Hidden Wealth- The Strategy of Foraging Farmers in the Upper Arun Valley, Eastern Nepal

Foreword The contrasting perspectives on the complex mosaic of forests and fields called the jungal reflect how local people use it differently from external agencies. The power-holders view the jangal as "low status" and "peripheral." and their reg ulations affect the welfare of the local communities living on its fringes. Twenty months of research were conducted during 1991-1993 in the upper Apsuwa Valley, Eastern Nepal, among Rai and Sherpa marginalized hill farmers living on the gal's fringes, Ethnographic, ethmobotanical and nutritional data were collected to explore the subsistence pattern of these farmers. The study showed that the jangal is viewed by them as a polycrop in a broadly-conceived niche, containing resources imperceptible to outsiders. The jangal is key to their survival, especially as available land has become reduced and more fragmented due to increasing population and indebtedness.

The Jangal provides an economic buffer by allowing swidden cultivation and the trade in chiraito (a medicinal plant) to alleviate the impact of food scarcity peri ods. Traditional swiddens increase, rather than degrade, biodiversity. Oral history links 'wild' tubers to Rai cultural identity. 'Wild' tubers are nutritionally rich, but are devalued by outsiders. Women depend on the gathering of such ingestibles to provide staples and micro-nutrients for their household food security. "Wild greens are often held in disdain by groups hoping to improve their social status. These groups often suffer from nutritional deficiencies as a result. The fact that the jangal contains sacred forests and many deities helps ensure that the Rais and Sherpas will carefully protect its resources.

This study used an integrated approach to look at the non-farm environment as the ultimate polycrop system. This environment has high diversity and is a repos itory of many valuable nutritional, medicinal, economic (subsistence and cash), reli gious and cultural major resources. External agencies often see resources of the jangal as minor and miss its wealth. The changing of boundaries by the government has threatened the farmers' access to common property resources. If the jangal's diversity is to be protected and the people's use of it assured, co-operation between the government and the local people is essential.

All Nepali words have been transliterated following the method of R.L.. Turner (1980), and with the assistance of Gregory Maskarinec. Sherpa, Tibetan and Rai words will be identified by the letters "S", "T", and "R" respectively. Tibetan spellings for Sherpa words, when equivalents could be found, have been transliterated by Tinley Dhondup.

Preface Mountain people have had to, because their place-based cultures and lack of integration in mainstream economics have required it. So too, the mountains themselves make integrated, intensive approaches the norm. The extensive development model of the lowlands simply is not practical in the variable topographies and climates of upland regions. Sustainability in mountains, then, is both art and applied science. What learning can the environment and development community glean from the wisdom of these traditional practices?

Ephrosine Daniggelis spent twenty months living and working among the Rai and Sherpa communities of the upper Apsuwa Valley, learning from them about their sustainable uses of the jangal, a mosaic of natural forests and agricultural fields in a little known part o Nepal. Her work is a landmark in furthering our understanding of the complex survival strategies of mountain people. Understanding how local people value and manage their own natural resources is the first step in designing new models of sustainable resources management something that. The Mountain Institute is committed to and has been doing for almost 30 years in the Himalaya, the Andes and the Appalachian ranges.

It is a pleasure for The Mountain Institute to co-publish this work, which adds importantly to learning about sustainability strategies in mountains. The research was supported by the Makalu Barun Conservation Project, an innovative project of HMG Nepal and The Mountain Institute to help local people manage and protect a globally significant natural treasure just east of the Mount Everest eco-system. The Mountain Institute has been working with the government of Nepal and especially with local people to help document these important indigenous knowledge systems. It is our hope that disseminating this knowledge will help conserve these and other biologically rich mountain areas, while creating opportunities for mountain people to earn sustainable livelihoods.

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