Reimagining forests in the anthropocene

Abstract

Once Heavily forested and a major source of livelihood for tribal people, Bundelkhand has become devoid of the forest cover. Moreover, the recent tendency of ’Development at the cost of Destruction.’ suffered by various other forest covers in the region like road construction, Narmada river project has now reached the Buxwaha forest in the form of The prospected Bunder Diamond mining project which led to the emergence of this project study. Wherein, the duration of the study, it was deduced that the present condition of buxwaha forest land is depleting its natural landscape because of the present anthropogenic activities and the severe water scarcity, and the continuance of such depletion will lead to further degradation even with the permanent stay on the mining activity. Additionally, there is a strong relevance of the Forest to prehistoric times and ancient mythology. It was also noted that once rich with cultural integrity of raj gond tribes the region is occupied by the other nonindigenous tribes as well with agriculture as the main source of livelihood, however, dependency on the forest produce is still crucial for all the villagers. The region needs necessary preventive actions with the immediate force for conserving and maintaining the original landscape. Hence this study further explores the landscape-scale interventions that could lead to the conservation of the Natural-Cultural heritage and upliftment of Nature-Human relationships in the region Keywords- Sustainable forest management, sustainable development, Natural-Cultural heritage, Nature -Human relationship