Session Information
| Session | Poster Session | | Date | Monday (2008-04-07) | | Time | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM | | Room | Grand Terrace |
Presentation Information
| Presenter | Yuka Makino | | Title | The effect of lopping on long-term forest succession in Garhwal Himalaya, India | | Affiliation | University of Michigan | | Authors | Yuka Makino | | Keywords | Forest regeneration, Forest sustainability, Himalayan ecology, Indigenous forest use, Lopping | | Presentation Type | Poster | Abstract:
Controversy between government policies, foresters and villagers over access to forests has existed in the Garhwal Himalaya, India since the late 1800s when the traditionally nomadic people were forced to settle. The 1927 Forest Act placed boundaries around the forests, and prohibited the village people from cultivating forested land, lopping (i.e. cutting branches) trees, or grazing livestock in the forest. The fundamental flaw in these laws and policies is that the villagers’ livelihood is dependent on these oak forests. The primary reason given by the Forest Department for limiting access is the belief that lopping is destructive to the oak trees and ultimately “degrades” the forest community.
No systematic research exists on the exact relationship between the practice of lopping and “forest degradation.” My objective is to assess the effects of lopping of Q. leucotricophora A. Camus and Q. floribunda Rehder on forest composition and regeneration over-time. Specifically: (1) examine the relationship among age, gender, kinship, and peoples’ perceptions on forest use and management, (2) examine how the lopping has changed forest composition and regeneration, and (3) determine how such changes will affect long-term sustainability of the forest ecosystems.
Data collected in 1993 and 2006 are compared to determine the impact of lopping on the sustainability of the forest ecosystems. Behavioral data on the lopping practice examined the influence of people’s age and gender on the diameter of branches and twigs lopped from a tree and on the weight of leaf bundles carried out of the forest. Females between 10 and 50 years old do most of the lopping work. As their age increases, females tend to lop smaller twigs, and males show a slight but significant (p=0.02) increase in size of twigs lopped.
Baseline data on overstory and ground-cover composition of a severely lopped forest and a protected forest were collected and analyzed for spatial aggregation and diversity. The two forests selected are similar in terms of number of stems, total basal area, and spatial patterns observed in the overstory. No significant difference occurs in the number of Q. leucotricophora in the overstory. There are a significantly greater number of stems regenerating in the severely lopped forest (p=0.002). The species richness of the regeneration in the severely lopped forest is greater than in the protected forest. Overall, the species diversity of the two forests is significantly different (alpha = 0.05).
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