Peaceful Societies

Oscar Temaru, the leader of the opposition in French Polynesia, has called on educators in the territory to begin teaching children in English rather than in French. In early May, Temaru, the leader of the pro-independence party, was defeated in territorial elections for president by his long-time opponent, Gaston Flosse, who wants the Tahitians to remain an integral part of France.

This summer, the Tahitians heatedly discussed the appropriate language to use in the Society Islands. In June, when a French court struck down some laws passed by the Territorial Assembly because they had been discussed partly in the Tahitian language, Édouard Fritch, the assembly president, appealed to the President of France. The Territorial Assembly passed a resolution on the issue in July.

It is not clear from the news report last week if the discussions about the Tahitian language last summer played a role in Mr. Temaru’s latest proposal. He argued that switching from French to English would make geographic and economic sense for the territory.

“We are surrounded by English-speaking countries and our first industry is tourism and 90 per cent of the visitors are English-speaking people. There are a lot of people around the world who are interested in coming to Tahiti, but when they look at the other countries around us they speak English and we speak French. So that’s an obstacle, it’s a barrier—if they want to hear the French language, they go to Paris, not Tahiti,” he said.

Temaru admitted that the government in Paris would likely oppose such a move. The news report added that the French government provides $US 700 million to support the education system in the territory.

But, he argued, French Polynesia should look to Singapore, where English is used in professional communications. English is “the language of diplomacy, politics and economics throughout the world—we have to update ourselves,” he said. He acknowledged that the change will take time, but he said it is the proper way for the territory to proceed.

A report in the Christian Science Monitor six years ago about the switch by Rwanda from French to English also credited the inspiration for changing national languages to Singapore. Rwandan leaders wanted “to help Rwanda become the Singapore of Africa. English is their language of instruction,” the Monitor journalist wrote. Obviously, Rwanda does not have the peaceful history of Tahiti, but it does have hopes of making considerable economic progress—like Singapore.

According to a news story last week, the Jammu and Kashmir state Director of Tourism, Talat Parvaiz, reported that 137,400 tourists have visited Ladakh so far this year. He also said that 11.68 crore rupees ($US 1,900,000) has been spent on tourism development projects in the Ladakh region during the same period. The report did not indicate how much money the tourists brought to Ladakh.

According to another official, Minister of Tourism Gulam Ahmed Mir, “all efforts are being made to promote the tourism industry and attract tourists from across the globe to the State.” Mr. Mir emphasized the importance of bringing in tourists—and the need for expanding programs that will foster cultural heritage tourism.

So far, it appears as if the tourists only have a negative effect on the Ladakhi on sporadic occasions. In fact, one visiting scholar felt that the Ladakhis enjoy being photographed by tourists. They see tourism as an appropriate way to bring in needed outside revenue, and will dress in their colorful traditional costumes in order to be photographed by the visitors at the numerous summer festivals.

However, some Ladakhi leaders did take strong exception to the sex, alcohol, and drugs that pervaded a music festival in the summer of 2009. Conservative Buddhist leaders were able to convince the state government to cancel the festival at the last moment in 2010. Other observers also recognize the danger that tourism can pose to traditional Ladakhi culture and values, and have been advocating appropriate measures to control the growth of the industry.

While the news report last week does not provide any further analysis of the situation, the presentation of statistics helps outsiders—and, more critically, the Ladakhis themselves—to understand the extent of their tourist business.

Although tourists visit some of the other peaceful societies, the Amish are by far the largest magnet for visitors. According to a Lancaster County promotion website, about 10 million tourists come to the county every year, generating an economic impact of $1.8 billion. Much of the tourism business is based, directly or indirectly, on the presence of 31,000 Amish in the county, some of whom do, of course, benefit directly from the tourist trade.

Numerous writers have discussed the resentments that many Amish in the county feel about the inaccuracies of films and TV shows, and they are offended by tourists who take their pictures without permission. But when and if the Ladakhi have nearly 100 times as many tourists as they do now—numbers comparable to those of Lancaster County—they might find their welcoming attitudes wearing thin also.

An AP report last Thursday explained that the recent protests in Thailand have been caused by deep divisions between the peaceful rural Thai and urban residents of the country. Protesters in Bangkok resent the elected government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. He was driven out of office in 2006 by a military coup, and the protesters want to remove her from office also.

