The Global Village: Linkages between International Coffee Markets and Grazing by Livestock in a South Indian Wildlife Reserve M. D. MADHUSUDAN Nature Conservation Foundation, 3076/5, IV Cross, Gokulam Park, Mysore 570 002, India, email
[email protected]; Wildlife Conservation Society, India Program, 823, 13th Cross, Jayanagar 7th Block (West), Bangalore 560 082, India; and National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science Campus, Bangalore 560 012, India Abstract: India’s heritage of natural habitats and wild species is under growing threat from its biomass- dependent rural peoples and its consumeristic urban economy. As the mainstay of its wildlife conserva- tion effort, then, India’s wildlife reserves continue to face a range of extractive uses. The Indian conserva- tion/development discourse has, however, drawn a distinction between traditional subsistence use and modern commercial use of natural resources in wildlife reserves. It has also been suggested that subsistence use must be accommodated within Indian wildlife reserves because it caters exclusively to local consumption for livelihood, whereas commercial use warrants greater restriction because it furthers profit-based goals of distant interests. How valid is such a clear distinction between subsistence use and commercial use? I address this question using the village of Hangala on the boundary of Bandipur National Park in south India as a case study. Hangala’s livestock were reared primarily for their inputs of dung and draft power into local agriculture, and customarily grazed in the forests of Bandipur. This practice qualified as subsistence use because all goods and services obtained from livestock grazing in Bandipur catered exclusively to village-level consumption.