An Overview Of Our Solution
A community operated assessment and compensation for crop damage by wild herbivores:
Crop damage by protected herbivore species is a significant problem faced by conservation efforts. In India law enables compensation of the damage by government agencies, however, realistic assessment of damage and due compensation are turning out to be practically impossible leading to resentment in farmers.
We suggest a community operated system based on behavioural economics, in which farmers sharing comparative risk self-report their net produce and a system of compensation is designed in such a way that only honest reporting gives maximum pay-off. Both under-reporting and over-reporting get punished in the system. Since rules of the game ensure honesty, there is little need for policing or negotiations. The system can become an ideal example of self-governance by people.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Asia
General Information
Organization type
Gubernamental
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Population impacted
About 100 farmers in pilot stage, later all farmer
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
About 100 hectares at a pilot scale, to be extended for country-wide, and may be world-wide implementation
Production quantity
ex. 100 kilos
People employed
2-4 at the research and pilot scale, later no separate employment needed since it will be a self-governed system by farmers
Solution
Describe your solution
Details of a proposed solution are described in a published research paper (Watve et al 2016). The forest department of Maharashtra state is seriously considering implementation of the solution on a pilot scale. The principle behind the proposal is that the loss will be estimated from an average deficit in self-reported yield from a belt of farmers facing comparable risk of damage. Percent compensation will be calculated based on the average and this percent will be paid on the self-reported yield (endorsed by neighboring farmers) by every individual farmer. In this scheme a farmer under-reporting yield and thereby exaggerating damage will be automatically at a loss. A farmer over-reporting yield can get individual benefit but there will be community loss and therefore endorsing farmers can prevent over-reporting. In effect every individual will be forced to report honestly. A detailed mathematical and behavioral account of the scheme is described in Watve et al (2016) which examines all possible ways of defying the system and simple solutions to prevent defection. The system also encourages farmers to increase agricultural inputs and productivity. Since there is no need to claim, fight or negotiate for a compensation, the attitude towards animals can be friendlier.
However, social and bureaucratic acceptance of the system and detailed implementation plan needs more research and pilot scale implementation which is being proposed.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
The solution emerged out of a 8 year long study of the problem in one area involving close interaction with farmers as well as forest officials along with independent first hand data collection. As a result, the proposed scheme stands as an emergent solution rather than an imposed one. Both local farmers and concerned forest officials have welcomed the proposal increasing our confidence w.r.t. social acceptability. However, the legal and procedural angles also need to change and that happens at a higher level of administration. Before a state or country level decision can be taken it is necessary to implement and study the working of the system at an experimental scale.
Another experiment increasing our confidence is that the system was tried in the form of game and participants’ response was studied. It was observed that participants may try to be selfish but soon realize that only honesty works and start behaving honestly (see Watve et al 2016 for data).
The system is visualized to be completely computerized and transparent thereby discouraging personal favors and corruption which is a major curse in the current bureaucratic systems. Computational and network facilities have reached even the remotest parts of India thereby enabling an effective implementation. Since all stake holders realize the gravity of the problem and are keen to find a solution it is most likely to be welcomed by all local stakeholders.
The only possible obstacle is delays in bringing about a change in government systems and protocols. For this to happen we need to make a strong case with demonstrated success. Conditions under which the system can fail are also clearly identified in Watve et al (2016). They exist in some parts of the country but not in others. Therefore expanding the scheme needs to be careful and selective.
External connections
Farmers and wildlife managers are visualized to be the direct beneficiaries of the system. The farmers would get a direct economic benefit, whereas the benefit to wildlife management would be indirect but extremely important. On the one hand it will reduce the burden of admitting, verifying and processing the compensation claims for which the Department of Forest and Wildlife does not have sufficient man-power. Although greater amount of money would be spent to give realistic damage compensation, a greater conservation support from local people is expected which would ease the demand on policing and protection. There is precedence in model cases where people were given rights and responsibilities of forest resources, they established self-governance systems for forest protection.
Apart from benefitting the direct stakeholders, the proposed system exemplifies how social governance systems can be designed. In the proposed system if everyone behaves selfishly, there will be honesty and justice. This is an important principle that can find multiple applications in social and administrative systems. Therefore democratic and co-operative organizations at various levels should be interested in it and learn from the experiment.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
The challenge is that of sustaining coexistence of farmers and wild life. Economic damage to crops by herbivores is at least two orders of magnitude greater than livestock killing (Bayani et al 2016). Although there is a legal provision for compensating farmers, in reality it seldom works because there are no reliable methods to determine the extent of damage, particularly by small to medium sized herbivores. As a result, compensation paid currently is between 0.1 to 1 % of actual damage (See Bayani et al 2016 for data). Naturally there is increasing resentment in spite of the tolerant nature of Indian farmers. Both under and over-compensation can be potentially counterproductive and realistic assessment and compensation is badly needed.
Describe the context in which you are operating
Many studies have shown that Indian farmers are highly tolerant and consider wild animals as an intrinsic part of nature. However, in the current compensation protocols they need to negotiate hard with the authority and this is giving rise to “your animal syndrome”, which can be a major conservation disaster. Our studies in central India show that farmers close to national parks suffer 50-70% crop loss whereas government records of compensation cover less than 1% (see Bayani et al 2016 for data). Attempts to deter herbivores from crops have largely failed and mathematical models reveal the reasons for their almost inevitable failure (see Watve et al 2016 for the mathematical models). In a highly populated country like India sparing large areas of land for wildlife has limitations and therefore promoting peaceful co-existence of people and wildlife is the only solution. The solution should serve secured existence of wildlife along with food security and quality of life for people.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
A peaceful and sustainable coexistence of people with wildlife parks is perhaps the best booster to biodiversity survival and enhancement
Language(s)
Marathi, English, Hindi
Water
Not directly applicable
Food Security/Nutrition
Greater food security for farmers since the loss is compensated. In addition it is greater food security and nutrition for wild herbivores as well. Currently wild habitats have become extremely patchy and partial dependence of wild animals on agricultural crops has become inevitable. But this has been a major cause of conflict potentially threatening conservation. At least partially resolving the conflict can lead to better and more secured life for both farmers as well as wildlife.
Economic/Sustainable Development
Although implementing a realistic compensation needs greater external inputs for wildlife management, it needs to be realized that this is the true cost of conservation. Since the benefits of wildlife and forest conservations are shared globally, it is fully justified that money flows from the entire society to salvage the loss to the sufferers. But in the present scheme this would be done without the guise of charity, which is important for a social feel of equality and comfort.
Climate
Not directly applicable
Sustainability
As stated above the system does depend upon external money flow, but it is completely justified given the global benefits of conservation. A democratic government in an environmentally aware society is the right agency to mediate the flow of money.
Return on investment
In the research and pilot implementation phase, appropriate research grant is needed apart from the due compensation money. This is to test and demonstrate that the behaviour of farmers is honest, the inputs and productivity of agriculture is increased and attitude of people towards conservation is improved as expected by the system. Also all paper-work and computational systems need to be carefully designed. Once these goals are achieved, the community operated system will run without any external inputs apart from the actual compensation money. Even the government personnel requirement will be substantially reduced since minimum policing, verification and handling of individual cases is required.
Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
After successful pilot implementation awareness generation and transmission of proper information is the only most critical input needed for replicating the system elsewhere. Once people realize the potential, implementational ease and robustness of the system, successful replication will naturally follow.