The story makes it clear that in rural Thailand, Thaksin is still considered to be a hero for advancing the interests of the poor. Despite his evident corruption—he became a billionaire businessman—it was his unwavering support for the rural poor that earned him the enmity of urban elites and their followers.

The journalist visited the village of Kambon, in rural northeast Thailand, and interviewed villagers. A retired primary school teacher, Pichai Poltakland, told the reporter that Thaksin brought paved roads, low cost education loans, health care that is almost free, and old age pensions to the village, programs that didn’t exist before his term in office.

Thaksin bridged the huge divide between the urban elites that have traditionally ruled the country for their own advantage and the rural poor who finally gained government benefits during his period in office, 2001 – 2006. Despite now living in self-imposed exile, he remains massively popular in rural Thailand. Tens of thousands of villages like Kambon, millions of people, still support the former prime minister—and his sister, the current Prime Minister.

No one in rural Thailand is advocating violence, but the threat is implicit. A middle-aged rice farmer, Thongplean Boonphunga, told the AP, “across the northeast we can seize every government office in every town, in every city, in every province.” The urban elites may deride Thaksin supporters as country bumpkins, but the rural poor have the numbers on their side.

The perspective of many in rural Thailand is that while the countryside was bypassed as economic progress came to the cities, all that changed when Thaksin assumed power. He was from the north himself, made his fortune in telecommunications, and entered politics. The rural people see him as a man who came from their background, understood their problems, and attempted to help them. “The Thaksin government gave them concrete moments in their lives,” according to David Streckfuss, an American scholar living in Thailand.

The trouble started last month when Yingluck’s Pheu Thai party began pushing an amnesty bill in parliament which would have allowed Thaksin to return from exile. Anti-Thaksin factions in Bangkok started protesting. The street protests last week have captured international headlines, but the demonstrations have been remarkably restrained, considering the animosity of the protesters.

However, on Sunday last week, December 1, the situation in Bangkok finally became violent. Police started using force to contain the protesters, who carried rocks and petrol bombs to try and battle their way into government buildings. As of Sunday night, four people were killed and 103 injured. Protesters issued an ultimatum for the Prime Minister to resign, which she refused to do. On Monday, they continued throwing rocks and bottles at the police lines, and the police began using rubber bullets on the mobs. Suthep Thaugsuban, the leader of the protesters, on Monday called on his followers to “wage war on the police.”

Analysts feel that the protesters were attempting to bait a heavier response from the government, thinking that a bloody police reprisal would escalate the crisis and strengthen their hand. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a scholar at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, argued that the government’s best strategy was to do nothing, since the birthday of the king was coming up later in the week. No one would want to protest during the holiday.

Suthep and Yingluck had met on Sunday. Suthep advocated a complete abdication of the government in favor of an unelected “people’s council”, which would rule in place of the constitutional government. Yingluck expressed willingness to negotiate with the protesters, but she refused to give up the parliamentary government and the democratic constitution of the country. Her response was quite diplomatic: “At this point, we don’t see how we can make it happen under this constitution,” she said.

Then, to further combat the continuing protesters, the Yingluck government took a novel, much more peaceful, approach. On Tuesday, December 3, it removed the barriers and the barbed wire. Riot police lowered their shields and opened the doors to a police compound that the mobs had vowed to besiege. As protesters entered the compound, police officers greeted them politely and posed for pictures with them. The police then opened the gates to the prime minister’s office.

Kamronvit Thoopkrachang, Bangkok’s chief of police, told Reuters, “in every area where there has been confrontation, we have now ordered all police to withdraw. It is government policy to avoid confrontation.”

Tens of thousands of protesters were allowed to occupy buildings in downtown Bangkok, with the police standing by quietly. Crowds grew in the evening, forming a carnival-like atmosphere. Demonstrators offered free food and foot massages, as the protesters occupied government buildings. The rest of the city went on with normal activities.

Suthep declared a partial victory. He urged his supporters to stay and continue the struggle. He gave them the signal that they should honor their elderly king Bhumibol Adulyadej, who would be celebrating his 86th birthday on Thursday. The birthday of the revered monarch is a national holiday in Thailand. Suthep said they would resume the fight after the birthday celebrations were over.

