Centres

The two centres for research – the Suri Sehgal Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, and the Centre for Environment and Development house two programmes each, under which are nested projects and/ or working groups:

Suri Sehgal Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation

Centre for Environment and Development

The Centres deploy a holistic perspective that requires different disciplines to work together to resolve key research questions. This is reflected in programme taxonomy and scope, team compositions, issues addressed and research questions asked. For instance, while the Ecosystems and Global Change programme addresses the bio-physical processes that affect ecosystems, Ecosystem Services and Human Wellbeing programme approaches ecosystems from an entirely utilitarian perspective. Similarly, while Land, Water and Livelihoods programme utilizes a socio-economic and political context, it also researches physical factors that affect land and water resources. The result is interdisciplinary research practise and overlap across Centres, programmes, projects and working groups.

There are two cross-cutting themes: ‘Global change’ in Ecosystems and Global Change includes climate change (besides deforestation and urbanization), but by itself, climate change is also a theme that is factored across all four programme verticals. Along with climate change, governance is also seen as a dynamic with disproportionately large effects on grassroot applications. So climate change and governance are themes that cut across all programmes.


Suri Sehgal Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation

In South Asia, most ecosystems are modified by historic human-use, human presence, and appropriation of ecosystem services. In many cases, this has decimated biodiversity and degraded the ability of these ecosystems to maintain critical ecosystem functions and support components of biodiversity. In other cases, limited human-use has been found to be compatible with the conservation of biodiversity. Accompanying this scenario is the state managed, top-down management system that is considered unviable for many ecosystems such as rivers, marine areas, large wetlands and coastal areas. However, although strictly protected areas and areas with limited human-use and access managed by the state will continue to play a major role in conserving biodiversity, it is essential that alternative models of conservation are tested and improved for large areas such as production forests, agro-ecosystems, wetlands, coastal and marine ecosystems, which lie outside protected areas.

Maintenance of biodiversity, ecosystem functions and associated ecosystem services in a changing environment is a challenging issue, as is identifying the scale and intensity of human use compatible with conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Thirdly, it is imperative to develop governance models that enable participatory management and a more equitable, just and sustainable approach to conservation. However, our understanding of the complex web of social, political, economic and environmental change, the forces underlying these changes and the impact of these changes on biodiversity, local communities and humanity at large remains poorly understood.

The goal of Suri Sehgal Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation is to build a critical body of knowledge about India's biodiversity, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services of natural and managed ecosystems in the context of global, regional and local change and challenges. Understanding the role of biodiversity in sustaining human welfare is crucial to galvanizing conservation awareness and eliciting civil society support for conservation. Recognizing the structure, function, and value of biodiversity will enable us to prioritize outreach activities and natural resource management initiatives.


Ecosystems and global change

Introduction

The degradation of natural ecosystems is of particular concern for several reasons. Changes are rapid, and, when associated with loss of species or ecosystems, irreversible. The loss of natural ecosystems also results in loss of ecosystem services such as clean water from watersheds, retention of soil and soil fertility, sequestration of carbon and provision of pollinators and natural enemies of pests. Value of these ecosystems services often exceeds the annual gross domestic product of countries. In a country like India, millions of people rely on services and products from natural ecosystems to sustain their livelihoods. Our understanding of biodiversity in natural ecosystems in terms of patterns of occurrence, and their role and functions remain so woefully inadequate that we are unable to fully comprehend the consequences of its loss. With climate change, rapid penetration of markets, increasing urbanization, globalization and increasing spread of invasive species, biodiversity crisis is likely to get worse with far-reaching impacts on human societies. Therefore linking science with the effective management of complex tropical ecosystems is a critical necessity, although it is still in its infancy.

Accurately cataloging organisms using the science of taxonomy is fundamental to describing life on earth and to the conservation of biodiversity. There are many unknown species within the ecological communities that are still awaiting taxonomic scrutiny and whose functions and roles in ecosystems through coevolved plant–animal interactions are largely unknown.

There also are emerging threats to ecosystem functioning and biodiversity from climate change, invasive species and disease. We are only beginning to understand the dynamics of social–ecological systems that view human use and interventions, as in use of fire, as part of complex ecological dynamics over time and space, rather than as imposed constraints and conditions on static ecosystems. Finally, we are still largely ignorant about the synergies and feedbacks between bio-physical processes such as climate variability and human activities in shaping the dynamics and response of ecosystems and biodiversity over time and space. This programme will address these knowledge gaps using disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, and work towards a more scientifically informed and socially just conservation. This large programme has several working groups that focus on smaller, cohesive areas such as Biosystematics and Conservation Genetics, Monitoring and Managing Ecosystem Change, and Urban Ecology.

Primary faculty: Ravikanth G., Priyadarsanan Dharma Rajan (Programme leader), T. Ganesh, R. Ganesan, Ankila Hiremath (Co-programme leader), Robert Chandran, Harini Nagendra, N. A. Aravind

Secondary affiliations: M. Soubadra Devy, Nitin Rai, Shrinivas Badiger, Subhrajit Saha, Swati Shresth, Siddhartha Krishnan, Jagdish Krishnaswamy

Programme goal

To fill knowledge gaps to enable civil society and government to better manage ecosystems under global change.

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Ecosystem services and human wellbeing

Introduction

Natural landscapes such as forests, grasslands, mangroves and wetlands as well as managed ecosystems provide a range of ‘services’ to sustain human welfare. These include ‘provisioning’ services such as food, water, timber, fibre and genetic resources, ‘regulating’ services such as regulation of climate, floods, drought, land degradation, water quality and disease prevention, ‘supporting’ services such as soil formation, pollination and nutrient cycling and ‘cultural’ services such as recreational, spiritual, religious and other non-material benefits. If all human activity must be seen in terms of ‘economic value’, then we should not exempt ecosystem services from this scrutiny. Political, economic and civil societal support for conservation can be considerably enhanced if their worth to human society at local, regional or global scales can be quantified and economically valued. This could also be incentive for better governance of socio-ecological systems for sustainable resource use.

Despite the apparent success of the concept of ecosystem services, the progress in the practical application in land use planning and local decision-making has been slow. This is because existing markets do not factor values of ecosystem services in transactions. And our understanding of the socio-ecological, economic and political dimensions of such services, and their implications for equity and environmental justice is also poor. The Ecosystem Services and Human Wellbeing programme tries to bridge this knowledge gap by introducing ecosystem services into ongoing and new societal and policy discussions. The overall goal of this programme is to generate knowledge and increase capacity to enable conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem services in partnership with government and civil society at local, regional and national scales.

Primary faculty: M. Soubadra Devy, Jagdish Krishnaswamy (Programme leader as well as Centre Convenor)
Secondary affiliations: T. Ganesh, D. R. Priyadarsanan, Seema Purushothaman and Robert Chandran

Programme goal

To introduce ecosystem services into ongoing and new societal and policy discussions.

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Centre for Environment and Development

Human use of the earth’s biological, hydrological, soil and other natural resources is placing unmatched pressure on the assimilative capacities of local and global ecosystems. Countries in south Asia face a double challenge. The subsistence needs of a large rural population and the demands of a growing industrial sector and consumer class on forests, water resources and agricultural lands are generating both resource degradation and conflict. At the same time, the conventional development paradigm of rapid industrialization and urbanization, supposedly leading to poverty alleviation, is generating air, water and solid waste pollution and affecting human lives and ecosystem health at multiple scales. The brunt of both resource degradation and pollution is most heavily felt by the urban and rural poor. How the process of development – economic, technological, socio-cultural and political – can lead to sustainable and equitable use of natural resources and containment of the pollution burden, and how sustainable resource management can contribute to poverty alleviation and human wellbeing are the broad questions that drive the work of the Centre for Environment and Development. Currently, most of the research and policy outreach activities of the centre are focused on two sectors – forests and land-and-water systems – and are described in detail below. We have begun to engage the challenge of containing GHG emissions while meeting developmental needs. We will also critically address the changes needed in environmental governance across sectors. We have chosen to highlight the outcome of one such engagement addressing environmental governance as a cross-cutting activity across programmes under the Centre for Environment and Development.


