted to rainfed cultivation or have been abandoned altogether. Farmers who continue to cultivate report that crop yields have declined, and entire crops may be lost if the monsoon rains should fail.

Gunasingha, his wife and four children cultivated a one and a half acre field in a wet patana stretch containing two springs in the upper hills above Lower Kitulwatte from

1967 until 1986. He considers this field to be more fertile than their valley-fields on account of their rich top-soil. They grew a blend of three exotic cashcrops in the main area and a diverse mix of indigenous and exotic species for subsistence on the margins of the field. Between September and April they cultivated two cropping cycles. Due to the field's fertility they used less agrochemical inputs than in their valley-fields. To mark the boundaries and to introduce some measure of erosion control, 'live-fences' of leguminous trees were planted. Reliable irrigation water was secured from the two springs.

Gunasingha reported that they received larger and heavier crops and higher yields, than

108 from their valley-fields. Consequently, the family's cash income during this period was comparatively high.

After the introduction of pinus plantations in the areas surrounding the two springs, the water souces declined and eventually subsided. The boundary trees have all died for lack of water and cultivation has become entirely rainfed. The yields of the single cropping cycle were small and their quality was reduced. In addition, the increased threat of wild boar raids made 24 hour watches indispensable.

Gunasingha's family abandoned the field in 1986 out of desperation. The household compensates for the loss of the hill-field by securing several lease and sharecrop fields in the main valley, all of which are irrigated by pumping Oya water. Thus, household cash expenditures have increased drastically while half of the yield of the sharecrop fields goes to the landowners. With the loss of their hill-field the family's living standard has declined and their effort to secure a livelihood has been intensified.

We were able to build our new house with the income from this field. It was a hap- py time. There was no lack of money or food. We were able to travel and to make frequent offerings to the deities. Now, no matter how much effort we make and how tired we are, there never seems to be enough. (Gunasingha, fieldnotes)

During the 1992/93 cropping season poor relatives of Gunasingha attempted a rainfed bean crop, the most hardy of the exotics, in his hill-field. The results were discouraging.

In addition to the volatility of rainfall, their crop had become vulnerable to a new ecosystem participant. Yellow mites were devouring the foliage of bean crops all over the area.

The expensive potent pesticides recommended by the Agricultural Extension Service proved ineffective. Although the mites do not wipe out entire crops, their quality and quantity is reduced for lack of water and sufficient photosynthetic activity.

109 In the hills of Upper Kitulwatte, I was shown over-grown clearings in between pinus sub-blocks, where farmers, several from among the chalia caste, had abandoned cultivation altogether. Piyadasa's family had cultivated several plots in the vicinity of the wewa [reservoir]. A large field above their homestead had been irrigated from small ce- mented tanks, which stored the water of a nearby spring. All of these fields went out of cultivation. Piyadasa's family has no regular and secure access to valley-fields through either ownership or reliable sharecrop relationships. They depend on non-agricultural income sources, such as pensions and food stamps, government jobs, the spice processing factory, trading and employment in the local carpentry shop. Self-provisioning with vegetables has been reduced to the irregular cultivation of small rainfed homegarden plots, while occasional sharecrops with friends offer erratic opportunities for cash cropping.

Homesteads

From the perspective of the members of households, homesteads are at the centre of

Kitulwatte's livelihood system. Whatever system components and related activities a specific household may combine to generate livelihoods, every household resides in a homestead. In rural Sri Lanka a homestead is invariably comprised of a house and a surrounding homegarden. Homesteads are the location of productive activity as much as of the reproduction of labour power. The house is furthermore of symbolic relevance, since it signifies the social standing and personal identity of the members of a household.

The area under homesteads in Kitulwatte has more than doubled between 1954 and

1988, and covers about one quarter of the micro-watershed (tables 6 and 7). The increase in the number of homesteads and the qualitative changes in the structure of homegardens

110 have contributed to resource competition and land degradation adversely affecting water availability in the Kitulwatte micro-watershed.

Three types of homesteads may be distinguished. The old homegardens and houses located on the lower slopes of the main valley above the valley-fields used to form a continuous belt of tree covered area. Forest fragments and gardens merged almost indistin- guishably. As Kitulwatte's population expanded, old homegardens were subdivided and new houses built. As this type of expansion reached its internal spatial limits new households moved into the lower patana hills. This process was gradual and unorganised. Each household squatted on a piece of suitable land when the need arose. In the mid-1970s governmental Village Expansion Schemes offered a legal and controlled opportunity for the acquisition of land by villagers. Three areas in the eastern hills were selected for allocation to households without homesteads. In these schemes, dense settlement of larger numbers of households occured in comparatively small areas.

The Village Expansion Schemes in Kitulwatte form part of a settlement process which is creating a continuous and dense sprawl of homesteads in the outskirts of the town of

Bandarawela. I would therefore characterise this process as the suburbanisation of

Kitulwatte's eastside. The new suburbs in Kitulwatte are primarily the result of internal population expansion. Population influx from outside the village has been restricted to newcomers who married into families from Kitulwatte. Members of local households also leave the village to marry into households elsewhere.

The Sinhalese practice both binna [uxorilocal] and diga [virilocal] marriages. Either form may be contracted under consideration of socio-economic factors, such as avail-

111 ability of housing, or the need for male or female labour power. Kandyan law recognizes bilateral inheritance, granting all children claims to an equal share of their parents' land.

As table 9 indicates, Kitulwatte's population has grown more than sixfold in the last

100 years. The number of houses has increased sevenfold.

Table 9: Population and number of houses in Kitulwatte from 1891 to 1992

Year Population Houses 1891 316 47 1901 338 53 1911 361 64 1921 470 141 1931 640 109

1980 1465 306 1990 1875 331 1992 1996 ?

Sources: Department of Census and Statistics 1891-1931; Department of Census and Sta- tistics 1980; Kitulwatte Village Survey 1990; 199223

Table 10 demonstrates the differences in the growth of settlement in the eastern and western sides of Kitulwatte. Homesteads were counted in two sample areas on the aerial photographs of 1954 and 1988. It is evident that Clairwatte and Gaswatte, two sites of

Village Expansion Schemes, experienced a ten- and fivefold increase in the number of houses respectively, as against Ambagahakumbura, Galahitiyawa and parts of Upper

Kitulwatte, where homesteads were roughly doubled. Since then new houses were added in all parts of the village, particularly in 1991 in the wake of the udagama development project.

112 Table 10: Houses in Kitulwatte in 1954 and 1988 in five selected hamlets

1954 1988 change [%] WESTSIDE Ambagahakumbura 7 13 + 86 Galahitiyawa 12 27 + 125 Upper Kitulwatte 8 16 + 100 EASTSIDE Clairwatte 3 30 + 900 Gaswatte 5 27 + 440

Table 11 shows that the increase of houses in the village remains insufficient to provide all households with a house of their own. The Kitulwatte Village Survey 199O identified

75 households without a homestead. We have observed houses, which were subdivided and had two kitchens and latrines, to accomodate two or more households.

Table 11: Population and household data of Kitulwatte, 1990

Total population 1875 Female population 934 Male population 941 Households 406 Average household size 4.6 Houses 331 Households without house 75 Public wells 27 Households per well 15 Households served by public water supply scheme 192

Source: Kitulwatte Village Survey 1990.

113 Table 12: Distribution of highland owned by households in Kitulwatte, 199126 size class [acres] No. % 0.01 - 0.12 72 21.9 0.13 - 0.12 99 30.1 0.26 - 0.5 48 14.6 0.51 - 0.75 16 4.9 0.76 - 1 16 4.9 1.01 - 2 10 3 2.01 - 3 3 0.9 3.01 - 5 1 0.3 > 5 2 0.6 Subtotal 267 81.2 Landless 62 18.8 Total 329 100

Table 12 provides information on the distribution of highland owned by households in

Kitulwatte.24 The small size of the majority of properties is significant. It reflects the extent of internal subdivision, as well as the smallness of the plots allocated by the government. Approximately half of all households own less than a quarter of an acre. Around 75 percent of all households own one acre or less. The 62 households (18 percent) which do not own any highland correspond to the 75 households without a homestead listed in table 11.25 Some of these landless households will eventually inherit their parent's homesteads.

Caste distribution among the households of the village is shown in table 13. Settle- ment in Kandyan society was caste specific and is reflected in the concentration of households from the vahumpura caste in enclaves in the old homegardens and the patana hills of Lower Kitulwatte, and of members of the chalia caste in the mid-slopes of Upper

Kitulwatte. Besides the groups mentioned, there are low-country Sinhalese of various caste backgrounds who married into the village, Muslims outside the caste system, and

114 several Sinhalese of unknown caste background, all of whom are listed under 'other'. We were able to identify only one household with members of the chalia caste in one of the new settlements, where Sinhalese househoulds from the groups listed under 'other' are, however, represented. All hamlets are dominated by the goigama, the island's high caste majority.

Table 13: Caste membership of households in Kitulwatte in 199127

Caste No. % goigama 248 76.4 vahumpura 28 8.6 chalia 6 1.8 other 43 13.2 total 325 100

To appraise the ecological impact of homestead expansion local house construction practices need to be analysed. Traditional building techniques use materials which are procured within the local livelihood system, such as soil for sun-baked bricks, patana grass for thatched roofs, and cowdung mixed with soil for floors. With the increasing availability of cash through non-agricultural employment, cash cropping and udagama housing loans, kiln-baked tiles and bricks (raising aggregate demand for industrial fuelwood), and cement have become popular building materials.

Regardless of the types of building materials used, land degradation has been caused by the manner of house construction. The building of a house commences with the cutting of a level platform [Sinhalese: gepola] into the often times very steep slope of a hillside. This is done by manual labour with hoes and a wooden levelling tool. The small-

115 er proportion of the removed sub-soil is used for making sun-baked bricks. The rest is thrown down the slope below the gepola, where it smothers the topsoil and the ground flora.

If trees from local forest fragments and homegardens are used for construction timber, this causes the opening of their canopies, leading to eco-hydrological consequences discussed in previous sections of this chapter.

The immediate environment of the houses is quite bare, as villagers desire to keep a

"clean" area separating human habitation from homegardens. Except for a few decorative plants and flowers, plant growth is prevented by constant weeding and vigorous daily sweeping. Many household chores are carried out on these bare yards, such as drying of paddy and other agricultural products, splitting of firewood, dishwashing, etc. The yards are also the playgrounds of children. As such, they are extensions of the house. In addition, bare grounds make the movement of snakes, leeches and other 'undesirable' animals more visible. As a result, however, the soil of the gepola is compacted and hardened, which leads to impermeability and increased surface runoff.

Most houses do not have gutters and drains to conduct runoff from roofs. The resulting splash erosion and formation of tiny gullies promote accelerated runoff. Once rainfall and runoff reach the slope below the gepola, the debris discarded during construction is eroded and moves downhill to contribute to the silt load of streams. Local building styles and techniques thus impair the infiltration capacity of the soil and groundwater recharge.

Furthermore, the construction of latrines may pose a health problem. Ideally, they would be located below the house or far removed to the side. If space is scarce, the lat may be above or close to the house, exposing the compound and wells located inside the

116 homestead to leaching of feces. In densely settled conditions, this hazard is intensified as there is always someone living above or below. Water for cleansing and flushing is carried from the closest water source to the lats. Only the tea estate bungalows have indoor toilets with cisterns.

Homesteads are a space of production and consumption of daily necessities. From here the members of households venture to their various activities in the different livelihood system components, and they return to their homes to process and consume the goods produced and acquired elsewhere. Women process and store agricultural products and seed material for the next cultivation cycle. They prepare food and take care of numerous cleaning chores. Men and women split firewood, and men generally tend to the repairs of the house. Women and older siblings attend to the care of small children.

Houses are also the location of non-agricultural income generation activities. House construction itself is a specialised craft, which requires masons, carpenters and wood cut- ters. According to the survey of the village development project, at least 24 households in

Kitulwatte receive income from craft work.28 People earn cash with home-based productive activities, such as the preparation of foods sold at local markets and shops, sowing of clothes, furniture making, bread baking and the like.

Houses are important ritual spaces, which require protective measures, such as offerings and charms, to ward off malevolent forces and bestow the Buddha's and the deities' blessings upon the members of the household. Ceremonies marking transitions in a person's life-cycle, such as weddings, funerals and coming-of-age ceremonies, are celebrated at home. A household's ability or failure to finance these rituals is a sign of social status within the community.

117 The size of houses, the quality of building materials, as well as the aesthetics of their exterior and interior design are among the foremost symbols of personal identity and social status. Villagers aspire to a colorfully painted brick house with a cement floor, several bedrooms, modern tiles, and a latrine with a squatting bowl. Sitting-room furniture and electic gadgets, religious symbols and photographs of the family's ceremonial occasions are displayed conspicuously. However, poverty may reduce these symbols of domestic well-being to a tattered poster of a prominent Sri Lankan movie star in her nouveau riche sitting room, displayed on the deteriorating walls of a rundown house.

The political significance of the housing component of the populist government's 'village awakening' programme, and the importance of small-scale commodity production and non-agricultural employment as sources of cash may be understood from the afore- said. It needs to be emphasised that housing, ceremonial activity and furniture are basic human needs. Furthermore, cash is spent predominantly on agricultural inputs, on food items not produced by the farmers, health care, clothing and on the schooling of children.

Televisions, stereo sets and electric kettles, although greatly admired, are a rare sight indeed.

The cattle rearing component of Kitulwatte's livelihood system has almost entirely receded into the homesteads. The majority of the village's approximately 50 cattle are cross-breds, specialised in high yield milk production.29 Keeping milk cows requires considerable expenditure of cash and labour power, but, if high yields are maintained, the investment is worthwhile. We calculated that Danapala and Ratnapala, two brothers who had invested their savings from cash cropping in two mature cows, one female calf and an immature bull, earned a gross income of Rs. 18,000, incurred Rs. 4,700 expenses, and

118 received a net profit of Rs. 13,300 in 1992. Income is expected to rise, once the immature animals become productive. In addition, since the cross-breds consume comparatively large amounts of fodder, they yield high amounts of dung and urine, which are composted and used to fertilise cash crop fields and homegardens.

Considering the scarcity of open pasture created by the tree plantations and the prohibitive prices of agrochemical fertilizers, stall-fed cattle rearing on a small scale provides a reasonable alternative source of organic biomass to augment soil fertility, as well as a source of cash income. The necessity for intensive fodder cultivation in the hedges and edges of homegardens and fields, requires that the number of cattle owned by each household is kept small, in order to limit demands on space and labour power. As an interdependent element of the local livelihood system small-scale cattle rearing is beneficial from the perpective of hydrology as well, since the addition of organic matter to the fields and homegardens increases the water retention capacity of the soil, and the spatial confinement of the animals limits the effects of treading.

The homegardens surrounding the houses and yards of homesteads are an important ecological feature and component of Kitulwatte's livelihood system. Trees, shrubs, creepers, herbs and vegetables provide people with subsistence and market crops, while forming a floristic structure which may share characteristics with forest fragments. I have pointed out in chapter five that researchers at the NeoSynthesis Research Centre in the

Uva basin view traditional homegardens as forest analogues and emphasise their capacity for watershed protection. Based on her empirical research in Mirahawatte, Yvonne Ever- ett concludes that homegardens conform to a "model of sustainable forest structure" in terms of indicators such as density, dominance, canopy layering and species diversity,

119 while the degree of canopy closure, and processes of regeneration and succession in homegardens differ considerably from those in forests (Everett 1987:65).

In Kitulwatte we observed that cultivators plant their homegardens according to socially determined criteria of usefulness, and that the composition, abundance and distribution of plant species in homegardens change as definitions of usefulness change. As a result, we noted only a minority of traditional homegardens with dense multilayered canopies, and an increasing prevalence of gardens where trees have been limited to the hedges of the homestead, while cash crops dominate the main area. Trees of variant species continue to be planted, but there is a noticeable dominance of eucalypti in homegardens established since the late 1960s. Some cultivators have cleared areas as large as half an acre to establish vegetable, coffee or tea monocrops. Piyadasa, whose homestead is located directly under the pinus plantations, reported that his family planted eucalyptus and tea once their nearby water supplies had subsided, because "nothing else would grow". Ob- viously, this development is also owed to the increasing importance of cash income and the relative decline, yet not the disappearance, of the self-provisioning element of the local livelihood system.

Lucia and Peter, an older couple, discussed the development of their homegarden from their childhood to the present.

Those days the homegardens were full of jungle, with lots of shrubs and small trees. You could not even walk in them. People were not so developed then. All the fruit trees and flowers you can see were planted by us. There used to be more trees than now, but we have cleared land to grow vegetables. (Lucia and Peter, fieldnotes).

A large rainfed tomato field for market sale in the centre of the garden was tended by one of their adult sons. In the top portion they had planted 35 eucalypti. The house and vegetable field were surrounded by 25 different species of utility trees, shrubs and

120 creepers, none of which occured in great numbers, but satisfied the immediate subsistence requirements of the five households sharing this garden. Peter and Lucia did not worry about the ecological implications of the structure of their homegarden, but were singularly concerned with utility, as defined by their specific mix of plant species. To them progress was an orderly blend of high productivity cash crops and fruit and vegetable plants for household consumption, laced with ornamental flowers for aesthetic pleasure.

The hydrological impact of the transformation of homegardens, from multi-layered and diversified floristic structures dominated by trees to patchy assemblages of monocrops surrounded by small clusters of mixed perennials, resembles the dynamics of deforestation and hill-field cultivation. Receding canopies and exposed soils cause reduced rainwater infiltration and erosive runoff, resulting in diminished groundwater recharge.

Although springs and streamflow do generally not occur in homegardens, rainwater infiltrating in the gardens emerges in springs in the valley-fields below, or may be accessed by building wells in homesteads. The changed eco-hydrological conditions in homegardens are likely to contribute to the decline in yields of wells and springs in the valley.

Suburbanisation causes simultaneous land degradation and water competition. Roads, roofs and gepolas in the densely settled areas of the eastern hills create large expanses of near impermeable surfaces causing the disappearance of rainwater as rapid surface runoff. Kovacs, Zuidema & Marsalek (1989:121-122) have indicated the prevalence of the same processes in all urbanised environments. Diminished ground water levels are subject to increased water demand from both human consumers and eucalypti. The water table declines, as the number of wells grows, and as the dominance of eucalyptus trees in

121 the new homegardens raises the level of soil water transpiration. Consequently, water supplies in urbanised areas require augmentation from external sources, as in the case of

Kitulwatte's public water supply scheme which transports water from the western to the eastern hills.

Imports of water from other watersheds affect their water budgets and ecology, so that the hydrological effects of urban areas extend well beyond their boundaries. (Kovacs, Zuidema & Marsalek 1989:119)

Villagers in Kitulwatte showed little concern with and had no knowledge of the hydrological impact of their homesteads. Their land was viewed as a space which would serve their changing needs for habitation and income generation. Once water scarcity became evident, they tended to look for blame elsewhere - lack of rainfall, pinus plantations, the wells of fellow villagers - rather than considering their own landuse practices in the context of the transformation of the local ecosystem. Furthermore, residents of the eastside mobilised the local political power structure and received funding from a global development agency to gain access to an external water source. Since watershed protection failed to be considered in Galpothuyaya as much as in the suburban hamlets, people's strategies for coping with water scarcity proved a failure.

The combined effects of the various landuse changes in the western and eastern parts of Kitulwatte have a detrimental impact on the water supply situation of households. Vil- lagers require clean water from sources within reasonable walking distance of their homesteads for drinking, cleaning of foods and dishes, as well as cooking. Water is also needed for latrines, house cleaning and to support rainfed crops during dry spells. Ani- mals kept in homegardens require water for drinking and cleaning. Women have to fetch water for all of these uses in kales. The difficulty of their task increases with increasing

122 water scarcity and distance of sources. Bathing and laundry are generally done at the water sources themselves.

In Kitulwatte sufficient water for household use from nearby sources is available only during the rainy season, if rainfall events occur on a regular basis throughout the months of October to January. At all other times, almost all sources in Kitulwatte are deficient to satisfy demand. The once perennial flow in streams is reduced to trickles or subsides, with the exception of Gaetawelakaele in the far southeastern corner of the village. The contents of wells are used up quickly and their replenishment may take more than 24 hours. With increasing scarcity of well water, the willingness of well-owners to share their source declines. The public water supply scheme rotates supplies between different user areas. As the dry season progresses there is less and less to rotate and ration. Women line up their kales in front of roadtaps to wait for a half hour supply every morning, but may return with empty vessels on many days.

In 1992 the Water Board in Bandarawela came up with a new strategy to limit demand by reducing the number of road taps. This is done in a rather devious way, because an arbitrary shut-down might create unwanted protests. If a tap breaks down and villagers request repairs from the Water Board, the person who makes the request is 'appointed' representative of a 'community committee' in charge of the tap in question and is billed

Rs. 150 every month. If he fails to make collections towards the fee from his fellow users, the tap is shut down. The Water Board officials acknowledged that the community committees are bound to be a failure, because villagers consider paying for their water absurd. During 1992 four taps were eliminated in this fashion. The officials stated that declining water sources and increasing costs forced them to adopt these drastic measures.

123 The average monthly expense for the system's operation is Rs. 30,000, while in Novem- ber 1992, for example, only Rs. 5,000 were collected from metered users with connections to their houses.

By contrast, the residents of Amabagahakumbura and southern Galahitiyawa, who have been deprived of water resources by the public supply scheme, established a small decentralised water supply system managed by its users, with financial support from the non-governmental community organisation, Sarvodaya. The streamflow of one of the tributaries to Galahitiyawa Kandura is diverted into a storage tank. Eight taps were installed in the two hamlets. During the rainy season this system affords a 24 hour supply.

During the dry months the system's users need to share the spring with several hill-field farmers (from the same two hamlets) who agreed to tap the scarce supplies for only two hours daily. The remaining stream flow fills the storage tank, and provides potable water every day for half an hour in the morning and in the evening. A local member of Sarvo- daya is in charge of the daily operation of the system and is rewarded by having a tap conveniently located next to his homestead, which he shares with his neighbours. Annual cleaning of the system is carried out by its users. They reported that the system was managed efficiently and equitably.

In 1991 my family lived in a 'bungalow' in the northend of the village. We depended on the public water supply scheme, which connected directly to a storage tank on our landlady's property. Being one of the last down-line users, our supplies declined steadily from March and we failed to receive water from June. It became difficult to keep up regular household operations and hygiene.

124 Our immediate neighbours offered us the use of their well. This well was the sole dependable source of clean water for several households in the neighbourhood and became increasingly murky, because all of us emptied the well to its very bottom within a few hours in the morning.

The next up-line road tap supplied water erratically, but broke down and was repaired only months later. It was eventually shut down in 1992, since the appointed community committee refused to function.

Deprived of their road tap people are forced to fall back on using the main river of the valley for drinking water. The Oya is polluted with pesticides, soap and the leaching of feces from up-stream communities. My wife and I decided that we would not use Oya water for drinking and bathing, especially since we did not want to jeopardise the health of our one year old son. We rented a new house with a secure water supply. The villagers we left behind did not have this choice.

Our new home was located next to Gaetawelakaele, the last forest fragment with a fecund perennial water source. The owner of Glenwood Estate, where our house was located, had dug two wells which draw on the water table of the forest fragment. Our privileged circumstances provided us with a new and reliable source of water to which we and one other household residing on the estate had exclusive access.

With the exception of the springs in Gaetawelakaele, the water supply situation in the

Kitulwatte micro-watershed broke down during the months of January to April of 1992.

The island was in the grip of an extreme drought caused by what meteorologists and oceanographers have dubbed the El Nino phenomenon. Due to the poorly understood reversal of the equatorial tradewinds in conjunction with the abnormal warming of the east-

125 ern Pacific Ocean, which appears to recur with varying intensity in irregular intervals of three to five years, monsoonal rain clouds are withdrawn from the Indian Ocean (Gun- awardene, N. 1992:10). The monsoon rains subsided in early January 1992 and zero mil- limeters of rainfall were recorded in the meteorological stations of Bandarawela and

Dyraaba Estate until mid-April 1992.

In Kitulwatte springs, streams and wells, as well as the public water supply scheme failed almost entirely. Even the Oya was reduced to a trickle, since up-stream users, particularly the town of Bandarawela, were consuming most of what the river's catchment in the ridges of the basin produced.

However, the rainfall records from Bandarawela and Dyraaba stations indicate that rainfall during the pre-monsoon months of October and November, as well as the monsoon rains in December of 1991 had been fairly close to the means of the 1972-1991 record (table 14). As soon as the drought set in, stream flow declined rapidly and remained minimal or subsided, as no groundwater recharge occurred for almost three months.

Table 14: Monthly precipitation (mm) during the rainy season and drought of 1991/1992 and monthly means for the 1972-1991 period at Bandarawela and Dyraaba Estate30

Bandarawela Dyraaba Estate Month 1991/92 1972-1991 1991/92 1972-1991 OCT 143.1 255.2 238 232.8 NOV 206.2 227.2 403.7 207.6 DEC 193 171.5 322.8 220.6 JAN 57.3 103 71.3 128.2 FEB 0 68.8 0 57.2 MAR 0 112 0 123.9 APR ? 140.5 63.9 197.1

126 This situation suggests that the reasonably 'normal' rainfall during October to Decem- ber of 1991 and in the first week of January 1992 did not replenish local groundwater levels adequately to ensure satisfactory dry season flow. Insufficient quantities of rainwater were infiltrated during the pre/monsoon period, as land degradation causes the larger proportion of rainfall to run off, and as the tree plantations and human water users rapidly exhaust the diminished supplies. Because groundwater resources are depleted shortly after rainfall events, the micro-watershed's capacity to compensate for unexpected fluctuations in the climatic situation has been destroyed. The threshold of near total desiccation has been lowered drastically.

Besides the obvious effects on agricultural operations, which I will discuss below, households suffered greatly during this time. Whatever water sources were available were strictly reserved for keeping people and animals alive. All other uses were reduced, which caused a deterioration of the hygienic situation. As the Oya became the main source of water for most villagers, people complained that they experienced more stom- ach problems and influenzas than usual. Income generating activities which require water ground to a halt. The bakery in Lower Kitulwatte was shut down, Fatima's food production was suspended, and all housing construction broke down. By the beginning of April

1992 people considered moving to relatives who lived in areas which still had access to water. Fortunately, by mid-April the impact of El Nino subsided and regular rainfall occurred until the kachchan season, which was luckily not entirely rainless.

In January of 1993 I became alerted to the impact of the adverse hydrological conditions on people's health. From August 1991 until February 1993 my family lived in the

Glenwood Estate bungalow whenever we conducted research in Kitulwatte. Although we

127 had privileged access to a sufficient supply of water we were to experience the impact of a destabilised and polluted hydrological system. In November 1991 our son had a light case of Shigellosis, an intestinal infection, which was successfully treated with antibiotics by a local physician. Although we were boiling our drinking water, we were not too surprised that our son contacted the disease, as he did frequently swallow some bath water.

When he and his half year old sister had a violent outbrake of bloody diarrhea in Janu- ary of 1993, which was again diagnosed as Shigellosis, we were intensely worried. The children recoverd after being treated with antibiotics. What seemed peculiar, was the fact that they were drinking boiled water and bathed throughout the year, but contacted the disease during the rainy season. Therefore, I communicated with a popular private physician, as well as the Bandarawela District Hospital, where patients are treated free of charge. Residents of Kitulwatte consult both medical facilities.

The private physician, who was a former District Medical Officer at the District Hos- pital, kept no statistical records of the cases of infectious diseases he was treating, but offered the following explanation. In his experience, there is an overall increase of waterborne diseases such as Dysentry, Shigellosis and Hepatitis A. Human feces cause the contamination of water sources, because they are leached by the rains into the wells, springs and rivers in high concentrations. In addition, food is contaminated by contact with infected people, especially in the local kades [stores].

The physician identified the lack of sufficient water for the proper use of toilets during the dry season, as the fundamental cause of this situation. Sri Lankans, as South and

Southeast Asians in general, use water to clean themselves after defecating. If during the dry season, water for cleaning and flushing is insufficient, personal hygiene may decline,

128 and feces concentrate in the latrines' pits and, if people avoid their lats, on the land. Due to low levels of water supply and rainfall the usual continuous leaching of feces in low concentrations, which cleanses the soil and groundwater and is absorbed in part by the local flora, is interrupted. Stagnant feces are contaminated with bacteria carried by insects. Once the rainy season commences, these contaminated feces are flushed into the groundwater and enter human bodies via springs, streams and wells, causing a sharp seasonal increase of infectious diseases. According to the physician's observations, the water situation appeared to worsen every year, causing the escalation of the seasonal rise in in- fections. Children are particularly vulnerable, and schools are a primary location of infection.

The Registered Medical Officer of the District Hospital Bandarawela concurred with these explanations, and added, that at the current levels of population concentration in the town and its surrounding villages, an integrated sewage system with treatment facilities was necessary, but financial resources were not available.

The District Hospital does not keep long-term records for the identification of trends in waterborne diseases. However, the records of the hospital for the years 1990 to 1992

(table 15) reveal that cases of Shigellosis and Hepatitis A treated at the District Hospital had increased and that the highest incidences occurred during the rainy season of 1992.

Shigellosis, the most common intestinal infection among children, was particularly frequent during the 2nd to 4th quarters of the El Nino year.

129 Table 15: Incidence of infectious waterborne diseases diagnosed at the District Hospital Bandarawela, 1990-199231

Shigellosis Hepatitis A

1990 1991 1992 1990 1991 1992

1st quarter 2 14 19 6 10 12

2nd quarter 2 70 41 3 9 22

3rd quarter 2 36 84 16 12 ?

4th quarter 11 59 104 6 21 109

Total 17 179 248 31 52 143

Contamination of potable groundwater as a consequence of reduced recharge and excessive withdrawals, which result in lower water tables with a higher concentration of pollutants, is a generally recognised feature of the hydrological situation in urbanised spaces (Kovacs, Zuidema & Marsalek 1989:126-128). In conditions of extreme tropical climates and poor sanitation, these effects are exacerbated and pose a serious health hazard in addition to the livelihood crisis experienced by human communities affected by water scarcity. The impaired health of household members also contributes to the livelihood crisis, as it forces people to spend money on medical treatment and reduces the availability of family labour power.

130 Tea estates

The landuse data in table 6 indicate a decline of land cultivated with tea from 32.5 hectares, or 3.5 percent of the Kitulwatte micro-watershed, in 1954 to 23.5 hectares, or 2.6 percent, in 1988. The reduction of acreage is owed predominantly to the conversion of tea plantations to homesteads, which was slightly compensated by the establishment of small tea gardens in the villager's homegardens. Despite their relatively small size, the tea plantations have significantly contributed to both land degradation and water competition in the eastside of the micro-watershed.

In Kitulwatte tea plantations have been a source of cash income for the owners and labourers of the estates since the late colonial period. The 35 acre (14.6 hectare) estate established in the 1930s was the largest extent of land owned by a single household. After the various subdivisions, sales and re-sales of this estate, its current owners remain among the largest private landowners in the village: Clair Estate is fifteen acres, Glen- wood Estate eight acres, and two other households own four and three acres. All of these owners are 'outsiders', whose families have no roots in Kitulwatte. In the northend of the village the family of Lokunona, which is of mixed vahumpura and low-country origin, owns another three acres of tea surrounding its homestead. This household is the largest landowner among the village families.32 In table 12 the properties of these five households are indicated as the five largest private highland holdings in Kitulwatte.

Tea plantations are rainfed monocrops. In plantations tea trees have the appearance of small bushes, because they are pruned yearly to stimulate the growth of multiple shoots and to keep them at a convenient height (ca. one metre) for plucking.33 In well maintained estates they form a dense low canopy which covers the ground almost entirely and

131 are shaded by trees with light crowns. In degraded tea estates the groundcover is frequently interrupted, shade trees are often lacking, plant growth is inferior and the soil is eroded. This occurs particularly in old plantations requiring replanting, and on steep slopes.

Tea is plucked by female labourers, who remove the tips and a couple of leaves of the tender shoots. These are then processed in factories, where they are wilted, crushed, fer- mented, dried in hot air, and finally sifted to separate different grades of quality. Many plantations which operate factories cultivate eucalyptus lots to produce firewood. As the largest export sector in Sri Lanka, tea is a prime source of foreign exchange earnings.

Glenwood Estate is owned by a Sinhalese goigama family. The wife is the daughter of a successful local politician and business man. The generation of their livelihood is diversified. Cash income is earned through the sale of tea leaf to the politician's private factory in the Uva basin, and through renting of the main estate bungalow to holiday makers and social researchers. Various vegetable and tree crops are grown on the estate for self- provisioning purposes. In addition, the husband earns an income as a manager of one of the large tea estates owned by his father-in-law. The family lives in Bandarawela in an apartment in the politician's residence.

Glenwood Estate employs eight female tea pluckers on a regular basis. These women are all residents of Kitulwatte or of a neighbouring village. The pluckers are paid by the weight of their harvest. Yields and incomes vary with the seasons. Tea plucking may earn up to Rs. 100 for about five hours of plucking in the rainy season, and Rs. 20 for a couple of hours in the dry season. By comparison, a female agricultural wage labourer earns Rs.

45 per day for a full day's work. The workers receive loans from the estate owner for the

132 Sinhalese and Tamil New Year festivities and to bridge low earnings in the dry season. In addition, all workers receive firewood and homegarden produce from the estate. The labourers are from among the poorest households of the village, most of whom do not own or sharecrop any cultivated fields.

Other tasks on the estate include weeding, pruning, soil erosion control measures and the application of agrochemical fertilisers and pesticides. These are carried out by itinerant labour gangs, or male and female workers from the village, under either contract or wage labour arrangements.

The two wells located on the estate supply its two bungalows, which are equipped with running water systems. The vegetable garden is irrigated with water pumped from one of the wells by an electric pump.

On the neighbouring Clair Estate the sale of tea leaf to a state plantation is combined with the rental of four bungalows to permanent residents, and a small dairy farm. The plantation and dairy production are operated by a resident Tamil labour force. The local spice processing factory is located on the property as well. Water for all the estate's residences and commercial operations, excepting tea, is supplied from five wells, fitted with electric pumps, and a connection to the public water supply scheme.

Biomass production on the tea estates requires external nutrient inputs of agrochemical fertilizers. The tea plantation sector of Sri Lanka consumes the the greatest amount of inorganic fertilizer per hectare in the country. Between 1979 and 1987 overall applications increased from 425 kg/ha to 625 kg/ha (NARESA 1991:163-164). Amounts are likely to be lower in small private estates, where cash flow tends to be limited and access to credit is constrained, by comparison to large state owned or semi-privatised planta-

133 tions. The reduction of fertiliser subsidies would have further reduced fertilizer use. No data on the impact of fertilizer prices on small holder tea production are, however, available.

The owner and workers at Glenwood Estate reported that they were observing a gradual decline in yields over the years, but attributed this to declining rainfall. They failed to consider the effects of land degradation and disruption of the hydrocycle.

All of the estates in Kitulwatte must be considered degraded, particularly in locations with steep to very steep slopes. None of the plantations had a closed plant cover or applied soil conservation measures, such as terracing. On steep slopes soil erosion had exposed the plants' roots and caused the complete disappearance of the top soil. Recycling of biomass produced inside the estates is minimal. There is no build-up of leaf litter, and emerging ground cover of herbacious plants is weeded frequently and removed, leaving the soil exposed. Even on very steep slopes where no tea can be grown, ferns and patana grass are removed with mammoties, causing minor earth slips. The tea plants are pruned before the onset of the rainy season, thus increasing the exposure of the soil to rainfall.

Continuous treading of the slopes by estate workers compacts the soil or causes its dis- location.

All of these maintenance operations are carried out as a matter of conventional procedure. While it is assumed that 'weed competition' would lower productivity, it is not considered whether erosion losses and the cost of inordinate amounts of fertilizers outweigh the benefits of clear weeding. The owners of both Clair and Glenwood Estates argued that, due to the relatively small scale of their production, they lacked the necessary financial means to invest in replanting of degraded stock and in soil conservation. Profitable

134 production could only be maintained by externalising ecological production costs, causing the disruption of local eco-hydrological conditions. However, the cost for the loss of organic matter in the soil, in form of rising fertilizer costs and declining yields, is also incurred by the producers themselves. The tea plantations are another instance of the self- contradictory dynamics in capitalist production processes, and their incompatibility with the maintenance of ecological integrity.

The hydrological effects of the tea plantations are similar to those in the tree plantations. The dense planting of deep rooted monocrops increases evapotranspiration compared with patana flora, and the degradation of the soil reduces infiltration and groundwater recharge. Hamilton reviewed studies of conversions of forested land to tea and other food or extractive tree monocrops and concluded that steep slopes, clear weeding and the lack of soil conservation measures were associated with increased surface runoff and erosion (Hamilton 1983:84-87).

The conversion of patanas to tea had taken place in the childhood and early adulthood of the elders in Kitulwatte, so that their current impact on the hydrological regime is considered 'normal'. As I have shown above, farmers are more concerned with the reduction of stream flow and irrigation water as a result of the numerous wells supplying the tea estates. However, the landuse practices and water uses of the tea estates have a composite effect. Land degradation causes reduced groundwater recharge, and a disproportionate quantity of this diminished resource is appropriated by a small number of relatively affluent consumers on the estates, who can afford to install technological means to access and conduct groundwater in locations over which they have exclusive control. The residents of the new hamlets surrounding the tea estates have successfully procured an alternative

135 external source, the public water supply scheme. Yet, the spice factory located on Clair

Estate was able to gain access to this source as well, on the grounds that it was the largest employer of wage labour in Kitulwatte.

The factory was initiated by a retired Dutch Catholic priest, who lives on Clair Estate and is engaged in community development activities. The stated purpose of the project is income generation for rural women through small-scale business development.

The priest brokered a deal between the owners of Clair Estate and the Dutch Catholic development organisation SEBIMOR. The tea estate was to contribute about half an acre of land free of rental charges for twenty years, on which a factory building was constructed with funding from SEBIMOR. After 20 years the building would belong to the estate owners, who could then charge a rent to the spice processing company. The machinery and other movable property was funded by SEBIMOR as well, but would remain the property of the company.

The company is governed by a board of directors, which comprises of three members of the family of the estate owners, the Dutch priest and a fellow Christian activist residing on the estate, two traders from Bandarawela whose expertise in business matters was sought, another tea estate owner from the area, and a teacher and Catholic activist from

Bandarawela. Out of these nine members, seven are from the local Catholic community.

The two traders also act as distributors of the factory's products.

The spice factory employs between 25 and 30 female workers, all of whom are residents of Kitulwatte, as well as three managerial level staff members living in Banda- rawela. The women work eight hours per day, six days a week. The company is operated

136 as a non-profit organisation, and surplus income is intended to be redistributed among the workers.

The factory procures unprocessed spices from all over Sri Lanka, as well as from In- dia, Pakistan and Turkey. The raw materials are washed and dried, some are blended and roasted, after which they are ground in mills and finally packaged for sale. The spices are sold as products of the Uva in the Uva Province, in Colombo and in Holland, Germany,

Austria and Japan.

The constellation of ownership and control in the company is ambiguous and has produced considerable conflict among board members, and between the workers and the board. Inspired by Catholic liberation theology, the school teacher has assumed the role of an organiser of the women workers, who were inexperienced in industrial conflict.

The non-profit structure has motivated the majority of the board members to institute indirect means of surplus appropriation. The owners of Clair Estate negotiated a rental agreement which earns them a monthly income of Rs. 5000, despite the original project design. The original pricing policy of the company favoured the local traders at the expense of the factory, leaving no profits to be redistributed among the workers. The export activities of the priest and one of the local traders provide further opportunities for surplus appropriation. In addition, the business people on the board promote the conversion of the company into a private enterprise.

Ongoing negotiations resulted in several gains for the women workers. The women were granted representation on the board without voting power. The pricing policy was revised, and privatisation has so far been prevented. The daily wage was increased from

Rs. 35 to Rs. 40. This is still below the female agricultural wage, which is Rs. 45 plus tea

137 and two meals. At an average monthly wage of Rs. 960 the women's incomes remain below the earnings of all other participants in the company. The shifting of profit to board members in various guises, as well as unfavourable international trade relations leave little room for the improvement of workers' wages and benefits.

The socio-ecological effects of the generation of livelihoods through the introduction of a capitalistic enterprise remain hidden behind the labour relations issues raised at the factory. The spice company has added another competitor for the micro-watershed's already scarce water resources. Water is needed for washing of the spices, for cleaning of the tools and premises, as well as in the canteen and bathrooms. Demand for local ground water and for water imported from Galpothuyaya has been increased. Consequently, the insufficient water supply to village households and down-stream farmers is further reduced, while the spice factory itself continues to operate below capacity during the dry season.

Furthermore, the households of the workers and their local resource uses subsidize capitalistic production and trade, as they supply a full day of labour power for less income than is required for a family's reproduction above poverty levels at the market prices of the basic means of consumption.34 Thus, local self-provisioning activities and income from cash crop production are indispensable to the operation of the factory at current wage levels. What looks like economic growth through an income generation and business development project, from the fragmented perspective of industrial production, turns out to be a drain on local resources, such as water, labour power and biomass production, when viewed from the vantage point of social ecology. In addition, the distribu-

138 tion of monetary income from the factory is unequal and contested, translating the necessary local resource uses into an indirect form of resource competition.

Despite this unequal exchange of resources, their desperate need for cash motivates households to send their wives and daughters to work in the factory. Additional cash income allows them to acquire basic necessities which cannot be produced by the households themselves. A 1987 survey of households of the factory's employees reveals that the women's wages constitute between 15 and 99 percent of their households' cash income, with an average rate of 36 percent. The predominant proportion of the women workers' income is spent on food, housing, clothes and savings (Struik, S. & Struik, H.

1987:9-10). In addition, cash income is essential to finance agricultural inputs, and seems to be always in short supply, as farmers incur debts to raise the capital required to keep up cultivation.

Valley-fields

Viewed from the perspective of the Kitulwatte micro-watershed, the agricultural fields in the main valley on both sides of the Oya are recipients of the composite effects of socio- ecological changes in the up-stream components of Kitulwatte's livelihood system. Obvi- ously, changing agricultural practices in the valley-fields impact down-stream ecosystems and their participants. Among the effects of increased erosive runoff and applications of agrochemicals from agricultural fields are down-stream siltation, intensified flood flows and weaker dry season flows, as well as pollution and eutrophication. This section focusses on the social and ecological consequences of the eco-hydrological changes in the live-

139 lihood system components described so far, as they interact with the changed economic purposes of valley-field cultivation.

The two gamaralas of the village reported that the valley-fields within their jurisdiction measured approximately 80 acres (32 hectares). From the 1950s the extension of valley-fields was limited to a few fields in the northend and on the mid-slopes of Upper

Kitulwatte, due to the exhaustion of space suitable for cultivation expansion. The most significant change in the valley-fields has been the introduction of crop rotation between paddy and vegetables from the 1940s and the gradual decline of paddy cultivation since the early 1980s. This transformation is a reflection of changes in both the economic and the ecological structure of the micro-watershed. Income opportunities in markets for exotic vegetables have added a cash crop component to subsistence farming. At the same time, the local hydrological regime has shifted from abundance to scarcity of irrigation water.

The most prevalent type of property relation in the valley-fields of Kitulwatte during the Kandyan kingdom and colonial period was hereditary free-holdership, koralegam, among cultivators with relatively small plots of a few acres. A few fields in Lower

Kitulwatte had been nindagam [hereditary aristocratic land] of the Dambawinne Walau- wa and viharagam [temple land] of a Buddhist temple in a neighbouring village. There was disagreement about their extent among village elders. Except for two households who continue to farm viharegam as ande fields [50/50 sharecrop], feudal landownership has disappeared in Kitulwatte since the 1950s.

Table 16 shows the current distribution of land in the valley-fields owned by households. One third of all households own all of the available valley-fields, and all of the

140 holdings are under three acres. The extent of fragmentation of the small-holder plots may be observed from the fact, that 90 holdings or 91 percent of all holdings are half an acre or less. Of the 203 households counted as landless, many have landowning parents in whose fields the children work and gain access to sources of livelihood. They will eventually make claims to the inheritance of their parents. The current extent of fragmentation indicates, however, that further division under bi-lateral inheritance laws poses serious problems for cultivation as a source of livelihood.

Table 16: Distribution of land in the valley-fields owned by households in Kitulwatte, 199135

Size class (acres) No. % 0.01 - 0.12 20 6.6 0.13 - 0.25 38 12.6 0.26 - 0.5 32 10.6 0.51 - 0.75 0 0 0.76 - 1.0 3 0.9 1.01 - 2.0 4 1.3 2.01 - 3.0 2 0.7 > 3.0 0 0 Subtotal 99 32.8 Landless 203 67.2 Total 302 100

Cultivators in Kitulwatte use three strategies for coping with the limitation of land in the valley and the smallness of holdings. (1) Cultivation has been expanded into hill- fields, as discussed above. (2) In the valley-fields landowning families consisting of several closely related households may cultivate a crop in common and share their harvest or the cash earned. Parts of a field may also be rotated among different households of a family. (3) Smallholders and landless households contract sharecrop relationships. In this case, half of the harvest is taken by the landowner and in the majority of cases the rela-

141 tionship is contracted over short periods of time, so that future opportunities for cultivation are always uncertain. In Kitulwatte sharecropping relationships invariably involve smallholders. Landowners employed as non-agricultural wage labourers, as well as three households owning the largest fields in the valley (two are absentee landlords), give out their land for sharecropping. Poor households unable to incur the commitments of a sharecrop relationship may lease out their land for a fixed money value.

By and large these associations have lost the subservience and dependency of the traditional sharecrop relationships with aristocrats. They are contracts between households of similar status, which are constantly re-negotiated and redistributed. Acquiring sharecrop fields is the key to successful vegetable farming, simply because it increases the acreage cultivated by a household.

In paddy cultivation sharecropping is designated by the traditional term ande [half].36

The landowner receives half of the harvest in kind. In Kitulwatte paddy is always used for home consumption by both parties. Landowners are in principle responsible for contributing the material inputs for a cultivation cycle (seed paddy, agrochemicals), while cultivators supply all the labour power required. These rules may be re-negotiated to ac- commodate specific circumstances.37

In vegetable cultivation a new term has been adopted for sharecropping relations. The concept of haula [partnership] reflects the nature of the status levels of the participants, as well as the new identity cash crop farmers desire to assume. They are doing business with their equals or near-equals, rather than fulfilling servile roles towards aristocrats and monks. The 50/50 share has, however, been retained. The landowner receives half of the cash earned from the sale of a crop. Input supplies are as a rule the responsibility of the

142 landowners, with the exception of irrigation pumps, which may be contributed by either party.

It is difficult to quantify the number of owner-cultivators, sharecroppers and leasees in

Kitulwatte, because these relationships tend to shift all the time.

While the valley-fields had always been one component among others in the local livelihood system, their cultivation was accorded extra-ordinary importance, both materially and ritually. The fields are visibly in the center of Kitulwatte's landscape. Their central purpose was the cultivation of rice. Growing paddy is labour intensive during peak periods and consumes the largest amount of water resources of all livelihood activities. Extensive irrigation systems channel water from springs and streams, as well as the

Oya to individual plots. The labour efforts required have organised farmers in intricate systems of labour mobilisation, which synchronised human activity within seasonal cycles. Property of and access to valley-field cultivation is limited and accorded high status.

The production and consumption of rice is of great symbolic value among the villagers whose collective cultural myth depicts the Sinhalese as a rice culture. The most elaborate ritual activities designed to solicit the favour of the deities and to ward off malevolent forces with the aim of assuring good harvests, were enacted in the context of paddy cultivation. These include a ritual language, astrologically determined timing of cultivation, the design of sacred spaces, various obeisances, vows and offerings to the deities, and several collective rituals performed at devales and sacred locations in the vicinity of

Kitulwatte. The overall demeanor and aesthetics of paddy cultivation betray that human actors enter a special sphere which is simultanously severe and elating. Its age-old patterns of movement are reproduced with a beauty and elegance by its faithful practitioners.

143 While paddy cultivation is a fundamental production of subsistence, it is also an art, the signification of a way of life.

However, in Kitulwatte paddy cultivation is a dying art. It is important to reconstruct a traditional pattern of activity without falling prey to the harmonistic delusions of the 'in- vention of tradition', which seeks to construct an ideal past, in order to criticise the present and to prescribe behavioral patterns for the future. Cultural ideals, especially those codified in rituals, are in actual practice reproduced as approximations and interact with the more conflictual and dissonant dynamics of reality. Thus, socio-cultural change is constructed in the tension of networks of multiple actors with often contradictory needs and desires.

In Kitulwatte we found many remnants of the agricultural practices which were described in 1681 by Robert Knox, who had become a trader and ande landlord of paddy fields during his captivity in the Kandyan kingdom (Knox [1681] 1989:34-43). Both technological and ritual features prevalent during his time are still visible. Yet, so are the signs of innovation and 'violation' of tradition, which often give rise to painful reflections and even arguments among cultivators. The current generations involved in constructing their agricultural practices today are making decisions about the fate of their past. The transformation from susbsistence cultivation of rice to vegetable cash cropping is not so much a break with the past, as a realignment of elements of the past with innovation.

The elegance of the performance of the act of winnowing of the threshed paddy from a bamboo tripod in the centre of the sacred threshing floor, where Gunasingha was catching currents of wind into which the grains were strewn to separate the chaff, was tinged by sadness as he lamented about the loss of water and the declining yields of his fields.

144 Committed paddy cultivators in Kitulwatte were caught in an ongoing struggle over the decision whether to chance another paddy cycle, or to earn money by growing cabbages and green beans.

And yet, innovation and money proved a precarious experience riddled with crop failures and slim margins of profit, if at all. Thus, there were signs that both subsistence cultivation and ritual practice continue to be options in people's efforts at gaining livelihoods and coping with adversity.

Paddy fields resemble in simplified form riparian wetlands, which occur in low lying parts of river valleys and are flooded by increased stream flow during the monsoon. Un- der particular topographic conditions flood water is retained and recedes only slowly after the rainy season. Riparian wetlands are a frequent feature of the flood plains of rivers in the northern dryzone.

In the Uva basin, a few scattered riparian wetlands provide a unique habitat for grasses and herbacious plants thriving in seasonal wet conditions, as well as for aquatic wildlife, such as fish, amphibians, small crustaceans and the like. These in turn attract birds, reptiles and mammals. During the dry season plants preferring a drier environment establish for a short life-cycle (Palihawadana 1992b).

Oryza sativa, the rice plant, is a grass species, which requires several months of wet conditions. Paddy fields are a humanly contrived and controlled semblance of wetlands, designed to cultivate monocrops of rice. In Kitulwatte, fields are terraced and surrounded by ca. 15 centimetre high mudwalls, so-called bunds. Water channeled from streams and springs is conducted from terrace to terrace. The bunds and the 'hardpan' underneath the muddy top-soil layer (created by treading buffaloes during ploughing) prevent rapid wa-

145 ter infiltration and runoff. For two thirds of the cultivation cycle a continuous slow flow of water needs to be maintained to ensure optimal plant growth.

Once the rice plants have matured, irrigation is discontinued and the plants are ripened under increasingly dryer conditions. In the paddy fields the dry cycle of the riparian wetlands is mimicked by the fallow, during which the fields are overgrown by grasses and grazed by cattle.

In monocrop agriculture human purposes have created ecological systems dominated by a particular species, which supports human livelihoods. Human actors eradicate most of the previous eco-system participants of a habitat and replace these with a floristic and soil structure of their contrivance. Human autonomy is, however, not absolute, as the farmers know very well. They depend on conditions, which are conducive to the requirements of the species cultivated.

Oryza sativa requires to grow in several inches of water. Water needs to be available in sufficient quantities over a prolonged period of time. Farmers rely on watersheds to produce stream flow which can support the growth of crops past the rainy season. As I have shown, the hydrological cycle both in its air and landphases is far from under the control of cultivators. Resource competition and land degradation have rendered water supplies in Kitulwatte scarce, which has in turn decreased the margins of flexibility within which the soil water system can compensate for climatic volatility.

In addition, humanly contrived ecosystems inevitably become a habitat for all sorts of creatures who are not necessarily designed into a system. Some of these are conducive to human purposes, others are harmful. Certain species consume the cultivated crop or may

146 crowd it out, while others promote soil fertility, eat competitors, and check insect populations thriving in wetlands.

Human actors engage in various activities to reduce the impact of participants adverse to human purposes. From charms and ritual offerings to pesticides and fertilizers, farmers, assisted by various professional specialists, attempt to extend human control over cultivated ecosystems. This control again is far from absolute. In fact, farmers have learned that with increasing use of poisonous substances for pest control, they eliminate not only adverse but also beneficial ecosystem participants, and thereby reduce fertility, checks on 'pests' by predator animals, or uncultivated food plants occuring incidentally in the hedges and edges of the fields.

Power is therefore a negotiable relationship, and domination is always a double-edged sword. The productivist drive for optimal yields has ignored the requirements of the multiple participants of both cultivated and uncultivated ecosystems, which support human livelihoods. The fate of the valley-fields in Kitulwatte is a striking illustration of how human desire for optimal resource appropriation is threatening rather than improving human livelihoods.

The transformation of valley-field cultivation from the traditional paddy cycle to the rotation of rice and cashcrop vegetables has de-synchronized human productive activity and geo-climatic patterns. Current cultivation practices exacerbate the effects of the reduction of water availability by moving the paddy cycle away from the rainy season.

The traditional paddy cycle was started with pre-monsoonal rainfall in November, when the fields were prepared and the irrigation system was repaired. In December germinated paddy seeds were broadcast in the soaked and ploughed fields. Until harvest the

147 households carried out regular maintenance operations, such as hand-weeding, irrigation and biological pest control. Traditional paddy varieties required on average six month cultivation periods. Harvesting commenced in April/May with reaping, threshing and winnowing.

Labour mobilisation for tasks which require larger work crews i.e. land preparation, ploughing and harvesting, have involved both family labour and attam ['to give a hand'].

Attam is a symmetrically reciprocal form of labour exchange, which requires all participants to return labour for the same type of task for which they received labour to all of their 'attam partners'. Women and men maintain separate networks, since tasks are gender specific.38 The actual degree of symmetry in reciprocation is unknown, but would have approximated the cultural ideal of the custom, as long as paddy cultivation was synchronised within the seasonal cycle and among all cultivators of a hamlet. In Kitulwatte elders reported that attam crews of up to 25 people would move from field to field, successively carrying out the sequences of tasks. Attam has been a relationship among goigama who are the majority of cultivators in the village, and excluded low-caste households.39

Seasonal and social synchronisation of the cultivation cycle was crucial. Planting with the monsoon would ensure sufficient water supplies to approximate wetland conditions, even through the February dry spell, as long as the upper micro-watershed remained intact and facilitated abundant groundwater recharge and dry season flow. The simultaneous cultivation by the farmers in a specific area permitted the institution of labour exchange relations, which ensured sufficient supplies of unwaged labour for the cultivation of a subsistence crop.

148 The conclusion of the paddy cycle was marked by ritual activities propitiating deities relevant to cultivation and offering symbolic shares of the harvest to gods, demons and animals. The fields were left fallow for six months and cattle grazed the herbs and grasses during the dry season. During the fallow the fertility of the fields was regenerated with cowdung and urine, as well as the grasses and herbs which were ploughed under and decomposed during field preparations.

Starting in the 1940s, the ecological and social structure of cultivtion practices was altered irrevocably. Vegetable cash crops started to be grown in rotation with paddy in some of the valley-fields to satisfy demand from the military stationed in Diyatalawa.

These crops continued to be treated with cowdung and biological means of pest control produced system internally.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s high yielding varieties (HYVs) of paddy and transplanting were introduced and gradually adopted among all farmers in Kitulwatte. The farmers followed the advise of officers of the local Agricultural Extension Service, who promised that the new varieties and technique would boost yields. The new varieties demand the application of agrochemical fertilisers and pesticides in order to achieve high yields. Given that in Kitulwatte paddy is not a market crop, cash for these inputs has to be earned elsewhere.40

The adoptation of vegetable cash cropping in the valley-fields by all cultivators from the 1970s eliminated the six month fallow period. Thereby the organic matter content of the fields was reduced drastically. Vegetable cultivation requires well drained soils to avoid water-logging and the spread of fungi. The structure of the soil is therefore constantly shifted between bunded fields and raised beds surrounded by irrigation and

149 drainange channels. Constant weeding exposes the soil of the vegetable plots to the impact of rainfall and irrigation water. The combined effects of these processes are soil erosion, reduced water retention capacity and decreased soil fertility.

Vegetable cultivation with hybrid varieties requires costly agrochemical fertilizer inputs, in order to achieve high yields. Farmers therefore allocate their funds to their cash crop, hoping that fertiliser residues in the soil would also support their paddy subsistence crop.

The timing of the paddy cycle has been altered significantly. The cycle has been short- ened and cultivation is started later. The field preparation phase has been condensed from three weeks to a few days or even hours. HYVs have reduced cultivation periods from six to three or four months.41 In Kitulwatte, as elsewhere in the Uva basin, farmers are growing vegetables through most of the rainy season and the paddy cycle commences only after the peak of the monsoon.

Producer prices for vegetables are higher during the wet months, as supplies drop islandwide. Many farmers embark on high risk ventures by growing tomatoes during the peak of the rainy season. Under wet conditions tomatoes are highly susceptible to fungus attack and require inordinate amounts of fungicide. At the same time the plants' flowers may be destroyed by torrential rains. Farmers risk the loss of their entire crop. As Kalu- banda pointed out, a harvest of 100 kg in the rainy season may earn as much as 500 kg in the dry season (fieldnotes).

The paddy cycle is now started between mid-January and mid-March when the rains are already declining or the first dry period has set in. Water requirements for field preparation and irrigation depend primarily on stream flow fed by groundwater resources. Yet,

150 as a consequence of water competition and land degradation in the upper micro-watershed, groundwater recharge has been disrupted and existing groundwater resources are overused.

It needs to be emphasised that the various changes in cultivation practices in the valley-fields are the consequences of the composite effect of both the deterioration of the local phase of the water cycle and the commoditisation of agriculture. These changes involve a decline of crop yields and a concomitant rise of the cost of production, the partial phasing out of paddy cultivation and the abandonment of fields, legal contestation of sharecrop tenancies, as well as stress in the local system of labour mobilisation. I will take up these issues presently.

At the same time as the paddy cycle was shifted into the drier months, the dry season flow in the micro-watershed declined progressively. Paddy as a water-intensive crop suffered considerably. Yields were reduced as increasingly longer water rotation intervals caused the plants to stand in dry terraces for several days before the next installment of water was received, thus impairing their growth. Once their vegetable crops suffered as well, farmers started to invest in agricultural pumps.

By 1992 the majority of operable valley-fields were irrigated by pumping water from the Oya. This single most costly tool turned the free good of water into a considerable cost factor. In 1991 a kerosine pump with hose and valve cost Rs. 23,000. At the favourable loan conditions negotiated by the udagama development project with annual interest rates of 18 percent, compared to the regular 32 percent, a pump would cost close to Rs.

30,000. These financial obligations forced cultivators to intensify their cash cropping ef-

151 forts. The banks expect them to make regular monthly payments of Rs. 575. If three in- stallments are missed, the interest rate is increased as a penalty.

In addition, the consumption of kerosine adds a continuous cost to farm operations.

During the 1992 paddy cycle Kalubanda had to pump for nine hours at a time to ensure sufficient soaking of the plants and the soil. He pumped every third day during the first month of the cycle, every fifth day during the second month and once a week during the third and fourth months. Later in the cycle he extended the length of each pumping operation to twelve hours. Thereafter, the crop ripened in a desiccated field. We calculated that he spent about Rs. 2,250 on kerosine for a half acre field. His costs were somewhat above average, because he borrowed his sister's seven year old pump, which is not as fuel- efficient as new models.

Gunasingha pumped less frequently, every four to five days throughout the whole cycle, and spent roughly Rs. 1,200 with a new pump for a half acre paddy field. By pumping less frequently he risked crop damage through desiccation. Pump irrigation in paddy cultivation is a precarious technique, because the lack of continous water flow causes the fields to dry up rapidly.

Kalubanda's half acre tomato crop required him to pump for five hours every three to four days over a two and a half month period. The kerosine cost was calculated at Rs.

1,150. Tomatoes fetch prices between 5 and 25 Rupees per kilo. If he has a bumper harvest of 1,000 kg he may thus earn between Rs. 5,000 and 25,000. A bad harvest may only yield 200 kg, providing a gross income of as little as 1,000 to 5,000 Rupees. Besides kerosine costs Kalubanda has expenses for fertiliser and pesticides, of which he never keeps track. Given the risky nature of tomato cultivation, he could easily incur losses. He never

152 uses wage labour and is the owner of the half acre field. Cultivators depending on hiring labour and/or sharecropping are even more vulnerable.

Pump irrigation causes cultivators to expend additional labour power under adverse conditions. The heavy pumps are carried by men on their backs, often over long distances. Kalubanda pumped during the evening and night (5pm to 10pm, 2am or 5 am), because less pumping goes on in the night and nobody bathes or washes laundry in the Oya.

During the night water levels are higher and turbulence is reduced. If the pumps pick up too much silt, their performance is lowered and the motor may be damaged over time. If three or four pumps are used simutaneously in Lower Kitulwatte the stream flow of the

Oya is reduced to a trickle in the village's northend. Working during the nights, however, means less sleep and may result in deficient health. In addition, farmers are constantly worried about theft of their pumps and hoses.

The frequent breakdown of pumps slows down operations and causes more expenditures. By now, one farmer in Kitulwatte has acquired enough skills in the repair of pumps, to run a small business on the side.

Only about one half of all cultivating households own pumps. Exact figures are not available, but the udagama project financed 30 pumps and we counted seven pumps bought without project assistance.

Pump rentals among villagers are expensive at Rs. 50 per hour and Rs. 300 per day, without kerosine. While pump owners have acquired a tool which enables them to earn income from rentals, poorer farmers find it difficult to raise the money for rentals and kerosine. They therefore pump less frequently than necessary and receive lower yields.

153 In 1992 in Amabagahakumbura, Gunasekera harvested an unsatisfactory bean crop for which he had occasionally rented a pump. His paddy harvest was irrigated entirely with water from Arakandura. Due to the drought, the rotation system supplied each farmer only once a week with irrigation water, and he harvested about 10 bushels per bushel sown.

Neighbouring farmers who had used their own or rented pumps received about 15 bushels during the El Nino year.

By contrast, Heenbanda's sharecrop field across the river, which is irrigated with a continuous flow of water channeled from Gaetawelakaele (the forest fragment with the most dependable water source in the micro-watershed), yielded an above average crop of

29 bushels during this drought year. This demonstrates, that not drought, but the destruction of the conditions of production of water, caused the crop failures during the El Nino year in Kitulwatte.

An anicut abstracting irrigation water from the Oya in Lower Kitulwatte broke down in 1989, making pump irrigation of the fields in the valley floor unavoidable. Neither the farmers, nor the government took the initiative to repair the anicut.42 The farmers stated that they coped adequately by using pumps. Pumps are an individualised and flexible means of irrigation, which is atuned to the de-synchronised pace of vegetable cultivation.

Participation in communal irrigation works incurs responsibilities and adherance to a more rigid rotation schedule.

Fields which are located more than 500 to 600 metres above the Oya are too far to be irrigated with pumps. If their owners have no springs or waterholes nearby, they are reduced to rainfed cultivation or have to abandon the fields. Crop failure in these fields is frequent under the volatile climatic conditions in the Uva basin. In late January of 1993,

154 farmers who had risked a rainfed crop, motivated by the heavy rainfall of the preceding rainy season, were watching their vegetable crops wilt away, as the February drought had got an early start.

I observed a concentration of overgrown valley-fields which had remained uncultivated for between three and five years in Upper Kitulwatte. These fields were located below the highest irrigation channel in the village. As a result of water scarcity, the channel was the first to be cut off from the large irrigation network fed by the wewa (reservoir) and

Galahitiyawa Kandura.

Land degradation in the tree plantations does not only impair cultivation during the dry season, but may have catastrophic consequences during the rainy season as well. One of Gunasingha's fields in the valley floor was destroyed by a landslide originating in the pinus plantations. During the extreme rainfall of the monsoon of late 1992 the unprotected soil, gravel and rocks on the upper slope of one of the hills above Ambagas- talawakaele were dislocated and flushed downhill. The landslide damaged the streambed in the forest fragment and submerged the Gunasingha's entire field.

It is difficult to estimate how many fields went out of cultivation altogether, and how many farmers abandoned paddy cultivation, as a consequence of water scarcity. As indicated, when the monsoon appears promising farmers in fields without access to irrigation sources may risk a rainfed crop. Shifting into permanent vegetable cultivation appears to be a sensible response to water scarcity, because it requires less water and can be done by pumping from the Oya where possible. However, many farmers have chosen to grow vegetables year round, because they prefer to earn cash and buy rice. On the other hand, there is the wide-spread belief that a paddy cycle improves vegetable cultivation, because

155 fertility and the structure of the soil would be improved. Thus, the majority of farmers cultivate paddy at least once in five years.

For many the loss of a regular and plentiful paddy harvest causes great grief. Paddy used to provide a reliable subsistence basis for the pursuit of the more volatile and costly cash crops. In addition, the cultural attachment to and emotional satisfaction of rice farming has so far prompted people like Kalubanda and Gunasingha to keep growing every year, despite the low yields and high costs.

The water crisis in Kitulwatte in combination with the consolidation of vegetable cash cropping were reported to have caused conflicts in four ande tenancy relationships in

Kitulwatte. Due to insufficient water supplies the tenants' paddy cultivation produced declining yields or failed altogether. Two tenants who continued to grow paddy considered their obligations fulfilled by giving one quarter of their paddy harvest, as stipulated by law, and kept their vegetable harvests to themselves. The other two, both tenants of

Lokunona, discontinued paddy cultivation and failed to make any payments to the landlady.

In all of these cases, the landowners went to court to get their tenants evicted, which would clear the way to establish haulas in accordance with the new customary regulation of vegetable cash cropping. The tenants, however, argued that the lack of irrigation water deprived them of paddy yields justifying the giving of a 'rightful share', or prevented them from growing paddy altogether. The agricultural extension officers and the gamarala testified in favour of the tenants, confirming the claim of water scarcity. In one case average yields had declined from 38 to 17 bushels.

156 In all cases the courts ruled against evictions and stipulated that the tenants should pay a 25 percent share to the landowners in accordance with the Paddy Lands Act. If paddy cultivation was no longer profitable, an equivalent money value of between Rs. 200 and

1000, depending on the size of the fields, was determined, which turned the tenancy effectively into a secure lease relationship. These four tenants are the only registered sharecroppers in Lower Kitulwatte. All other sharecropping relationships escape administrative and judicial scrutiny.

Labour mobilisation has become more difficult as a result of the socio-ecological changes in valley-field cultivation. With the de-synchronisation of paddy cultivation and the climatic pattern, both paddy and vegetable cycles have been scattered in time and space. Cultivation of both crop types occurs simultaneously in the valley-fields from Jan- uary to June. Different farmers start their paddy cycle at different points in time within a three months period. Farming households are therefore out of step with each other. Keep- ing up symmetrically reciprocal attam relations is impossible. Labour mobilisation has therefore become more flexible and involves several types simultaneously. It is also less reliable and causes conflict and shortages.

During the 1970s, opportunities for wage labour employment had increased, because non-agricultural employment and cash cropping supplied the farm system with greater volumes of cash. Agricultural wage labour constituted an important source of livelihood, particularly for poor and landless farmers. With the increasing strain on cash resources as a result of rising production costs from the 1980s, wage labour opportunities have become restricted once again. The cost of pumps and kerosine, as well as de-regulated fer-

157 tiliser prices, render the cost of wage labour at Rs. 75 for men and Rs. 45 for women per day prohibitive for many farmers.

Kenduma [contract labour], as a compromise between wage labour and exchange labour, has therefore become attractive. For the daily wage of one and a half to two labourers, the employer receives the labour power of several workers. Since each kenduma contract holder has to reciprocate to all other workers without pay, this is an unfavourable arrangement, causing stress in the time budget of the workers. Its attraction lies in the receipt of a larger sum of money, which may be desperately needed by cultivators, who are always short of cash.

Most farmers strive to mobilise unwaged labour. Udauva [help] is the most frequent form of labour mobilisation in vegetable cultivation besides family labour. In udauva friends and neighbours exchange labour regardless of the specific type of task. The gender division of labour in vegetable cultivation is less pronounced than in paddy cultivation, but strenuous and dangerous tasks, such as breaking of the soil or application of pesticides, tend to be done by men. We did, however, observe women who did both jobs.

To cope with shortages of cash and labour, work crews combine family, exchange, contract and wage labour in a bewildering array of variations. Attam may be reciprocated by udauva and vica versa, if one of the partners does not cultivate paddy. One day a person may work in his own fields in the morning and give udauva to his friend in the afternoon. The next day he may be called to reciprocate in a contract labour deal on which he owes labour for half a day, while later he takes up a sudden offer to do wage labour for a sharecropper, because he is short of cash for pesticides and fungus is overtaking his tomato field. Meanwhile his paddy field is ripening and he and his wife need to mobilise

158 their attam networks as soon as possible, although they worry about the obligations they will incur by doing so. This list could go on and on. Juggling labour relations is an often harassing undertaking. There are priorities, however, and a household's vegetable cultivation, which requires more frequent labour expenditure and has received more costly investments, may cause the neglect of exchange labour obligations in attam or kenduma networks.

Gunasingha's household transplanted a late and pump-irrigated paddy crop in March

1992 with three generations of women from his own household, plus a kenduma crew of three women. Gunasingha and his nephew also participated in the female task. Several women who had been asked for udauva failed to show up and worked in their own vegetable fields. This violation of community obligations was loudly criticised by the women present, audible to cultivators working in adjacent fields. Since the field had been ploughed only in the early morning of the same day and half a day had been spent for irrigation in preparation of transplanting, the actual transplanting had started only in the late afternoon. By dusk, at about 5pm, one of the women who had come as a kenduma worker quit, because she needed to fertilise her own vegetable crop. A lengthy argument ensued and Gunasingha pleaded for her to stay. The woman replied, that since she was not receiving any help with her task, how could she stay. Gunasingha promised to help her next morning. She left nevertheless, stating: "The deities will look after you. I have to go!"

Gunasingha replied: "Don't you see that the deities are not looking after us at all, that's why all of this is happening!" The remaining crew continued to transplant in a frantic rush into the dark.

159 Studying crop cultivation in the hill- and valley fields leaves the observer with an impression of a highly precarious undertaking. The introduction of tree plantations, suburbanisation, and the expansion of cash cropping have undermined the local water regime and the production of biomass recycled within the livelihood system. As a consequence rising demands for water compete for a diminishing resource, and intensified cultivation takes place in soils depleted of their organic matter and fertility. High productivity systems have increased the appropriation of local resources by human actors, but fail to preserve processes of water and biomass production, which maintain the livelihood system as a whole. The scarcity of water and fertility created within the micro-watershed requires augmentation from external sources and raises the cost of production.

Cultivation in Kitulwatte is subject to unfavourable controls by a myriad external human actors, who determine the conditions of trade of inputs and outputs of farming systems, and interfere in local socio-ecological processes.

National and transnational corporations produce and supply agricultural input technologies, such as fertilisers, pesticides, pumps, hybrid seed materials and the like. Farm- ers have become utterly dependent on these technologies, in order to maintain productivity levels which can support their livelihoods. This circumstance enables producers of input technologies to impose price levels which function as a de facto mechanism of surplus extraction from small-scale commodity producers.

The earnings of farmers are further constrained by a cartel of urban mudalalis [trade capitalists], who control the wholesale and retail trade in vegetables by manipulating price levels to their advantage, and by creating dependencies of farmers on loans advanced against future crops.

160 The Sri Lankan state acts as a producer of infra-structural services and as the main local development agent. By regulating or de-regulating, as the case may be, price levels of the means of production, by implementing productivist and welfarist development pro- grams, and by controlling the local allocation of funds through a system of political patronage, state action exerts powerful influences over the transformation of local livelihood systems.

However, state power is dependent on the flow of internationally controlled finance and knowledge. The development industry is a multifarious and often contradictory network of national and supra-national agencies and banks, linked with academic institutions who produce an expert culture and technologies. These global actors negotiate with Third

World governments the exchange of funding through loans and grants against the compliance of local actors with policy orientations.

Far from being only victims of external interference, the farmers accepted the commoditisation of their livelihoods as an attractive choice. Yet, what was a choice in 1940 or in

1970 has become ineluctable by 1990. Deprived of the ecological integrity of their micro- watershed farmers have no choice but to cope by growing vegetable cash crops with pumps and agrochemicals.

All of these human actors are motivated by a common productivist rationality in the pursuit of incessant economic growth through the production of optimal levels of commodity outputs. This strategy requires the competitive appropriation of natural resources for fragmented purposes. Optimalist production aims at the extraction of the highest possible magnitudes of arrays of isolated goods, all of which are appropriated, invested, transformed and re-assembled in disjointed processes of social production and consump-

161 tion. Regardless of whether the implementation of this strategy is successful or constitutes an economic failure by its own standards, as in the case of the pinus plantations, optimalist production violates the actual co-dependencies engendered in all ecosystems.

Ecosystem participants who are incapable of facilitating sustainable water flows and soil fertility undermine the ecological foundation of high productivity processes.

The cumulative destructive effects of the transformation of landuse in Kitulwatte were largley unintended consequences. The actors involved were after all pursuing what appeared within the cognitive range of their image of reality as viable opportunities. Af- forestation even held the promise of achieving both optimal production and environmental protection, or so it was argued. However, the actors' fragmented knowledge proved as insufficient, as their activities turned out to be destructive.

Even if some insightful individuals, such as Gunasingha and Heenbanda, are recognising many of the ecological dynamics which are undermining their livelihoods, their powerlessness to affect change compels them to continue 'to ride the tiger' of commo- dified production of their livelihoods. Peter characterised his experience of the monetisa- tion of the local economy:

Now life as a farmer is hard. Before it was not easy, but we didn't need so much cash. Now, however much we work, the money disappears too fast. (Peter, fieldnotes)

As their control over their circumstances keeps slipping away, the cultivators resort to an older ritual knowledge seeking to explain their predicament in the last instance as a consequence of immoral human behavior which is punished by powerful deities. The experience of the farmers' relative powerlessness motivates regulatory ritual activity to rea- lign the relationship between people, nature and their gods. When the effects of resource competition and land degradation are confounded by drought, human susceptibility to

162 spiritual explanations and techniques of intervention is heightened. Afterall, climate is one of the realms which science too fails to properly understand, let alone control. It is, however, a realm which allows human beings to ignore their responsibility for their actions. In the case of local ritual knowledge, a material ecological crisis is thus transformed into a moral problem.

The power of the gods, demons and animals over cultivation was acknowledged and reckoned with by cultivators in the Uva basin, as elsewhere in the island, through a number of rituals celebrated annually or as the occasion required. Today all farmers in

Kitulwatte continue to provide deva danes [offerings to the deities] after the completion of the paddy cycle. These are however a pale remnant of the illustrious collective rituals of the aluth sahal mangalaya [new rice festival] and the ankeliya [antler festival].

Individual households prepare a deva dane in their fields. Sinibath [sugar rice], a ritual meal cooked with newly harvested rice, is offered to the deities, demons and animals.

Chanting invokes blessings for the fields, the buffaloes and the household. Farmers who have abandoned paddy cultivation buy rice in the shop and give a deva dane for their vegetable crops. Kataragama, the guardian deity of the eastern hills and and southeastern dry zone, is the main deity invoked in contemporary deva danes, alongside a plurality of other devas. Kataragama is a fierce god, whose anger is easily aroused. Although the deva dane had been an individualised practice in the past decades, the drought of 1992 motivated several households in Ambagahakumbura and Galahitiyawa to enact a collective dane, requesting the gods to save their crops by granting rain.

The new rice festival, which involves the participation of a kapurala [Sinhalese priest specialising in deity worship], was celebrated during the months of August or September

163 at two devales [Sinhalese temple for deity worship] in neighbouring villages, where people from Kitulwatte attended. The ritual consisted of the cooking of a large amount of sinibath, drumming and singing of verses of the myth of the goddess Pattini, processions, dances, firewalking, and the sprinkling of water from a ritually purified well or spring onto the participants. A vessel with water from this well was kept at the devales until the next festival, symbolising the devotees' desire for plentiful rain. At the climax of the event, the kapurala went into a trance and the deities would offer revelations to the participants through the mediation of the kapurala.

The ritual was concerned with collective well-being, timely rainfall, good harvests and protection from misfortune, but also with individual problems, which were addressed by the kapurala during the trance session. Pattini, the mother goddess and epitome of the faithful wife, who has power over health and fertility, as well as fire and water, is at the centre of the new rice festival. The festival has declined in importance. Few devales in the Bandarawela area organise it on a regular basis.

On critical occasions, such as epidemics and droughts, an ankeliya [antler festival] was celebrated in honor of Pattini and her consort Palanga at the village of Ampitiya [antler field] near Kitulwatte. The main ritual of the festival is a contest in which two exclusively male teams entangle two large angled tree roots (representing antlers) attached to ropes and various other symbolically significant contraptions, and pull the ropes until one of the 'antlers' breaks. The teams represent Pattini and Palanga, and the ritual symbolises a syndrome of sexual phantasies, as it enacts a contest between the mother goddess and her consort.43 Like the new rice festival, the significance of the antler festival has declined and its performance is sporadic.

164 What is of concern in the present context is the symbolic association of misfortune with the the wrath of the gods. Obeyesekere shows that in eastern Sri Lanka Pattini's wrath in particular was considered the ultimate cause of drought and disease. These ca- lamities are linked to anger through the concept of heat, which serves as a culturally relevant metaphor for anger. The Sinhalese and Hindu Ayurvedic medical system explains disease as a consequence of excessive heat in the body. Sinhalese deity worship follows the same logic. Pattini's anger is aroused by the unrighteous actions of human beings and leads to 'heaty' consequences. In the Pattini myth the goddess burns the city of Madurai to punish the wickedness of its inhabitants. Only after other deities plead with her, she releases rain to extinguish the fire.

Ritual activity seeks to avert the symptoms of 'heaty' anger, i.e. drought and disease, by making offerings and ritually re-enacting significant occasions of the Pattini myth.

According to Obeyesekere, various practices of Sinhalese deity worship, as for example fire-walking and water cutting ceremonies, which may form components of the aluth sahal mangalaya and the ankeliya, are designed as an "attempt to control the elements of the universe" (1984:42). The Ayurvedic system recognises five elements: water, fire, air, earth and space. The balance in the relation between water and fire is of prime importance to cultivators. Thus, both droughts and floods may be averted by ritually dispel- ling the anger of the fierce goddess (Obeyesekere 1984:40-46).

I propose that these ritual activities do not so much attempt to 'control' the forces shaping human experience, as they seek to influence the behaviour of those actors to whom the power of control is attributed. Ritual activity acknowledges the limited power of human actors and their dependency. By making offerings, the farmers reciprocate tokens of

165 their sources of livelihood to the actors which permitted them to achieve a good harvest and request their benevolence for the coming cultivation cycle. The participants to the relationship 'negotiate' a field of action and strike a bargain.

The widespread custom of making vows to the deities epitomizes the nature of power relations between deities and people. The devotee addresses the deity in direct communication asking for the fulfillment of a wish, and promises to make offerings, if the wish is granted. Devotee and deity incur a reciprocal commitment. The deal is between unequal participants. The symbolic exchange of the offering is coupled with propitiation, i.e. submission to the deity's superior power.

Futhermore, the sexual symbolism which infuses the verses, implements and performances of both the aluth sahal mangalaya and the ankeliya, suggest Pattini's power over fertility and the continuity of reality by means of sexual activity. The severity of the relationship between people and the deity is relieved by humorous sexual banter and sportive contest, designed to please both Pattini and her devotees.

There are signs of the revival of the Pattini cult and of Sinhalese deity worship in general in the Uva basin. Two new kapuralas, notably of low-caste descent, have emerged in the area. One of them is involved with villagers in Ampitiya who are establishing a new devale on the traditional site of the ankeliya. The devotees hoped to cele- brate their first new rice festival in August 1993.

A final element in the ritual discourse of drought is supplied by the belief among the

Kandyans, that the virtue of the king as a ruler and a Buddhist, as well as of his subjects, generates the moral power which motivates the gods to grant rain (Disanayaka 1992:55).

If the rains fail, this is ultimately explained by the moral failure of the king and his sub-

166 jects. Moral failure requires ritual propitiation, and the reassertion of Buddhist ethics in politics over worldly indulgence and greed. The core of ethics in village Buddhism was expressed by Abeysingha:

We lead righteous lives, we don't harm anybody. Our customs are important. We chant pirit [Buddhist blessings] and make offerings to the deities to receive water. These do not work nowadays, because the country is too unrighteous. (Abeysingha, fieldnotes)

Sudhubanda's explanation of the failure of the rains during the El Nino period and the occurrence of torrential rains and floods which followed during the northeast monsoon is a moral criticism of politics and human conduct, expressed through a ritual idiom. The staunch Buddhist nationalist and supporter of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party projects his powerless anger about the Sri Lankan President, and especially the violent suppression of the JVP insurgency of 1988, into a sphere of higher powers capable of meting out punishment.

We did not have droughts and rain like this for the last twenty years. Our paddy crops failed and our beans rotted. If the king is righteous, there will be enough rain on time and the crops will prosper. I have seen five kings in my lifetime, but this one is the worst. They burned our youth in tires on Welimada Road. There are afterall gods up there who see all these things, and that is the reason why everything is in disorder. (Sudhubanda, fieldnotes)

The ritual discourse fails to provide its participants with insight into the material processes of ecological and social crises. It gives no directions for how the abstract theory of the five elements constituting the universe may be translated into practical activity capable of aligning water, fire, air, earth and space in a concrete socio-ecological system through the interactions of human beings with their fellow creatures. Furthermore, it fails to equip the believers with a model for political action through which social actors may resolve the resource conflicts lying at the root of their ecological crisis. Instead, it pro-

167 poses a moral resolution, where ritual devotion and meritorious action are expected to generate human well-being.

168 NOTES

1. I would like to thank Gamini de Alwis, staff technical officer at the Department of Geography, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, for preparing the landuse maps and calculations.

2. Estimates in the village ranged from 250 to 2000 individuals. We cautiously settled for the figures given by the sons of a prominent cattle owning family, who claimed to have owned 80 animals. They reported that almost every household used to own at least two or three cows. One of these informants is the last buffalo herder in the village.

3. The adults would drive the cattle into the hills in the morning, as their sons attended school. The boys would fetch the cattle which had scattered all over the hills by the evening. For these boys, who often ventured in groups, the patanas were a realm of responsibility, freedom from parental control and of intimate acquaintance. Piyadasa, the 30 years old coordinator of the local udagama project, with whom I took three long walks into the hills, was highly knowledgeable of the entire landscape, identified the names, habitats and uses of most plants we observed, and communicated a deep sense of affection for the grasslands. He had been among the last generation of youngsters who participated in the experience of cattle herding in the village.

4. Unsystematic burning of grasses by young boys and male adolescents was also reported by villagers. Such pranks were considered detrimental by cattle specialists, such as Heenbanda, who insisted on the careful and skillful nature of their use of fire. However, most male villagers looked at the burning of grassland as a form of amusement in which they had participated themselves as adolescents.

5. The stocking density of a grassland space is a significant factor in assessing the effects of treading. Treading is not uniform. The zoning and rotation effect of grazing and dunging patterns distributes treading pressure unevenly through time and space. Cattle are in the habit of following set paths when moving through the pastures, which exposes particular areas to continuous treading pressure while leaving surrounding lands intact. The effects of treading on Kitulwatte's patanas are difficult to observe after the introduction of pinus and eucalyptus.

6. In Ambagahakumbura, Heenbanda and the local gamarala, Sumanaratna, claimed that their parents owned 80 and 200 pieces of cattle respectively in the early 20th century. In Pahala Kitulwatte the descendant of a lineage of arachchis [village headman under the British] claimed that his family owned 150 animals. Informants from most low caste households reported that their parents owned a few batu harak. One chalia caste household claimed to have owned 30 animals.

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7. Villagers were reluctant to admit that they hunted, because Buddhist precepts pro- hibit killing of animals. Yet, they always reported that people other than themselves did in fact hunt.

8. For particularly severe conditions and occasions which required charms, such as snake-bites, Lokubanda, a ritual specialist, provides treatments, which require a variety of patana plants for charms and cures. The popularity of Lokubanda's remedies has declined in comparison to his father's practice, which must be attributed to the success of both Western and Ayurvedic [South Asian medical system] medicine in Sri Lanka, both of which are organized by the state. Self-administered home remedies are, however, a persistent cure, which will always be tried before seeking professional treatment.

9. Soil moisture measurements indicate the highest values (36 percent) in 'undisturbed' grasslands, while tree plantations range from 25 to 31 percent. 'Heavily' grazed grasslands rank slightly higher (26 percen) than pinus (25 percent) (Baconguis 1989:40). Gunawardena estimates the highest total water yield in abandoned tea land dominated by grasses as compared with pinus plantations (Gunawardena 1989:96).

10. The system has altogether 32 public taps (16 in Kitulwatte) and 112 connections in private houses (35 in Kitulwatte). Private connections are billed for installation and supply, while public taps are free.

11. The Uva basin's forest fragments are unsuitable for large scale timber extraction by the state or by private contractors, who prefer to cut timber in the large forests of the wet zone and in the northern dry zone.

12. Community woodlots were established in a few hill-country locations, which were considered a failure by the foresters themselves, by their foreign advisors and by project evaluators. The woodlots were treated like regular tree plantations, as monocrop timber production sites, and in some cases combined with potato cash crop cultivation; political quarrels over land allocation among participating villagers abounded; and the provision of planting material failed miserably. The management of existing forests was not within the purview of the projects. In the opinion of the ODA advisors, the Forest Department is structurally and cognitively incapable of running community forestry projects, let alone of integrating community forests and their local users into the daily activities of the staff of the Range Offices. (fieldnotes; Gamage 1987).

13. This discussion of forest ecology is based on my observations in the forest fragments of Kitulwatte. The conceptual and empirical work of Ajantha Palihawadana, Yvonne Everett (1987) and Peter Meyer (1989), which were made available to me at the Neo-Synthesis Research Centre in form of papers and/or discussions, as well as during joint field trips have been invaluable sources of knowledge for which I wish to express my appreciation. For the usage I make of their work and the conclusions I draw from my own observation, I bear the sole responsibility. Further important

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sources on the eco-hydrology of forests are Chapman (1989), Kovacs, Zuidema & Marsalek (1989), and Oyebande & Balek (1989).

14. Demonstrating the high species diversity of forest fragments, P. Meyer lists the oc- curance of 66 tree species, of 27 shrub species, and of 11 creeper species in six surveyed fragments near and in Kitulwatte.

15. The specialist for charms and snake bite cures reported that people used to recognise that particularly well grown trees with straight trunks were inhabited by spirits and deities, who had to be propitiated and appeased before cutting such a tree. Nuga trees [Ficus altissima] would never be cut as they were a preferred habitat of demons and deities. Pregnant and menstruating women were barred from entering the forest, and young women were not allowed to enter the forest alone. It is believed that the foetus may be harmed, that menstruating women are particularly vulnerbale to attack by demons, and that the 'black prince' may seduce an unaccompanied teenage girl. The forest was thus also an object of transference of fears and repressions surrounding sexuality and reproduction. Knox reported that the forests had been well frequented locations for pre- and extra marital sexual contact in pre-colonial times (Knox [1681] 1989:263), before Victorian values transformed Buddhism and popular morality. The elimination of the forest fragments' wildness by extractive activity, the availability of obstetric services and the reduction of infant mortality, as well as the easing of moral restrictions for young people by some degrees has reduced the power of the fearful side of the forest.

16. Research of the Integrated Rural Development Project in Nuwara Eliya District, the highest in the upper Mahaweli watershed, revealed that in the district, patanas (7.5 percent of total land area) accounted for only 0.3 percent of the total amount of erosion, while 55 percent was caused by 'degraded tea estates' (16.6 percent of total land area) and 21 percent by chena cultivation (6.3 of total land area) (Zijlstra 1989). Most of the district's 28,903 hectares of degraded tea estates are still in operation, and thus inaccessible to afforestation. Considering that the upper Mahaweli watershed covers an area of 3110 square kilometres, and that the most critical landuse forms remained outside the reach of the foresters, the presumed conservation effect of the afforestation scheme may be judged negligible.

17. Mycorrhizae live in symbiotic relationships with forest trees, which "have few root hairs and depend on the fungus for a supply of water, giving the fungus in exchange a supply of food. ... The fungus is known to fix atmospheric nitrogen" (Brocklehurst & Ward 1968:84).

18. Villagers complained about the bad quality of pinewood. Poles for vegetable cultivation rot faster than forest species. As a firewood pinus produces less heat, burns up faster and leaves a resinous soot on the stoves and pots. People therefore spend more

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time collecting firewood and cleaning their kitchen equipment, both tasks which involve a higher proportion of women's work.

19. In 1993 the program was temporarily suspended, because the owner of the original and so far only operative enterprise had joined a dissident movement within the ruling United National Party, which eventually broke off to found a new party and competed in the 1993 provincial council elections. The Sri Lankan president requested the Forest Department to shut down his tapping operations in retaliation (fieldnotes; The Island, 17 February 1993). This was the status when I concluded my research in Sri Lanka. With the assassination of the president it may be expected that the lucrative source of foreign exchange earnings will be reactivated, particularly in view of the failure of pinus as a raw material for paper production.

20. On the complementary relationship between chena and rice cultivation in Sinhalese agriculture, as well as the conflicts between chena cultivators and the colonial state, see Meyer 1992, 1983; Abeyratne & Tailor 1987; Silva W.P.T 1977; Ulluwishewa 1991; Karunaratna 1987; Bandarage 1982.

21. Wholesale commission agents in Colombo are the strongest link in the chain between producers and consumers. In addition to the 10 percent regular commission these mudalalis [trade capitalists] receive from producers, they are able to manipulate prices to their advantage, by limiting market supplies, by underinvoicing, by charging protection money, and by imposing numerous other hidden costs (Abey- sekera & Senanayake 1974:32,54; Gunawardena & Chandrasiri 1980:72,86).

22. We met only one respondent who had jotted down some figures for her last bean and tomato crops on the back of an old poster advertising agrochemicals. Gunasingha had given us three different sets of figures off the top of his head. He never kept books.

23. After 1931 the Department of Census and Statistics has not published village level statistics. The 1980 figures were obtained from the Census Prelisting of the Depart- ment.

26. Computed from the Kitulwatte Development Project Household Survey, 1991. Six large landowners, who did not receive or return the questionaire have been added to the total number of households, based on field data. The survey counted not only all holders of land titles, but also leasees of government land, as owners. This peculiarity is owed to the generally recognised practice of land acquisition through squatting. A squatter who occupies government land and uses it 'productively', i.e. as a homestead, may register a claim with the local authorities and pay a nominal lease fee of a few rupees per year. S/he may then apply for a title, which is in principal granted within several years. The leasees build houses and develop their homegardens on the land so allocated at their own expense, and may thus be considered owners of their homesteads.

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24. The category 'highland' includes foremost homesteads, but also a few hill-fields to which villagers hold titles, as well as the tea estates located in the village. The majority of hill-fields are not considered in this table, since they are state property on which farmers are squatting.

25. The discrepancy is most likely owed to the exclusion of Ginigathenapatana from the development project, and consequently its household survey.

27. Computed from the Kitulwatte Development Project Household Survey, 1991. Resi- dents and owners of the tea estates and of Ginigathenapatana were excluded from the survey. The figures on caste distribution should be treated with caution since the touchy issue of caste allows only for indirect and possibly inaccurate identification of caste membership.

28. The number is likely to be higher, since the survey failed to query people's multiple occupations and excluded residents of Ginigathenapatana.

29. Although they produce ten to twenty times more milk than batu harak, the lower fat content of the milk of cross-breds renders it less nutritious and unsuitable for the production of curd, a former staple in local food culture. Local varieties also required little care and no effort to produce fodder.

30. Computed from the lists of monthly precipitation for Bandarawela and Dyraaba Es- tate, issued by the Sri Lankan Department of Meteorology.

31. Computed from the Report on Indoor Morbidity and Mortality in Hospitals, District Hospital Bandarawela, RDHS Division Badulla.

32. They acquired 3 acres of patana land which were planted with tea, as well as three acres of valley-fields, by squatting, and by buying land from the aristocratic Dam- bawinne Walauwa as well as from neighbours, such as Fatima's aunt.

33. The tea plant, Camellia sinensis, occurs as a three to twelve metre high tree in the understory of evergreen forests in Burma, Assam and Yunnan (Dobat 1971:50ff.).

34. An average household with five members consumes at least one kilogramme of rice and three one pound loafs of bread daily. In 1992 a kilogramme of rice cost Rs. 15 to 20 and a loaf of bread cost Rs. 4.50. In a month a household would thus spend on average Rs. 525 on rice and another Rs. 405 on bread. At these prices rice and bread cannot be eaten daily by many families.

35. Computed from Kitulwatte Development Project Household Survey, 1991. Two large landowners, who did not receive or return the questionaire have been added to the total number of households, based on field data. The survey excluded the hamlet of Ginigathenapatana.

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36. Ande sharecrops continue the feudal tradition of Kandyan property relationships. They had not been practiced in the village until the 1960s, with the exception of the nindagam and viharegam fields in Lower Kitulwatte. Gamarale Gunasingha reported that for this reason the Paddy Lands Act of 1958 had limited effect on cultivation in the village. When sharecropping became a means of allocating land and resources from the 1960s, the hari ande [rightful half] of 50/50 was widely adopted and the panatha [literally: the act] was ignored. Competition for scarce land and the strength of Kandyan custom prevailed over the largely failed land reform.

37. Heenbanda, who cultivates a one acre field owned by an absentee landlord, supplies fertiliser, pesticides and weedicides, as well as his buffaloes. While he hands half of the paddy harvest to the landlord, he does, however, keep the entire earnings from vegetable crops grown in this field.

38. In the Uva basin men repair bunds and irrigation channels, level the fields and nurseries, broadcast or establish the nurseries, plough the fields with buffaloes, carry out weeding with knifes, construct the threshing floor, reap the harvest, carry out threshing operations with buffaloes, and winnow the harvest. Women select and germinate seed paddy, cook and carry tea and meals for the work crews, transplant the seedlings, carry out manual weeding, draw ritual designs on the threshing floor, bundle and carry the reaped sheaves of paddy, fill the winnow with seeds and hand it to the men, and carry out post harvest processing (Weeratunge 1992:170). In situations where the preferred gender is not available (in sufficient numbers), the other may carry out or join in with the task. The gender division of labour is regionally specific.

39. Landless goigama and low-caste villagers were employed as wage laboureres who were paid in kind with paddy.

40. Farmers who applied all of the required inputs to their HYV crops were able to achieve yields of over 35 bushels per bushel sown in the 1960s. Only cultivators with off-farm cash income, or sharecroppers, who were supplied with proper amounts of inputs from the landowners, were able to maintain such yields. Most farmers reported that they averaged yields of 20 to 25 bushels per bushel sown. By the early 1990s yields were down to below 20 bushels and in dry years may fall below ten. By comparison the old broadcast varieties were claimed to have yielded between 15 and 25 bushels.

41. In paddy cash cropping this change allowed farmers in the dry zone to grow two or even three cycles per year supported by large centralised irrigation systems, as in the Mahaveli schemes.

42. The original anicut had been built by the farmers' grandparents, but disintegrated and was replaced by a government funded construction in 1985. The contractors built the new anicut in a different location against the advice of the farmers. It col- lapsed during the monsoon of 1989 which caused rapid floods in the Oya. Repair with government funding was denied. The Irrigation Department argued this time

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around that the expense of Rs. 800,000 was not justified if less than 40 acres of fields benefitted from the measure.

43. The reader interested in analyses informed by a psycho-analytic perspective is referred to Obeyesekere's exhaustive study of the Sri Lankan Pattini cult (Obeyesekere 1984:383-499).

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7. FAILED INTERVENTIONS

In this study my aim has been the analysis of the making of a socio-ecological crisis, rather than propositions for remedial action. I have shown that water scarcity in

Kitulwatte has been produced by complex interactive processes of land degradation and resource competition involving various groups of social actors, such as households of small-holding farmers, the Forest Department of Sri Lanka, the owners of small private tea estates, and local politicians. Power relations among these actors are stratified by ownership and control of land and its constituent ecological components through both private property and state ownership, as well as by the actors' capacity to control the political process which determines the appropriation of state-owned resources. Local actors are linked to national and global networks of trade, finance, policy making and technology transfer, all of whom have contributed to the transformation of Kitulwatte's socio-ecological system.

The local livelihood system has shifted from internal biomass and water flows linking the components of the landscape and thus maintaining human and non-human ecosystem participants as a co-dependent network, to the dominance of fragmented and discrete processes of commodity production and infrastructural services. In the contemporary livelihood system people in Kitulwatte depend on external and commoditised inputs as much as on the export of locally produced biomass

1 Local knowledge and techniques of landuse have been modified by innovations generated by scientific expertise. Sri Lanka has a strong tradition of rearing a scientific expert culture, which operates in 'indigenous' academic and state institutions. Local variants of the Green Revolution and scientific forestry have introduced high productivity processes to the Kitulwatte micro-watershed in the form of high yielding rice varieties, vegetable monocrops and tree plantations, which have undermined the integrity of water and biomass production in the livelihood system as a whole. While tree plantations were established by colonial and post-colonial Forest Departments, the introduction of vegetable cultivation resulted from the initiative of smallholding farmers who exploited an opportunity for cash incomes.

In addition, landuse has been equally intensified by satisfying the demand for housing of the growing population in Kitulwatte through settlement in suburban hamlets. The local settlement policy resembles high productivity processes, as an increasing number of people and homesteads are maintained in restricted land areas. Space available for population expansion has been limited by the state's claim to the grasslands for afforestation.

Furthermore, the water needs of the growing population are serviced by a public supply system designed for purely extractive purposes.

The current landusers and their landuse techniques compete for increasing proportions of locally produced resources, while they simultaneously cause the deterioration of the conditions of production of these resource and thus diminish their yields. Tree plantations, intensified vegetable cashcropping and a growing number of homesteads have raised water consumption, while at the same time destroying the capacity of the vegetation and the soil to promote groundwater recharge.

2 Local landusers experience the contradiciton between production in nature and high productivity landuse as a livelihood crisis. Only by intensifying cashcropping with pumps and agrochemicals can they hope to compensate for the loss of local sources of water and fertility, as well as of much of the self-provisioning component of the livelihood system.

Yet, these coping mechanisms contribute to the deepening of the ecological crisis and threaten the economic viability of smallholder farming on account of the rising cost of production.

The social construction of water scarcity in Kitulwatte is both a technical and a social problem, and can neither be understood nor resolved by isolating one from the other.

Furthermore, research and attempts at solutions must take into account the multiple causes of the problem and may not isolate the impact of tree plantations from the consequences of population growth or cash cropping. As much as the production of knowledge of this complex issue requires an interdisciplinary effort, possible solutions will require the participation of all pertinent and responsible actors. Given the complexity of the socio-ecological dynamics involved and particularly the conflictual relations of power of the human participants, I remain, however, sceptical about the ability of human actors to resolve Kitulwatte's water crisis.

In our technocratic culture, we are inclined to expect solutions when confronted with critical problems, and our rationalistic spirit impels us go to the drawing table to design scenarios for crisis management. Third world societies in particular are saturated with people in the business of intervention and change in order to 'solve' a myriad problems.

As I have attempted to demonstrate, there are, however, more projects, blueprints and experts, than there is detailed understanding of the 'anatomy' of these problems.

3 Consequently, solution seekers tend to dabble in fragmented spheres of activity and may compound the damage already done out of ignorance of the implications of their interventions for the wider socio-ecological context in which they operate.

I am inclined to argue that in Kitulwatte technical solutions which may restore the integrity of the micro-watershed are undermined by social constraints, while socially acceptable measures are insufficient or exacerbate the crisis. Furthermore, we continue to lack sufficient knowledge to make reliable predictions about which landuse techniques may indeed constitute remedial action. Third World landusers certainly lack the financial resources which may be required to implement watershed protection technologies.

Finally, a committed and competent social force, be it a grassroots movement among villagers, responsible politicians, or enlightened experts in the state administration and development industry, who may attempt to pursue a reasonable scenario for crisis resolution, has so far failed to emerge. Instead, the pertinent actors continue to cope with a declining resource by tenaciously holding on to their conventional practices in those fragments of the landscape over which they manage to exert control.

In concluding this inquiry, I wish to illustrate this sceptical assessment of the chances for remedial action with a cursory look at three failed attempts at intervention in

Kitulwatte's hydrological crisis.

Although various petitions to politicians and ministries had failed to elicit responses in the past, people in Kitulwatte attempted to address their water problems in the context of the udagama village development project in 1991/92. The udagama [village awakening] movement was an initiative of the late President Ranasingha Premadasa, who strove to combine the improvement of living conditions among Sri Lanka's urban and rural poor

4 through housing development, with infra-structural support for the development of the recipients' production capacities. Income generation measures were to enable people to improve their standard of living and to repay the loans incurred through the project.

Kitulwatte resident and English teacher Piyadasa, the cousin of the President's wife, was able to attract altogether six million Rupees in loans and grants for the purpose of

'awakening' the First Lady's ancestral village.

In public meetings the villagers identified three main issues for their development agenda: environmental, transport and housing problems. The water crisis and the pinus plantations, as well as the protection of the large forest fragment surrounded by Clair

Estate were recognized as the central environmental concerns. Piyadasa reported that the villagers envisioned several short- and long-term solutions. Agricultural pumps were to alleviate the immediate shortage of irrigation water. The failing public supply system would be augmented by digging several shallow and deep wells. The old irrigation system was to be revived by abstracting water from Kitulwatte Oya, the village's central river, by means of an upstream diversion and channels, and by transfering river water to the reservoir above Upper Kitulwatte by means of a large electric pumping station. In addition, villagers requested that the tree plantations be converted to indigenous tree species.

Of all these measures, only 30 kerosine pumps and three shallow wells were realised.

The pumps were financed by loans to individual households, while the wells were established with grant money. The drilling of a tube well in the suburban hamlet of Gaswatte had to be abandoned, although the ground water table had been reached at 80 feet, since the geological survey had missed the fact that the ground conditions were not conducive

5 to stabilising tubes. It was then contemplated to pump water from the well and streams inside the forest fragment next to Glenwood Estate to a storage tank in the hamlet. When

I suggested to Piyadasa that a tube well or pumping water from the forest stream would deprive water users in and below the forest fragment of their water sources, he confessed to have never considered these consequences. He did not know that a tube well would deplete the last fecund ground water source in the micro-watershed. For him, water was simply in the ground and required to be extracted. The technologies proposed to divert and pump water from Kitulwatte Oya were never accepted by the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, due to their high cost.

All of these proposals were extractive measures, which would simply increase water demand by using more powerful tools to access the remaining sources of water. Of these, only the cheapest technologies, shallow and tube wells, were financed as common public services, and individual pumps were sold to those who appeared capable of incurring debts. Selling pumps is the measure most consistent with the logic of productivist welfarism. It stimulates demand for agricultural implements, motivates cultivators to intensify their production, and allows banks to earn interest. Furthermore, it would enable farmers to repay their Rs. 5,000 to 11,500 housing loans. To raise the productivity of farming and farmers' earnings, training courses in efficient cultivation practices and the handling of pesticides were held in the village by a Sri Lankan agrochemical corporation.

No watershed protection measures were considered or implemented. The pinus plantations were neither removed nor converted to indigenous species, although Piyadasa was repeatedly assured by foresters and the presidential couple, that measures needed to and would be taken. The building standards of the Housing Authority in charge of the

6 housing improvement program, which benefitted 208 households, were entirely devoid of ecological considerations. The road construction crews bulldozed earth and rocks into the forest fragments, cultivation fields and watercourses. The Clair Estate forest fragment was to be protected by putting a barbed wire fence around it, which was abandoned due to the lack of funds.

The intervention in Kitulwatte's ecological crisis through the udagama project failed because the logic and design of the project does not provide for integrated watershed protection measures. It never crossed people's minds, that their manner of housing, road building, agricultural cultivation or water procurement was damaging local eco- hydrological conditions. Furthermore, neither the villagers nor the President and his wife were prepared to oblige the Forest Department to retreat from its landuse practices. By making occasional promises to consider experiments with interplanting of indigenous species in the tree plantations, the Forest Department managed to buy time and wait for the fervour of village awakening to blow over. The farmers meanwhile got busy building and upgrading their houses, and using their new pumps to cultivate vegetables and earn the money to pay their debts.

Welimada Road was lined with bright orange signposts announcing to travellers that they were in an 'awakened' village. Some insightful joker had painted graffiti over the sign at the village's south entrance: "Gammunta naya udavuna". This Sinhalese pun on the meaning of udagama may be loosely translated as "the villagers have been awakened to debt".

7 The causes for the lack of a grassroots movement among the villagers, fighting for the restoration of their water sources, are perhaps complex too. That is, if one assumes that social movements are a 'normal' or likely response of affected actors to crisis. This assumption may, however, be rooted in the experiences of a political culture, which does not exist in Sri Lanka. Popular uprisings against colonial rule involved peasants, but were invariably led by feudal or emergent middle classes. National independence was the result of gentleman's agreements among bourgeois politicians in the shadow of the Indian national liberation struggles, rather than the outcome of risky rebellions and Gandhian satyagrahas. As I have shown in chapter four, the post-colonial political system has treated the 'Sinhalese peasantry' as the ideological pivot of nationalist identity, as well as the recipients of a dependent welfare state controlled by the bosses of political parties.

Yet, in the pinus controversy there was a unanimous sentiment and a clearly defined adversary among the villagers. It was argued that the Forest Department and the pines were the primary cause for the village's water crisis. Besides the general features of a national political culture, there are a number of contemporary local experiences which may explain the absence of both violent and non-violent political movements to protest ecological adversity.

At this point in time, the farmers in Kitulwatte have not yet nothing to lose. People are continuing to produce agricultural crops precisely because the system of political patronage functioned to generate coping mechanisms in 1991/92. The acting grama niladari [village officer] argued that Kitulwatte was in fact not experiencing any crisis at all, as people were cultivating and in addition had been showered with gifts from the

Premadasa connection of one of the sons of the village. Neighbouring villages, such as

8 the grama niladari's homebase, were intensely envious, and he did not accept all the fuss

I had been making about Kitulwatte's water crisis. In addition, he considered the villagers in part responsible for their own predicament, since he grasped that their cultivation practices and the deforestation of forest fragments were among the causative factors in the local process of desiccation.

Although envy and competition were surely motivating his harsh judgement, the official pinpointed some important factors serving to appease popular discontent in

Kitulwatte. Despite all the complaint about the pinus plantations, the farmers are able to continue landuse practices which are structurally no different from pinus monocrops and quite obviously violate local ethical ideals concerning the use of forests. People in

Kitulwatte are not indigenous champions of harmonious relations with nature, but ambivalent landusers caught in the contradiction between two dependencies, i.e. the need for intact ecological systems capable of producing water and fertility, and the need to produce their livelihoods under conditions of capitalistic markets with high productivity technologies. While they tend to deny their own responsibilities and accuse the Sri

Lankan foresters of the preeminently visible impact of the tree plantations on the local water regime, people in Kitulwatte are able to displace the contradiction in which they are caught through short-term and market-based coping mechanisms.

Furthermore, acquiescence is motivated by the villagers' sense of the futility of activism in a political and administrative system highly apt at ignoring and repressing contradictions. Countless times people asserted that protesting and petitioning to politicians and the Forest Department was useless, because inaction was all they ever experienced. If they pushed the political strong men too hard, they worried to provoke

9 violent reprisals. The fear of violence from the thugs of local politicians was acute in

1991 and 1992. During the insurgency of the Maoist and nationalist JVP in 1987 and

1988, the Uva basin had experienced a fearful time of political terrorism and counter- terrorism. Countless people had disappeared and families had been hiding their sons in the hills to avoid the random arrests of young men carried out by the security forces. Both adversaries had perpetrated public ritual killings which had been witnessed by villagers.

Along Welimada Road dead bodies had been doused with petroleum and burned in rubber tires. The expression "I don't want to end up in a tire" had become a gruesome metaphor, uttered by people in Kitulwatte who are scared about the consequences of public protest. The climate of political repression continues to silence popular dissent voiced outside the conventional channels of the political system.

As a consequence, 'protest' takes rather deviant and at times self-destructive forms.

The farmers pilfer the pinus for firewood, and the public water supply system for the irrigation of their hill-fields. Pilferage is not simply a way of venting popular anger, but an utter necessity. Without the pinus plantations Kitulwatte would experience a severe fuelwood crisis, and cultivators in Ambagahakumbura depend on illegally appropriating water during dry times.

The most unrecognised and hidden release of anger is, however, the burning of the pinus plantations. This phenomenon posed a puzzling problem for me as an observer.

From the first months of my research I had the intuition that the pines were burned, because people were angry about the effects of the plantations on the local ecosystem.

Yet, nobody seemed to want to talk about it. The villagers never brought the issue up by themselves and when asked gave evasive answers. They claimed that their youngsters

10 were setting the pinus on fire as a form of amusement. Some fires were supposedly caused by people who smoked out porcupines and wildboars while hunting. The foresters

I interviewed were also quite evasive and careful to avoid blaming the villagers. They maintained that the burning of chenas [slash and burn agriculture] and crop residues in fields adjacent to the tree plantations caused them to accidentally catch fire. While there are no chenas in Kitulwatte, crop residues in the hill-fields can be burned without much danger in small piles and do not require large fires. All of the causes mentioned may well contribute to the incidence of fires in the plantations, but their frequency and vast extent, as well as the evasive uneasiness of my informants, aroused my scepticism.

Although in the face of general denial it may be difficult to ascertain that anger is an important cause of pinus fires, there are some indicators which support such an assumption. Frequent fires appear to have occured only once the trees matured and started to make their adverse hydrological effects felt. Immature pines up to the sixth or even tenth year of age are vulnerable to destruction by fires. All of the plantations in the Kitulwatte micro-watershed have reached maturity. Thus, before the maturation of the trees no or few fires must have occured in Kitulwatte. Today, almost the entire range of tree plantations in the micro-watershed is burned at least once a year, according to the information of both foresters and villagers.

I observed a pinus fire while walking in the hills during the February dry period, which had been set by two cultivators who were desperately trying to irrigate their desiccated bean crop by carrying water from a small distant waterhole in a watering can.

Gunasingha admitted only towards the very end of our research period, that people were angry with the Forest Department and were setting fire to the plantations.

11 Just as the farmers avoided showing their anger publically, the Forest Department avoided admitting that the plantations were a cause of anger. While the villagers were hiding their shame because they had violated a cultural injunction demanding equanimity, as well as the law, the foresters were trying to save face when confronted with such a drastic, yet repressed, form of protest. The issue remained largely in the realm of the unspoken, perhaps unconscious. Heat is, as I have shown in the previous chapter, the significant metaphor for anger, and the goddess Pattini metes out a paradigmatic punishment by burning the city of Madurai. Tragically, if my intuition is correct and the burning of pinus is a hidden form of protest, it is self-defeating. The ground fires in the plantations destroy the remaining soil and micro-organisms and exacerbate erosion. The mature pines themselves remain more or less unharmed.

In the neighbouring province of Sabaragamuva farmers managed to destroy new plantations with fire. Local communities are by now well aware of the pines' effects on their livelihoods and use various means to prevent new plantations. Besides fire, our informants in Sabaragamuwa stated that they resorted to squatting on as much land as possible by clearing their grassland hills and planting tea, regardless of their future interest in actually cultivating continuous crops, just to restrict the Forest Department's access to land. Legal practice prevents the foresters from afforesting land used

'productively' by local farmers.

This kind of struggle for the control of local resources is not of the straightforward activist type, but 'devious' and seeks to utilise the legal structure established through mainstream politics. These various strategies of hidden protest avoid direct confrontations, loss of face and violence. They are indicative of a society which has shown great

12 capacity for becoming entrenched in protracted violent confrontrations. There appears to be little chance for waging non-violent conflict and for resolving a resource crisis by way of reaching rational insight and consensus among the conflicting parties.

In the latter part of 1991 the pinus controversy in the Uva basin received media attention and prompted a governmental inquiry as a result of the activities of environmental groups in Colombo and in the Bandarawela area. The Public Campaign for

Environment and Development (PCED), organised by Colombo based professionalised

NGOs, submitted a report to the United Nations Conference on Environment and

Development in Rio de Janeiro, which reflected the perspective of Sri Lanka's non- governmental organisations on the country's environmental situation in contrast to the official report of the Sri Lankan government. In preparation of this report, the NGOs had organised a fact finding campaign and public hearings all over the island, during which local residents were interviewed about their grievances.

Bandarawela was the location of one of these hearings. The water crisis in the Uva basin was presented by local farmers and environmentalists, such as the Young Conser- vationists in Mirahawatte, as a consequence of the tree plantations. A group of environmentalist journalists, who attended the hearing and were taken on site visits in the area, published several articles in the national press which created a dramatic impression of the relationship between pines and water scarcity. The media attention worried the

Minister of Lands, Irrigation and Mahaweli Development, who instructed the Forest

Department to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the allegations made.

The so-called Pinus Commission was not an independent body of inquiry, but was controlled by the Forest Department, the very target of the environmentalists' criticism.

13 The foresters invited several scientists from Colombo and Peradeniya Universities, as well as representatives of the Central Environmental Authority and of environmentalist

NGOs to join the commission. In an initial meeting it was decided to make a one day site visit in Bandarawela. The date set fell into the rainy season. Organisers of the Sri Lanka

Environmental Congress (SLEC), a national umbrella organisation representing environmental NGOs country-wide, and local NGOs in Bandarawela organised and scheduled several site inspections without confering with the members of the commission, including the woman who officially represented SLEC.

The site visit was a fiasco. The environmentalist activists failed to carefully prepare the site inspections and repeatedly presented untenable arguments. For example, the commission was shown a site in the town where water decline was evidently caused by urban settlement in the catchment area, rather than by a nearby pinus plantation. The activists angrily refused to recognise these facts. The assertion that a tree from 'temperate climates' was locally unsuitable, was dismissed by the foresters who were after all planting tropical species of pine. Increasingly observation and discourse were replaced by antagonism and aggressive exchanges.

During the commission's appearance in Kitulwatte, the residents, especially Piyadasa, were in control of the site visit and the commission was presented with the villagers' arguments about the loss of irrigation and household water, and the siltation of fields. The foresters conceded that the tree plantations might have an adverse hydrological impact, and proposed to experiment with the partial replacement of pines by indigenous tree species, as well as to carry out a hydrological study in Kitulwatte.

14 After leaving the village, the commission was caught in heavy thunderstorms and the foresters decided to cancel all further site inspections. They were eager to return to

Colombo on the same day. The environmentalists were outraged and a prolonged angry exchange of accusations and recriminations ensued.

Back in Colombo both SLEC and the Forest Department wrote separate reports (SLEC

1991; Forest Department of Sri Lanka 1992b). The foresters did invite the SLEC representative on the commission to submit her comments to their draft. While she submitted her critical comments, she resigned her position on the committee, because

SLEC was embroiled in factional infighting and all of its governance committees were disbanded. The SLEC report on the pinus commission was published in December 1991.

The Forest Department never published its own report. No further meetings were held, and the issue eventually evaporated from public attention.

The arguments in both reports restate the pre-conceived notions of the adversaries, supported by a selective reading of the limited findings of the site inspections in the

Bandarawela area. Both reports provide faulty data to exaggerate or downplay the impact of the pinus plantations1. No dialogue had taken place and none of the opponents had learned anything. The foresters reiterated their tactical promise to carry out experiments and further research, and again waited for the storm of criticism to blow over. By their aggressive demeanor, by abandoning the commission and by publishing their report behind the foresters' backs, the environmentalists missed a chance to commit the foresters to their promises and to follow them up with public pressure.

The farmers had been entirely relegated to a role of passive victims, who provided a backdrop for the environmentalists' agenda. Issues raised by "the people's" voices were

15 integrated as 'sound bites' into the narrative of the environmentalists. The video-film and report of the PCED campaign which eventually repesented Sri Lankan environmentalism in Rio de Janeiro portrays the country as an ancient indigenous culture with a grand legacy of environmental wisdom which has, however, been exposed to threats of alien invasion seeking to destroy this culture and its ecology.

From the time a group of mariners including Vasco-de-Gama accidentally landed in Kolomthota to the present times when the trans-national companies have established their sovereignity here, Sri Lanka has had to encounter pressures from various sources. Such impacts can be considered as invasions where components suitable to our environment and to the ways of life of our people were eliminated and alien forces were imposed on us. In the past the Chola, Pandya, Kerala and Java people and in recent times the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English made such invasions with inimical interests in mind and the people were stirred to embark upon freedom struggles. In view of such struggles, the Sri Lankan nation has survived over 2500 years as a free country and a nation with its own identity. But, the all-pervasive invasion of the global development model of our time and its political network of dependency is steadily entrapping our people. (PCED 1992:xviii)

Sri Lanka is an agricultural country. Our traditional farming system, which had ensured and sustained the self-sufficiency of the country is being destroyed by alien agricultural systems. This has led to a major crisis in Sri Lanka. (PCED 1992:1)

The xenophobic discourse of Sinhalese nationalism serves as a familiar idiom to frame a simplistic adversarial image of the dynamics of socio-ecological change. Righteous environmentalists act as visionaries who point out the sufferings of an innocent but entrapped people and call upon them to reassert their indigenous ways against a corrupt economic system dominated by foreign invaders.

The dichotomy of 'the alien' and 'the indigenous' has been carried into the pinus controversy as well. The environmentalists assert that the 'alien' 'western' tree has no place in Sri Lanka's hills and needs to be replaced by indigenous varieties (The Island 10

August 1991; The Sunday Times 14 August 1991; Sunday Observer 4 August 1991). In

16 this manner pinus has turned into a symbol for the stakes of the nation's environmental conflict. The Sri Lankan state and the environmental activists are embroiled in a fundamental controversy over the direction of the nation's economic and cultural development.

The environmentalist interpretation posits a destructive western model against an image of an indigenous culture in harmony with its environment. Thus, the state plants alien invaders, while the indigenous people place their faith in the benefits of indigenous trees.

Both sides are uncompromisingly committed to planting trees. Neither is prepared to consider that planting trees in grassland ecosystems may undermine the specific eco- hydrological relations prevailing in the Uva basin.

Given the visible destructive effects of capitalist development and the ideological hegemony of the Sinhalese national myth, the environmentalist narrative resonates in the grassroots of society. However, the responsibility for local people's active role in the country's socio-ecological transformation is denied and instead projected onto the state and its alien trees. Environmental traditionalism ignores the complexity of the social construction of ecological crises. It mystifies the circumstance that all human participants in contemporary ecological systems are subject to the contradictory imperatives of production in nature and production in capitalism.

Tragically, xenophobic defensiveness renders environmentalists ineffective in the arduous task of puzzling out how contemporary societies may sensibly repair their social and ecological relations. To be sure, not all of Sri Lanka's environmental campaigns fail as miserably as SLEC and PCED in the handling of the pinus controversy. Beneath the ideological veneer of defensive nationalism, there are sophisticated and committed individuals, such as environmental lawyers, who are capable of fighting ecologically destruc-

17 tive development projects by lobbying international donor agencies and by skillfully employing the country's environmental laws in the courtroom. Yet, their recognition of the complex and contradictory character of socio-eccological change would greatly enhance their knowledge base. Thereby a fixation on the single issue of pinus would be replaced by an exploration of integrated strategies for dealing with resource competition and land degradation on the level of micro-watersheds.

Throughout my research in Kitulwatte I consistently strove to resist temptations to shift from the production of knowledge to 'sociological intervention'. I was sincerely requested by environmentalist activists to identify with their ideas and agendas, and to participate in their projects. There were insincere suggestions by foresters and foreign development experts that I share my knowledge to improve their capacity to handle the local communities involved in their projects. I eventually declined and retreated from all of these actors. The failed interventions of both the developmental mainstream and their environmentalist critics caused me to step back from action at a time when ecological crises seem to require action most urgently. By persistently returning to Kitulwatte I instead sought to develop a comprehensive knowledge of the making of its eco- hydrological crisis. The actors I had encountered appeared to propose policies and to pursue their implementation on the basis of partial and fragmentary perceptions without spending the necessary time and effort to reconstruct the complex dynamics of the problems they confronted.

When I finally tried to intervene, I failed as well. During my last interview at the

Forest Department in Badulla in January 1993 the District Forest Officer (DFO) reported that his superiors in Colombo had instructed him to interplant 50 hectares of pinus

18 plantations in the Badulla District with indigenous tree species, 30 hectares of which were to be on steep slopes in the Bandarawela area. As much as up to 60 percent of the pines would be thinned and replaced by broadleafed trees with the onset of the 1993 rainy season.

For the first time there seemed to be a concrete opening in the administrative system in response to the pinus controversy of 1991/92. I suggested to the DFO that the hills in

Kitulwatte contained many suitable locations for the interplanting programme, and would be glad to mediate between the community and the foresters. The DFO agreed to a meeting with community leaders and myself, and a date was set for the following week. I was also shown a pinus plantation near Badulla where interplanting had been carried out in November 1992. The Chief Minister of the Uva Province had insisted that the DFO do something about the persistent complaints from his constituency in the village of

Patanawatte.

Upon my return to Kitulwatte I contacted Piyadasa and Gunasingha to discuss the matter. Both clearly stated their scepticism about the DFO's sincerity. Gunasingha emphasised that interplanting was not sufficient to restore the village's water regime. He insisted that the only acceptable measure was to "let the patana grass grow again" (fieldnotes, Gunasingha). Yet, as this appeared to be the first time that any change in the plantations would be possible at all, they agreed to prepare the site inspections and to meet the DFO.

With each of the community leaders I went on a walk in the plantations above their hamlets in Upper and Lower Kitulwatte, where we identified steep slopes which were extremely eroded. We noted all the features which needed to be shown to the DFO to

19 support the villagers' arguments about the negative impact of pinus in the micro- watershed. We prepared two maps of the sites suitable for interplanting. We discussed the need for fire protection of the newly planted seedlings and noted the difficulty of supporting broadleaf seedlings in the eroded plantation soil. We considered possible avenues of community involvement through existing grassroots organisations in the village.

We also contemplated the possibility that the interplanting programme might be a devious strategy by the Forest Department, to undermine public protest against their pinus afforestation projects. The interplanting programme constituted an 'on the ground' compromise between the foresters' and the environmentalists' positions. It promised a mixing of 'alien' and 'indigenous' trees. By involving the public in expectations about the benefits of indigenous trees, the radical demand to restore the patana grasslands would be kept at bay. Furthermore, if the seedlings failed to establish in the eroded soil and under the harsh climatic conditions in the Uva basin, or if they were destroyed by plantation fires, the Forest Department would appear justified in arguing, that given the local ecological and social conditions, planting of indigenous species was useless and only pinus monocrops were a viable afforestation technology. The new move by the foresters seemed to be a highly precarious matter.

I had, however, once again underestimated the insincerity of the forestry bureaucrats.

The DFO never showed up for the meeting.

Gunasingha and Piyadasa were not surprised and stated that this was exactly what had always happened. They communicated their embarrassment, because their local public servant had failed to do his job, while I as a foreigner had tried to make an effort. We

20 wrote a letter to the DFO stating our disappointment and offering to make a renewed attempt at cooperation between the community and the foresters.

A few days later, I left Kitulwatte, because my research cycle needed to come to a close and I was determined to start writing my dissertation. I had spent almost two years in the field and needed to return to the demands and time trajectory stipulated by my education. While my acquaintances in Kitulwatte and I had shared the same space and time, I had become involved in their concerns. Now the moment of departure had come. I was to return to a purely academic mode, to the secluded world of my fieldnotes, books and computer. Gunasingha, Piyadasa and the others had to continue to cope with their difficult situation.

I felt myself embarrassed for leaving them at this point. Should I not confront the DFO and organise public pressure in the village to force the foresters to follow up their promises with positive action? Should I not share my knowledge with the villagers in an attempt to spark off a grasssroots based integrated watershed management programme which would review and try to transform local landuse practices? Should I not seek to secure financial and logistic support from an ecology-minded foreign development agency?

Once again I decided that I would be a sociologist rather than a community organiser.

In this post-colonial era it appeared inappropriate for me as a European to organise a

Third World grassroots movement. Rather, I felt the need to put in writing my knowledge and experiences, for my own career's sake, as much as for the purpose of making a contribution to a comprehensive and differentiated knowledge base for all those practitioners

21 of social and ecological change who are truly sincere in their efforts to save a piece of the earth in their corner of the world.

Despite all the shared embarrassment, our last experience seemed a fitting symbol by which to depart. Both the urgent concerns and suffering of the people in Kitulwatte, and my social scientific knowledge continued to be evaded and ignored by the most powerful human actors in the social contruction of the water crisis in Kitulwatte.

NOTE

1. For example, the Forest Department provides landuse data for an unspecified area, to 'prove' that the pinus plantations cover merely 69 hectares or 0.68 percent of the total area (Forest Department of Sri Lanka 1992:7-8). SLEC claims that in Kitulwatte altogether 220 acres of hill- and valley-fields had been abandoned as a result of water scarcity (SLEC 1991:17). Various other examples of faulty and deceptive data could be quoted from both reports.

APPENDIX

Household Interview Schedule date: name of informant[s] [age / kin relation]: who lives in your household [age / kin relation]? which household member[s] live[s] outside and contribute[s] to household's livelihood? what is your ethnic group? what is your religion? [what is your caste?] since when do you live in Kitulwatte? generation link with [name / kin relation]: []same household []seperate households interview's temporal component: []PRESENT []PAST []do []did you cultivate paddy in the valley-fields? []do []did you cultivate veg in the valley-fields? []do []did you lease out or sharecrop out valley-fields? []do []did you cultivate veg in chena or permanent fields in the patanas or forest? []do []did you own and cultivate an estate? []do []did you work as a wage or contract laborer or salaried employee in agriculture? []do []did you receive income from non-agricultural sources?

[if applicable:] when and why did you abandon paddy cultivation? when and why did you abandon veg cultivation? []valley-fields []chena []permanent fields in patana or forest

1 VALLEY-FIELDS / PADDY cultivation location: []near oya []lower slope []midslope []next to kandure tenureship and field size: - []own / acre[s]: - []sharecrop / acre[s]: / % of share: .... / inputs by []cultivator []owner / owner: / owner's residence: - []rent / acre[s] / $: ...... / owner: / owner's residence: - []squat / acre[s]: / on who's land? do you rotate with veg cultivation? []no []yes / since: how many crops per year? with veg rotation: w/out veg rotation: when during year? with veg rotation: w/out veg rotation: did you cultivate some fields with kurrakan, yams, etc.? []no []yes / until: do you have a fallow after paddy cultivation? with veg rotation: []no []yes / how long? w/out veg rotation: []no []yes / how long? what varieties are you growing / what yields ([]per bushel sown []per field cultivated) do you get? HYV: OLD: why do yields change? why / when did you switch from OLD to HYV varieties? where do you get seed paddy? HYV: OLD: do you []broadcast or []transplant / since: / why did you change? why do you grow paddy? []subsistence []soil fertility for veg cultivation []emotional/cultural meaning do you apply fertilizer in paddy cultivation? []no []yes HYV OLD paddy variety: agrochemicals chicken manure cowdung composted weeds source do you apply pesticides in paddy cultivation? []no []yes HYV OLD paddy variety: pest

2 pesticide type source do you []apply weedicide and/or do you []handweed in paddy cultivation? HYV OLD paddy variety: weedicide type source handweed how do you prepare the soil for paddy cultivation? []brake the soil []bunded fields []mannually w/ mammoty []ploughing w/ buffalo []other: how is the quality of the soil in your paddy field? with veg rotation: w/out veg rotation: do you graze cattle in your paddy fields after harvest or during fallow? with veg rotation: []no []yes / how long? w/out veg rotation: []no [] yes / how long? do you use buffaloes in your paddy cultivation? []no []yes / tasks: []rent []own []borrow do you collect cowdung in your paddy fields? []no []yes / who collects? / used where? do animals or people harm your crop? []no []yes / what do you do about it? what are the water sources for your paddy field? []springs in field []annicut/ela []kandura []oya/pump []well []rainfed []other: who is responsible for the water works irrigating your paddy field? built by: controlled/organized by: is there sufficient water for your paddy cultivation? []yes []no / what changes did occur / why? did you abandon any paddy fields as a result of water scarcity? []no []yes / size: ...... / location: who works in your paddy cultivation? []family []udauva / reciprocated by: []attam []hired labor / []contract labor do you help in other people's paddy cultivation? []family []udauva / reciprocated by: []attam in paddy cultivation do you use the following tools? own rent borrow mammoty sprayer

3 pump plough hand-tractor thresher weeder from whom do you receive advise on paddy cultivation? []family []neighbours []extension services []ngo do you sell paddy in the market? with veg rotation: []no [] yes / bushels: ... w/out veg rotation: []no [] yes / bushels: ... do you []pound paddy at home or []go to the mill / why? how many months per year can your household eat from its own paddy? with veg rotation: w/out veg rotation: what other plant and animal species live in and around the paddy fields?

VALLEY-FIELDS / VEGETABLE cultivation location: []near oya []lower slope []midslope [] patana hills []next to kandure tenureship and field size: - []own / acre[s]: - []sharecrop / acre[s]: / % of share: .... / inputs by []cultivator []owner / owner: / owner's residence: - []rent / acre[s] / $: ...... / owner: / owner's residence: - []squat / acre[s]: / on who's land? since when are you growing veg in the valley bottom fields / why? how many crops per year? w/out paddy rotation: with paddy rotation: when during year? w/out paddy rotation: with paddy rotation: do you have a fallow period after veg cultivation? []no []yes / how long? what species are you growing [list most frequent first]? where do you get your veg seeds? do you apply fertilizer in veg cultivation? veg species: agrochemicals chicken manure cowdung composted weeds source do you apply pesticides in veg cultivation?

4 veg species: pest pesticide type source do you []apply weedicide or do you []handweed in veg cultivation? veg species: weedicide type source handweed can you afford to buy sufficient agrochemicals for your veg cultivation? []yes []no / how do you cope? how do you prepare the soil for veg cultivation? []brake the soil []raised beds w/channels []manually w/ mammoty []ploughing w/ buffalo []other: how is the quality of the soil in your veg field? with paddy rotation: w/out paddy rotation: do you graze cattle in your veg fields after harvest or during fallow? []no []yes / how long? do animals or people harm your crop? []no []yes / what do you do about it? what are the water sources for your veg field? []springs in field []annicut/ela []kandura []oya/pump []well []rainfed []other: who is responsible for the water works irrigating your veg field? built by: controlled/organized by: is there sufficient water for your veg cultivation? []yes []no / what changes did occur / why? did you abandon any veg fields as a result of water scarcity? []no []yes / size: ...... / location: do you think that veg cultivation has changed the water situation in the valley bottom fields? [] no []yes / how? who works in your veg cultivation? []family []udauva / reciprocated by: []attam []hired labor / []contract labor do you help in other people's veg cultivation? []family []udauva / reciprocated by: []attam in veg cultivation do you use the following tools? own rent borrow mammoty

5 sprayer pump plough hand-tractor thresher weeder from whom do you receive advise on veg cultivation? []family []neighbours []extension services []ngo where / to whom do you sell your vegetables? []roadside lorries / going to: []Bandarawela market: []lorries []wholesale traders []retail do you deal with []particular trader[s] or []switch / why? can you trust your trader[s]? do you receive loans from your trader? []no []yes / what for? how do you receive your payment? income from 2 most frequently grown species: species: seed (kg): yield (kg): $/kg: input $: gros $: net $: do you consume part of your crop[s]? []no []yes / proportion: do you receive loans to improve your vegetable cultivation? []no []yes / purpose: / source: do you think that you live better when growing and selling veg or do you grow veg because you cant earn or survive in any other ways? what other plant and animal species live in and around the veg fields?

VALLEY-FIELDS / LEASE OUT or SHARECROP OUT tenureship and field size: - []share crop out / acre[s]: / % of share: .... / inputs by []cultivator []owner - []lease out / acre[]s: / $: ...... location: []near oya []lower slope []midslope []next to kandure who are the tenants? []family []Kitulwatte residents [] from outside Kitulwatte is this land []sharecropped in or []leased in? why do you sharecrop out or lease out those fields? what crops are grown on those fields? do you yourself work on those fields?

6 CHENA OR PERMANENT FIELDS IN THE PATANAS OR FOREST / VEGETABLE cultivation field size: location: [] patana hills []natural forest []next to kandure do/did you cultivate chena in the patana? []no []yes since: /until: do/did you cultivate permanent fields in the patana? []no []yes since: /until: do/did you clear any forest for []chena or []permanent fields? []yes / why? []no / why not? do you have a fallow period after cultivation? []no []yes / how often do you cultivate before a fallow period? length of fallow: how many crops per year? when during year? what species are you growing [list most frequent first]? where do you get your veg seeds? do you apply fertilizer? []no []yes >> veg species: agrochemicals chicken manure cowdung composted weeds source do you apply pesticides? []no []yes >> veg species: pest pesticide type source do you []apply weedicide or do you []handweed? veg species: weedicide type source handweed can you afford to buy sufficient agrochemicals? []yes []no / how do you cope?

7 how do you prepare the soil? []brake the soil []raised beds w/channels []manually w/ mammoty []ploughing w/ buffalo []other: how is the quality of the soil in your field? do you graze cattle in the field after harvest or during fallow? []no []yes, how long? do animals or people harm your crop? []no []yes / what do you do about it? what are the water sources for your field? []springs in field []annicut/ela []kandura []oya/pump []well []rainfed []other: who is responsible for the water works irrigating your field? built by: controlled/organized by: is there sufficient water for cultivation? []yes []no / what changes did occur / why? did you abandon any chena or permanent fields in the patana fields as a result of water scarcity? []no []yes / size: ...... / location: who works in your chena or in permanent fields in the patana? []family []udauva / reciprocated by: []attam []hired labor / []contract labor do you help in other people's chena or in permanent fields in the patana? []family []udauva / reciprocated by: []attam

8 in chena or in permanent fields in the patana do you use the following tools? own rent borrow mammoty sprayer pump plough hand-tractor thresher weeder from whom do you receive advise on cultivation in chena or in permanent fields in the patana? []family []neighbours []extension services []ngo where / to whom do you sell your vegetables? []roadside lorries / going to: []Bandarawela market: []lorries []wholesale traders []retail do you deal with []particular trader[s] or []switch / why? can you trust your trader[s]? do you receive loans from your trader? []no []yes / what for? how do you receive you payment? income from 2 most frequent species grown species: seed (kg): yield (kg): $/kg: input $: gros $: net $: do you consume part of your crop[s]? []no []yes / proportion: do you receive loans to improve your cultivation in chena or in permanent fields in the patana? []no []yes / purpose: / source: do you think that you live better when growing and selling veg or do you grow veg because you cant earn or survive in any other ways? do you have any special feelings about chena cultivation? what other plant and animal species live in and around the chena or in permanent fields in the patana or forest?

ESTATE size: what crops do you cultivate? []tea []coffee []other: (structural observation: []monocrop []mixed crop []shade trees []forested gullies // surrounding landuse: ) how often and when do you harvest?

9 do you process your crop[s]? []yes []no to whom do you sell your crop[s] / product[s]? what price per unit do you receive [indicate seasonal/ historical fluctuations]? do you consume part of your crop[s]? []no []yes / species: proportion: do you apply fertilizer? []no []yes >> species: agrochemicals frequency kg/acre/year chicken manure cowdung composted weeds source do you apply pesticides? []no []yes >> species: pest pesticide type frequency kg/acre/year source do you []apply weedicide or do you []handweed? species: weedicide type frequency kg/acre/year source handweed do you experience soil problems? []no []yes type: []erosion []landslides []fertility decline []other: causes: []steep slope []lack of undergrowth []monocrop []other: solutions: []drains []s.a.l.t. []terracing []treeplanting []increased fertilizer application []mulching []other: do you employ wage laborers on your estate? []no []yes >> task: plucking fert/spray weeding number: gender: wage/unit wage: contract: how often? rainy s.: dry s.: residence: ethnicity:

10 task: prune soilmaint other number: gender: wage/unit wage: contract: how often? rainy s.: dry s.: residence: ethnicity: what are the water sources for your estate? sources: uses:

11 do you experience seasonal drought in your estate? []no []yes / causes: effects on crop: response: did you experience changes in the water, soil moisture and rainfall situation in your estate over the last 15 years? []no []yes / causes: effects on crop: response: do animals or people harm your crop? []no []yes / what do you do about it? what kind of tree species do you grow in your estate [indicate #, seedling source and use of 5 dominant species]? do you keep livestock on your estate? []no []yes >> species[#]: owner: fodder source: who collects/feeds: uses: who's chores? manure use: where kept when? who moves it? [if applicable:] when and why did you []abandon or []reduce livestock breeding / what happened to the animals? do you cultivate other agricultural products on your estate? []no []yes >> species: cashcrop: subsistence: fertilizer: pesticide: weedicide: water source: what other plant and animal species live in your estate?

12 do you receive non-agricultural income from your estate? []no []yes / []houses rent []tourism []industrial income: do you live on your estate? []no []yes (go to household and homegarden)

WAGE OR CONTRACT LABOR OR SALARIED EMPLOYMENT IN AGRICULTURE type of cultivation: []estate []paddy cultivation []veg cultivation []homegarden cashcrop []other: who is your employer? []family []Kitulwatte resident []from outside Kitulwatte since: until: crop[s]: tasks: wage/unit wage: contract: in kind: how often? rainy s.: dry s.: who owns which tools? do you receive loans from your employer? []no []yes / for what? do you receive gifts from your employer? []no []yes / what kind? do you take other useful things from your place of employment? []no []yes / []firewood []food []other: do you have to do favours for and give unpaid help to your employer? []no []yes / what kind? do you get other non-agricultural employment from the same employer? []no []yes (go to non-agricultural income section)

NON-AGRICULTURAL INCOME []work in your home []work outside your home []self-employed []waged/salaried employment []retirement []unemployment []welfare self-employed household member: type of business: tasks: since/until:

13 how often? % of household income: no. of employees: tasks: how often: waged/salaried employment household member: employer: type of business: tasks: since/until: how often? % of household income: how was this employment obtained? do you think getting an education to improve your families income is realistic? []no []yes / why?

14 retirement benefits household member: former employer: type of business: tasks: since/until: % of household income: unemployment benefits household member: since/until: % of household income: former employment: welfare benefits household member: type [reason]: since/until: % of household income:

HOUSEHOLD AND HOMEGARDEN [where are the house and homegarden located?] since when do you live in your current home? do you []own []rent []lease []squat from whom? on what terms? size of property: (features of house: no. of rooms: kitchen stove: []3stones/wood []fuel-efficient/wood []gas []electric toilet: []lat w/ hole []lat w/ bowl []wc/eastern []wc/western building materials: foundation and floor: []soil w/cowdung []rock w/cement []other: walls: []moda gadol []brick []waddle and daube []kabok []cement blocks []other: beams and frames: []cement []metal []wood / species:

15 roof: []sinhala tile []modern tile []asbestos sheet []metal sheet []thatch []other: general appearance: gadgets: []tv []radio/cassette []furniture: religios symbols: ) who built the house? who repairs the house? have you taken out [a] housing loan[s]? []no []yes / to []buy []build []improve / source: / mediating agency: do you collect firewood? []no []yes / source[s]: / who collects? / how often? what are your water sources for household uses? source who collects? no. of kales/day? quality drinking toilet bathing laundry who looks after the children / where? who cooks / when? what is a typical meal? has it always been like that? which ingredients do you buy in the shops/market? if a household member is sick, what kind of medical attention do you seek? []home remedy []ayurvedic medicine []western medicine []none []other: what major illnesses occured in the last 15 years? household member: illness: cause: who died in the last 15 years? household member: age: cause: do you keep livestock? []no []yes >> species[#]: owner: fodder source: who collects/feeds: uses: who's chores? manure use: where kept when? who moves it? [if applicable:]

16 when and why did you []abandon or []reduce livestock breeding / what happened to the animals? what kind of tree/creeper species do you grow in your homegarden [indicate #, seedling source and use of 3 dominant species]? do you sell any of the tree/creeper products? []no []yes / to whom: ...... price/unit (3 species:) what kind of vegetable species do you grow in your homegarden [indicate cashcrops]? do you apply fertilizer in your homegarden? []no []yes >> species: agrochemicals chicken manure cowdung composted weeds source do you apply pesticides in your homegarden? []no []yes >> species: pest pesticide type source do you []apply weedicide or do you []handweed in your homegarden? species: weedicide type source handweed who looks after the homegarden? vegetables: cashcrop: subsistence crop: trees/creepers: how is the quality of the soil in your homegarden? do you graze cattle in your homegarden? []yes []no do animals or people harm your plants? []no []yes / what do you do about it? what are the water sources for your homegarden? []springs []annicut/ela []kandura []oya/pump []well []rainfed []other: what other plant and animal species live in your homegarden?

PATANAS do you gather plants in the patanas? []no []yes / food: medicine: firewood: poles: timber: other:

17 do you hunt or trap animals in the patanas? []no []yes / species / method: do you graze cattle in the patanas? []no []yes / []during day []overnite / when? / who moves them? do you burn patana grass for fodder production? []no []yes do you collect cowdung in the patanas? []no []yes / who collects? / used where? what other plant and animal species live in the patanas? are/were the patana hills a source of water? []no []yes / uses? have there been any important changes in the patana hills in your lifetime? do you think the patanas were always there [before the pinus plantations]? []yes []no / what was there before? / what created them?

FOREST do you gather plants in the forest? []no []yes / food: medicine: firewood: poles: timber: other: do you hunt or trap animals in the forest? []no []yes / species / method: do you graze cattle in the forest? []no []yes / []during day []overnite / when? / who moves them? do you collect cowdung in the forest? []no []yes / who collects? / used where? what other plant and animal species live in the forest? are/were the forests a source of water? []no []yes / uses? have there been any important changes in the natural forests in your lifetime?

PINUS PLANTATIONS when were the pinus plantations planted in the hills above the village? first planting: last planting: where / on what kind of land were they planted? []patana []natural forest []government land []other: who is responsible for planting them? [] government []forest department []timber corporation []other: what were you told by the authorities why they were planted? []no communication []timber []paper []matches []resin []other: did you have any say in the establishment of the plantations? []no []yes / how?

18 what do you think why they were planted? []timber []paper []matches []resin []other: then, did you think planting pinus was a good idea? []no / why not? []yes / why? were people in the village employed in the planting of pinus? []no []yes were there any conflicts between pinus planting and cultivated fields in the patana hills? []yes / what happened? []no / how regulated? did people in the village have conflicts and confrontations with the government or the people involved in planting the pinus at the time? now, do you think planting pinus was a good idea? []yes / why? []no / why not? []water decline []soil erosion []siltation []no cattle grazing ranges []other: if so, how do pinus plantations cause decline in water? have you brought these problems to the attention of the authorities concerned? []no []yes / how? what response did you get? are there also eucalyptus plantations in the hills of the village? []no []yes / when planted? how do they compare with pinus? do you gather any plants in the pinus and/or eucalyptus plantations? []no []yes / firewood: poles: timber: other: how does pinus compare with other tree species as firewood? what other plant and animal species live in the pinus plantations? how are the pinus plantations different from forests? if there should be pinus tapping for resin in the plantations surrounding the village, would you or a member of your household try to get a job? []no []yes / why?

KITULWATTE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT do you know of the KDP? []no []yes why is it happening? what is being done? []road building []housing loans []pump loans []temple improvement []daycare centre []public wells []other: who is organizing it? do you receive benefits from the KDP? []no []yes / what kind? do you have any opportunity to participate in its organization and decisions? []no / why not? []yes / how? do you think the project is a good one? []yes / why? []no / why not?

19 RELIGIOUS PRACTICE how often / on what occasions do you go to []temple []kovil []mosque []church? do you perform religious / spiritual acts for or in: []people in your household: []your house: []paddy fields: []veg fields: []cattle [or other livestock]: []business []place of employment: []homegarden []chena []patana []natural forest []pinus plantations []other:

20 do you have any special religious / spiritual ideas about: []trees and the natural forest: []water and rain: []paddy: []other:

HOW OLD is your village? [] ... years []dont know who is your oldest ancestor resident in amb you know of? in the past was your village or some part[s] of it []nindagam / walauwa: []koralegam / tax paid? []viharegam / temple []dont know how many households were in Kitulwatte when you were 10 years old? [] ... households []dont know how many cattle and buffaloes were in Kitulwatte when you were 10 years old? [] .... []dont know

GLOSSARY aluth sahal managalaya new rice festival ande 50/50 sharecrop relationship anicut dam diverting stream water into irrigation channels ankeliya antler festival attam 'to give a hand', symmetrically reciprocal labour exchange between paddy cultivators batu harak small indigenous cattle species prevalent in the hill-country chalia weaver caste chena slash-and-burn cultivation deva dane offering to the deities in cultivated fields devale Sinhalese temple for deity worship dissave province of Kandyan kingdom; provincial ruler El Nino meteorological phenomenon causing unseasonal droughts in the South Asian tropics ela irrigation channel gamarala farmers' representative Gamudawa 'village awakening', development programme of the government of President Premadasa gepola platform on which a house is built goda cultivated highland goigama cultivator caste goma dung grama niladari village officer haula term used for sharecropping relationships in vegetable cultivation hen slash-and-burn cultivation Janasaviya 'people's strength', poverty alleviation programme of the government of President Premadasa kachchan desiccating winds occurring in the Uva basin during the southwest monsoon kade small grocery shop or restaurant kaele forest kale pot in which women collect and carry water from source to homestead kandura stream kapurala Sinhalese priest specialising in deity worship kenduma contract labour, mix of wage labour and attam koralegam hereditary free-hold land mada muddy land, irrigated fields

22 mahattaya gentleman, sir, lord, 'one of great status', honorific form of address mi harak water buffaloes nindagam hereditary land of radala caste, cultivated by sharecroppers oya river

Oya, the local designation of Kitulwatte Oya, the village's central river patana grassland hills of the Uva basin pilla spout installed in streams to collect water, and to bathe and wash laundry radala aristocratic substratum of goigama caste rajakariya labour service to Kandyan king rate mahattaya indigenous local chiefs under the British administration sanna royal Kandyan land title satyagrahas 'soul force', non-violent form of protest of Gandhian origin sinibath 'sugar rice', ritual meal offered to deities udagama 'awakened village', recipient village of Gamudawa benefits udauva reciprocal but non-symmetrical labour exchange between friends and neighbours vahumpura juggery maker caste viharagam temple land, cultivated by sharecroppers walauwa feudal manor of radala caste households wewa irrigation reservoir

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