On Thursday, the monarch appeared briefly in his wheelchair in his palace and read slowly from a piece of paper: “Our country has been peaceful for a long time because we are united in our country and perform duties for the sake of the national interest,” he said.

This past weekend, all members of the opposition Democrat Party in parliament resigned in support of the protesters. In response, Ms. Yingluck on Monday called for elections. Realizing that they will lose again at the polls, protest leaders approached the military about the possibility of another coup to restore them to power. But army General Prayuth Chanocha has so far demurred, reportedly replying, “we must be patient and seek a peaceful solution.”

It appears as if the military officers, as well as the Prime Minister, are attempting to follow the Rural Thai values of peaceful accommodation to opponents.

The government of Namibia established the Nyae Nyae Community Forest for the Ju/’hoansi earlier this year and the land is already threatened by illegal grazing. According to a report last week in the daily newspaper The Namibian, Xoallan /Ai!Ae, the chair of the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, went to the national capital, Windhoek, to plead with the authorities for help.

He told the paper that he had reported the matter to the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, and the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement, but so far nothing has been done. He presented a letter dated November 27 urging the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry to enforce the national laws and halt what he called “ongoing criminal activity.”

“Unfortunately, we have to report that illegal grazing is taking place in the Nyae Nyae Community Forest on a widespread and continuous basis. This is a clear criminal offence, since none of the livestock owners have been given permission to graze from the Forest Management Committee,” /Ai!Ae said.

He indicated that the illegal grazing, which began in 2009, defeats the basic purposes of the creation of the community forest in the first place. “Without some level of enforcement of the laws relating to the Forestry Act, our community forest cannot manage its resources if others are allowed to utilise them without permission or regulation,” he said.

The Namibian approached a spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry. She replied that the matter needed to be reviewed by the other two agencies that also could be involved with enforcing the laws. She said that queries should be taken to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism.

The excellent recent book on the Ju/’hoansi by Biesele and Hitchcock refers briefly to the hoped-for creation of a Nyae Nyae Community Forest. The authors, writing several years ago, indicate that for a long time the Ju/’hoansi have wanted to carefully manage, utilize, and conserve their forest resources.

The village of Cape Dorset on western Baffin Island enthusiastically supports its Inuit artists, some of whom have a reputation of producing world-class art. Two years ago, the artists in the community were covered in a college newspaper, and last week they were the subject of a feature story in the major international news source, Al Jazeera.

The reporter who visited Cape Dorset focused on the creativity of the artists. They draw and sculpt walruses, seals, whales, polar bears, and other animals, but they often introduce mythic elements as well as fine natural details to their works. An owl or a goose may be depicted with finely drawn feathers, but a frog may have the hands and head of a man and the soul of a monster.

Bill Ritchie, manager of the Kinngait Studio, which is part of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-op, said about the art works that he exhibits, “when you see this work hanging on a wall, it’s not what you expect. It’s new, provocative, edgy and often joyful.” He sees his role as an art dealer as making sure that the best art productions get into the hands of buyers farther to the south, and that the talented artists are richly rewarded for their creativity.

The Al Jazeera journalist visited the Kinngait studios, on a side street of Cape Dorset, and observed several artists working in back rooms. Shuvinai Ashoona was in one room hunched over a drawing pad. She is considered a cutting edge artist for drawing such scenes as a woman giving birth to a monster.

Jutai Toonoo works nearby. He used to be a sculptor, but he lost some fingers in an accident so he has turned to drawing instead. He is working from a cell phone photo he took of a small wildflower wilting under a crust of new snow. He says that, in the Arctic, one has to look closely at the land to find things to draw since there are no trees.

“When you look really close, sometimes there’s a forest of plants, tiny plants. And that’s what I like to draw. Today, anyway.” He views his drawing as “a crazy form of healing” that allows him to get his feelings out on paper.

Pitaloosie Saila in the next room is busy signing a pile of her prints. Speaking in Inuktitut, she tells the journalist that she is proud of the fact that many of her works are on display in the cities to the south. It is important to her that they are making people happy. She likes the fact that outsiders are learning from her works how the Inuit live and what they do.

