Human-nature relations and political ecology of tiger conservation in the Idu Mishmi of Northeast India

这个奖学金的主要目的是从我的博士研究产生出版物。在我的博士研究期间，我在印度东北部发现了一个科学上未知的老虎种群，该种群在一个名为Dibang Valley的地区蓬勃发展，由当地人拥有和管理。目前，野生老虎不到4000只，大多数都在严格保护的保护区内，由军事化的警卫巡逻。尽管这一策略在某些地区拯救了老虎，但它被批评为剥夺了许多当地社区的权利，从而在他们和老虎保护主义者之间产生了不信任。因此，在中国（老虎器官的最大消费国）附近存在这种老虎种群，而没有任何正式的保护机制，这与保护界就保护野生老虎所需条件达成的广泛共识相矛盾。在我的论文中，我使用了多学科的方法来探索这种独特的老虎种群在迪邦山谷的生态，其人民的文化，Idu Mishmi和它的政治历史中存在的原因。实地调查持续了25个月，在2013-15期间，我与Idu家庭一起生活，学习Idu语言，并参与日常生活，包括耕作，狩猎和当地节日。我使用远程摄像机技术（部署了近300个摄像机“陷阱”）、遗传采样和野生动物狩猎调查进行了广泛的调查，以了解老虎和猎物种群的状况。总之，这些方法使我能够对该地区的野生动物、伊杜族与自然的关系、伊杜族萨满教和种族间关系的地缘政治学有了细致入微的了解。在回答论文问题时，我得出的结论是，老虎继续在迪邦谷蓬勃发展，这是由于伊杜土地保有权和土地使用制度的多层次相互作用，防止了大规模的栖息地变化，对狩猎和野生肉类消费施加限制的禁忌，季节性迁徙生态，使某些动物物种在一年中的大部分时间都无法被猎人获得，印度政府的保护主义政策迄今为止限制了外来者在迪邦谷的大规模定居。特别是，我发现，伊杜人与老虎有亲缘关系的信仰--一种基于人类与自然世界平等和相互依存的意识形态--在他们从周围的景观中消失时，对他们的持续存在做出了重大贡献。然而，伊杜人与老虎的故事因外部因素而复杂化，主要是印度政府关于大规模水电大坝和公路发展的政策，这些政策可能会对当地文化产生持久的影响，最终保护了老虎。这项工作质疑现有的人与自然分离的范式，认为这是生物多样性保护的根本。它探讨我们考虑自然保护的替代模式，当地文化习俗可以发挥比传统执法更大的作用。通过该研究金，我计划与三个用户群体接触：（a）学术界-在同行评审的期刊上发表我的研究，以进一步讨论当地人民在生物多样性保护中的作用;（B）决策者和养护工作者-向自由撰稿记者提供出版材料，并与当地倡导团体合作编写政策简报，以影响决策，特别是有关基础设施发展的决策;（c）当地伊杜族人（他们一再为伊杜族语言和文化的消失而哀叹）-与当地伙伴共同为当地一所学校编制“伊杜族语言和文化”课程。最后，我还计划写的资金建议，建立在我的博士研究，并建议进行类似的跨学科研究与印度东北部的另一个土著社区，以了解自然，文化和地缘政治之间的关系的区域模式。

The primary aim of this fellowship is to produce publications from my doctoral research. During my PhD research, I identified a scientifically-unknown population of tigers in Northeast India thriving in an area called Dibang Valley, owned and managed by local people. Currently, less than 4000 tigers occur in the wild, most within strictly protected reserves patrolled by military-styled guards. Although this strategy has saved tigers in some areas, it has been criticized for dispossessing many local communities generating mistrust between them and the tiger conservationists. Therefore, the existence of this tiger population in close proximity to China (the largest consumer of tiger parts) without any formal protection mechanisms contradicted widely-held agreement within the conservation community on the conditions required to conserve wild tigers. In my thesis, I used a multi-disciplinary approach to explore the reasons for existence of this unique tiger population in Dibang Valley's ecology, the culture of its people, the Idu Mishmi, and its political history.Fieldwork lasted 25 months over 2013-15 during which I lived with Idu families learning the Idu language and participating in daily life including farming, hunting and local festivals. I conducted widespread surveys using remote camera technology (deploying nearly 300 camera 'traps'), genetic sampling and wildlife hunting surveys to understand the status of tiger and prey populations. Together, these methods allowed me to develop a nuanced understanding of the area's wildlife, Idu-nature relations, Idu shamanism and geopolitics of inter-ethnic relations. In response to the thesis question, I concluded that tigers had continued to thrive in Dibang Valley due to a multi-layered interaction of Idu land tenure and land-use system that prevent large-scale habitat change, taboos that impose restriction on hunting and wild meat consumption, seasonal migratory ecology which makes certain animals species unavailable to hunters for large parts of the year, and the Indian government's protectionist policies that have so far restricted large-scale outsider settlement in Dibang Valley. In particular, I found that Idu beliefs in kinship with tigers - an ideology grounded in equality and interdependence of human and natural worlds - had contributed significantly to their persistence while they had disappeared from the surrounding landscape.However, the Idu-tiger story is complicated by external factors, chiefly the Indian government's policies on large-scale hydro-power dam and highway development that is likely to have a lasting impact on local culture, and ultimately the tiger it has helped protect. This work questions the existing paradigm of separation between people and nature as fundamental to biodiversity conservation. It probes us to consider alternative models of nature conservation where local cultural practices could play a muchlarger role than conventional law-enforcement. Through the fellowship, I plan to engage with three user groups: (a) Academia - by publishing my research in peer-reviewed journals to further debates on the role of local people in biodiversity conservation; (b) Policy-makers and conservation practitioners - by supplying published material to freelance journalists and working with local advocacy groups on policy briefs to influence policy-making, particularly, regarding infrastructure development; (c) Local Idu people (who repeatedly lament the loss of Idu language and culture) - by co-producing, with a local partner, a course curriculum in 'Idu language and culture' for a local school. Finally, I also plan to write funding proposals that build upon my doctoral research and propose to conduct similar cross-disciplinary studies with another indigenous community in Northeast India to understand regional patterns in relationships between nature, culture and geopolitics.