Land, water and livelihoods

Introduction

Since the early 1990s, rapid increases in irrigated agriculture and industrial production have subjected South Asia’s land and water resources to immense stress. Subsequently, conflicts over access to water, as an irrigation and household resource have intensified. Reducing such stress and resolving conflicts require an understanding of the linkages between the state of land and water resource, sectoral use and demand, and socio-cultural, economic and political contexts. In the prevailing economic contexts of increasing growth, for instance, national and international policies recognize the increasing industrial demands for water that compete with agricultural and domestic demands. Thus, although the National Water Policy, 2002, lists both drinking water and irrigation as priorities during planning and operations, it privileges the former by mandating that drinking water ‘should be the first charge of any water’. Irrigation on the other hand is required to ‘optimise water use efficiency’ even as water and land use policies need to be closely integrated. Equity and social justice need to be given due regard in water allocation. Fresh water– surface and ground– needs to be sustainably managed so that all have access to safe and sufficient water to drink and stay healthy; and food producers have access to sufficient supply to meet growing needs of an increasing population.

The broad goal of the Land, Water and Livelihoods programme is to explore interactions between agricultural, domestic and industrial land and water practices, related policies, and livelihood systems in resource-stressed agricultural regions. It will focus on understanding the direction and drivers of change in water availability, water quality, land degradation and food security in land and water-stressed regions. It will also address the provision of environmental services for and by agricultural systems, and identify appropriate practical and policy strategies to achieve environmental sustainability and human wellbeing. Emergent climate change scenarios that influence such land, water and livelihood interactions will be an important aspect of research and analysis.

Primary faculty: Shrinivas Badiger, Mohan Seetharam, Bejoy K. Thomas, Seema Purushothaman, Siddhartha Krishnan (Programme leader)
Secondary affiliations: Sharachchandra Lele

Programme goal

To understand the trajectory and drivers of change occurring in land and water resources stressed regions with respect to water availability, water quality, land degradation, food security and provision of environmental services for and by the agricultural systems; and identify appropriate practical/ policy strategies to achieve environmental sustainability and human wellbeing.

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Forests and governance

Introduction

Forests and common lands generate products and services that benefit stakeholders at many scales – local, regional and global. What is the form and nature of these stakes? How do the stakes change depending upon the socio-ecological and economic context, history and framing of the problem? How may they be compared and prioritized? How are current attempts to define stakes, decentralize institutional arrangements and regulate forest loss actually playing out? And how could forest governance better reconcile competing claims and multiple stakes? The Forests and Governance programme at ATREE focuses on these questions in the context of the forests of south Asia.

Specifically, the programme will carry out research on the ecology of sustainable forest use and extraction by local communities, the ethnography of traditional ecological knowledge, the economics of forest dependence and impacts of different forest governance regimes and economic contexts, and the institutional and legal analysis of different existing and proposed changes in forest management in the region. Our effort will be to bring back into the forest policy debate the changing socio-economic context of local communities, the importance of historically situated and locally nuanced forest rights arrangements, and the need for institutional arrangements that link local and global stakeholders in a fair manner.

Primary faculty: Nitin Rai, Siddappa Setty, Subhrajit Saha, Swati Shresth, Sharachchandra Lele (Programme leader, also Centre Convenor)

Programme goal

The Forests and Governance programme will analyse existing forest governance in India, including policy on joint forest management (JFM), non-timber forest products (NTFPs), the forest land ‘encroachment’ question, net present value, and protected area policy, and collaborate with various groups to offer alternative approaches. The effort will be to bring back into the forest policy debate the changing socio-economic context of local communities, the importance of historically-situated and locally nuanced forest rights arrangements, and the need for institutional arrangements that link local and global stakeholders in a fair manner.

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