Tim Pitsiulak’s work adorns a 25 cent Canadian coin, and his creations hang in boardrooms in major cities. But he says he’s really a hunter at heart. He shows Al Jazeera a photo on a computer screen of a walrus that he shot just the previous week. Then he shows off pictures of his 19-year old son, who just shot his own first walrus.

But his art expresses his visions of the animals. He includes legendary themes, showing creatures that are half animal and half human, or animals that have human clothing on them. Pointing to one drawing, he says, “that one is a sea monster that lives under the ice and drags people into the ocean. That was fun to draw.”

Bill Ritchie, the manager of the studio, praises the artists and adds that the younger ones are more fortunate than their elders. The older artists could only speak Inuktitut, while the younger people are also fluent in English, so they can speak for themselves. “That opens a whole new world to the younger ones,” he believes.

An annual offering of Cape Dorset prints this year featured 32 works from 11 artists, including seven from the late Kenojuak Ashevak, one of the most prominent Canadian artists of recent years. She died in 2013, a “Canadian national treasure.” She was famed for her sculptures, paintings, and prints—and as a leading citizen of Cape Dorset.

As the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday approached last week, an Amish family decided to flee to Canada to prevent unwanted medical treatment for their daughter.

Andy and Anna Hershberger and their 10 year old daughter Sarah Hershberger have been contending with medical authorities in Ohio’s Akron Children’s Hospital. The Hershbergers state that the chemotherapy drugs prescribed for the child’s leukemia have caused painful side effects for her. In June, they refused any further treatment, preferring natural vitamins and herbal treatments instead. The hospital took them to court to force the parents to allow the chemotherapy.

According to one news report on Wednesday, doctors argued that the girl has an 85 percent chance of living if she continues with the medical treatment, but will die within a year if she is not given the medicine. In October, an appellate court, overruling a lower court decision, sided with the hospital. The court appointed a registered nurse who is also an attorney, Maria Schimer, with the power to decide medical issues regarding the child.

The family disappeared from their farm sometime before October 30. An attorney for the Hershbergers, John Oberholtzer, and an attorney for Ms. Schimer, Clair Dickinson, both reported on Wednesday that they did not know the whereabouts of the family. Oberholtzer said the family has kept in contact with him to see how their appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court is progressing.

On Thanksgiving day, Thursday, new reports indicated that the Hershbergers had fled to Canada to avoid the threatening American medical forces. A different attorney representing the family, Maurice Thompson, told ABC News that the family has a “moral right to refuse conventional medical treatment.”

Thompson told the news service, “Sarah’s condition has gotten a lot better since the family has been pursuing the alternative treatment.” Andy Hershberger, the father, had told ABC News in August, “We’ve seen how sick [the chemotherapy] makes her. Our belief is the natural stuff will do just as much as that stuff if it’s God’s will.” The attorney said that the family had left the U.S. in order to seek alternative treatments, and has no plans to return to Ohio.

But Mr. Hershberger apparently did not cite any religious reasons for opposing the chemotherapy. Instead, the concern of the parents is for the suffering of the child. “If we do chemotherapy and she would happen to die, she would probably suffer more than if we would do it this way and she would happen to die,” he said.

A different news source on Thursday quoted an oncologist from the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children, Howard Weinstein, on the value of continuing prescribed chemotherapy treatments, even when the patient experiences adverse reactions during the first month.

Dr. Weinstein explained that the girl could restart her chemotherapy, and while it would have a reasonable chance of success, the cancer would be even more difficult to cure because of the interruption.

He argued that while parents and children who are taking chemotherapy may feel the treatment is worse than the illness, they need to persist, since the final outcome is normally better. The parents may think that the improvement the child is experiencing is due to the switch to the natural methods, but that is incorrect. “The first month of chemotherapy did all the work,” he contends.

A news story on Friday gives a contrary impression. It indicated that Sarah’s grandfather, Isaac Keim, told the Akron Beacon Journal that the girl was continuing with her natural treatments and he says she is doing better. He contends that medical tests show that the cancer is now gone. Sarah, who recently turned 11, seems healthy and vibrant.

The earlier news stories had indicated that the Medina County sheriff, Tom Miller, was not planning to search for the family unless required to do so by a court order. Hospital authorities have not said whether they will seek further legal action against the family. Meanwhile the girl and her parents have returned to the U.S., Mr. Keim said, but they remain in hiding.

Their reaction, of flight from threats posed by the hospital authorities, follows long Amish tradition. Hostetler (1993, p.76) wrote that the Amish follow the example of Isaac in the Bible. Faced with the hostility of the Philistines, he moved to new lands and dug new wells to resist fighting with them (Gen. 26:15-29). Therefore, facing hostile actions or threats, the Amish take the biblical example literally: they usually move to new locations without defending themselves. The flight of the Hershberger family exemplifies this pattern of Amish nonresistance.

One of the fascinating aspects of the peaceful society on Tristan da Cunha is the pride the Islanders take in their heritage of rescuing people from shipwrecks. A couple years ago, when a huge cargo vessel, the MS Oliva, struck a reef on the nearby Nightingale Island, boats quickly rescued the crew before the ship sank.

Rescuers took the crew, many of whom were Filipinos, back to their settlement and housed them until relief vessels could take them home. They’ve been doing that sort of thing for nearly 200 years.

The Islanders, proud of their tradition of helping others, exhibited an outpouring of generosity immediately after Typhoon Haiyan smashed through the central Philippines. They were reminded of their recent Filipino guests and of the way others had helped them 50 years ago when an eruption of the volcano on their own island forced them to evacuate to England for a couple years. The Islanders recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of their safe return to Tristan.

On November 12th, Conrad Glass, the island’s policeman, proposed that the Islanders should gather a relief fund for the typhoon victims. He arranged a meeting with Alex Mitham, the new Administrator, Dawn Repetto the head of the Tourism Department, Lorraine Repetto, the island Treasurer, plus two people from St. Mary’s School, Anne Green and Carl Lander.

They quickly organized a variety of events to raise funds. Their major project was to hold a sponsored swimming event for the kids in the school swimming pool, with the object being to see if all the students together could swim, in the pool in one day, a distance equivalent to a round trip swim around the island.

The distance, 20 nautical miles or 36,000 m. (36 km), would be reached if swimmers could cover 1800 lengths of the pool. The sponsored swimming event was scheduled for last Thursday, November 21. At first the weather was unfavorable, but by 10:00 AM the wind had dropped and the sky cleared. Classes of school children came out with their teachers and swam, in the morning alone, 14,320 m. In the afternoon, looking a bit worn out, the children swam an additional 10,815 m.

Later in the afternoon, some older children swam 6,500 m., and in the evening, under lights, two boys, Randall Repetto and Luis Enrique Lander, completed an amazing 6,000 m. between them—after six hours of swimming. In total, the kids swam 37.6 km, well over the circumference of the island.

The kids were not the only ones raising funds for the relief effort. Adults held a raffle, with people donating handicrafts and knitwear. They had a shooting competition, set out donation buckets in the community, had a drawing, held a bake sale, and raised, as of November 22, £1181.05 (US$1913.42). The sponsored swimming alone raised £390.65 as of the 22nd, and not all contributions had yet been counted.

While the fund raising was going on, Conrad Glass summarized the feelings of the Islanders at a public reception. “The memories of the survivors asking for help from our TV screens I guess moved all of us to help….We share a similar fate with [the Filipinos] of surviving a natural disaster.” He thanked everyone who had contributed to the effort.

The Piaroa in Venezuela have been protesting earlier this year about the dangers of mining in their territory, but a different threat to their security has also arisen. A news story early in November and another last week report that the problem of guerilla violence has arisen in the borderlands with Colombia.

The Economist reported on November 6th that the FARC guerillas from Colombia have been taking refuge in neighboring Venezuela, especially in Piaroa territory and surrounding lands. FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the government of that country have been sluggishly involved in peace negotiations for several years.

According to the Economist report, the movement of the FARC guerillas into Venezuela began as a tactical retreat from the Colombian military, but it has grown into a large scale criminal conspiracy, with the civilian and military authorities of Venezuela involved. The local people, particularly the Piaroa, are affected.

The Economist alleges that the Venezuelan government denies providing refuge for the FARC guerillas, and the government of Colombia, intent on trying to improve its international relations, has not been pursuing the matter. The Venezuelan national guard is ignoring the smuggling, border security, and other issues involved with the FARC operations in their country.

According to several sources—the governor of Amazonas State, the Catholic Church, and the indigenous groups—FARC is pursuing its smuggling and mining activities in Venezuela quite actively. Smuggled goods include gasoline, foods, coltan, guns, and cocaine. Local people say that FARC has established camps, convened village meetings, and tried to take over communities.

The State Governor, Liborio Guarulla, reports that FARC activities have even been conducted just outside the state capital, the city of Puerto Ayacucho. “They have held meetings with local leaders and business people to extort money,” he says.

Guillermo Arana, a Piaroa leader who is the head of an indigenous umbrella organization, ORPIA, believes that the Venezuelan armed forces are complicit in the FARC operations. The guerillas and the army personnel all exploit the local people who work in the illegal mines by taxing them. “It’s the indigenous peoples that pay the price. The miners have no problems with the authorities,” he says.

Last week, the Inter Press Service, a worldwide news organization concentrating on the global south, carried a similar report on the situation. The reporter talked with several indigenous leaders who repeated the concerns expressed by their people earlier in the year about the dangers of unfettered mining in their territories.

The IPS story quoted Mr. Arana on the threat of mining exploration by Chinese interests. “The only way for us to survive is to defend the environment, our habitat; as guardians of the Amazon we are helping to save the planet,” he told the reporter.

State governor Guarulla told international correspondents that the FARC guerillas act as a vanguard to protect the illegal mining business, and in the process they damage the environment and violate indigenous areas.

According to the IPS report, representatives of FARC had met with Piaroa communities in May. At that meeting, the Piaroa asked them to leave their territory. José Carmona, a Piaroa shaman and leader in the community of Caño de Uña, told the reporter, “the guerrillas have come here to tell us they are revolutionaries fighting against the empire. But we are peaceful people, we don’t want weapons—we want to live peacefully in the territories that belong to us.”

A news story last week reported that the sexual exploitation of Malapandaram women, reported two years ago, does not appear to be improving. A major Indian newspaper carried a story in November 2011 indicating that Malapandaram women living near Chalakkayam, a settlement colony in Kerala close to the famous temple at Sabarimala, were frequently targeted with sexual harassment, both by outsiders and by their own men.

Map of Malapandaram colonies near Sabarimala The same newspaper, The Hindu, implies in its report last week that the situation is still just as bad, or worse. The recent story, written by a journalist named Radhakrishnan Kuttoor, provides a lot of details. The paper quotes Satheesh, a young, literate Malapandaram man who is employed by the Tribal Welfare Department. He told the paper that there is rampant sexual abuse and exploitation of women and girls in the Malapandaram settlement.

A year ago, a few forest officials were alleged to have sexually molested three girls in the forest at Ponnanpara, near Chalakkayam. When a television channel reported the story the next day, the tribal families were quickly moved to a more remote forest area in Achencoil. The Malapandaram were reluctant to say anything more about the crime, fearing reprisals from the perpetrators.

Satheesh also tells Mr. Kuttoor that the Malapandaram girls are sexually exploited by their neighbors and family members, and they are sometimes forced into incestuous relationships. He alleges that women are viewed as sex objects in the community. They complain of sexual exploitation and cruelty but the police and the forest officials do nothing about it.

These stories are hard to square with the ethnographic reports of Brian Morris, who did careful fieldwork among the Malapandaram in the 1970s. Morris reported in his 1982 book Forest Traders that Malapandaram women were treated as complete equals by men, a pattern that he saw as diametrically opposed to that of the surrounding Hindu society. In contrast to the Malapandaram, women in the majority Hindu society of Kerala at the time were segregated or completely excluded from many social activities such as worship in temples, travel on public buses, and service in teashops.

The journalist writing for The Hindu last week does not mention the writings of Morris, nor does he speculate on whether the anti-female social patterns may, in fact, be developing in Malapandaram society as an outgrowth of the people having ever closer contacts with their Hindu neighbors.

The Hindu article does quote another local authority on Malapandaram society, P. S. Uthaman, who suggests a variety of positions and campaigns for “the uplift of the tribe,” in Mr. