Sub-theme 9. Conservation, environmental justice and the commons
Panel 9.7.
Common-ing regulatory institutions for Environmental Justice
In India, where marginalized communities still depend on common natural resource for their basic sustenance, the environmental regulations meant to safeguard these commons have increasingly been altered or diluted to promote economic growth through private ownership over commons. This spate of regulatory changes has met with stiff resistance and sharp criticism from most quarters such as user communities, civil society groups and ecologists. However, the conversation around the need to democratize these regulatory bodies, which are fast either getting dismantled or taken over by corporate agencies, is still a faint murmur in the room. Commoning of regulatory institutions will help us evoke a deeper version of democratic governance and reinstitute the idea of commons in the mainstream policy debates.
In India, the wide network of central and state pollution control boards, one of the oldest and decentralized regulatory agency, provides us a fertile field to experiment with the idea of commoning an environmental regulatory institution for environmental justice. This institution offers us many potential inroads towards building a more accountable, participatory and transparent regulatory framework for environmental decision making, which unfortunately is largely taken over by corporate agencies. A detailed review of these boards and the legal frameworks within which it operates, will not only help us understand the existing participatory appetite of this body; but also aspects where efforts of commoning can yield maximum benefits in terms of better protection of commons and its shared ownership by the most marginalized in the society.
1. Role of Changpa Women in Preserving Their Textile Heritage- A Case Study of Ladakh India
Tata Institute of Social Science, India and Looms of Ladakh Women Cooperative, India
The number of Changpa pastoralists adopting semi-pastoralism and settled agro-pastoralism is increasing. A number of Changpa community pastoralists are migrating to Leh town in the Trans-Himalayas in India. Changpas rear the Changra breed of goat which gives the fabled fibre ‘pashm’ along with yak and sheep wool. Younger generation have started working in various white collared jobs. Many of the younger lot have also started engaging in unskilled blue-collar jobs in the construction and burgeoning tourism industry. Literature highlights a lack of knowledge regarding this pastoralist community’s need for collective action and the role their women can play in it. Policy focus is on increasing the quantity of entrepreneurs in the Leh town, in high economic value ‘pashm’ rather than the quality of collective enterprise by the pastoralists and artisans in villages. The women of the Changpa community are the ones still practising their traditional utilitarian crafts to diversify their household income.The aim of this qualitative study is to provide insights on how the women are preserving tangible heritage of the Changpas.Semi-structured interviews in Changthang and in the urban sprawling to where many of the pastoralist households have migrated, shall explore the traditional textile and craft skills of these women, significance of these skills in the past and the value they associate with these now, along with objectives of skill trainings these women become part of. This article shall examine the role of Changpa women in preserving their traditional textile and craft heritage. It shall also discuss their contribution to the nascent high economic value ‘Ladakh Pashmina’ industry. The need for their ownership and collective action for sustainability shall also be discussed.
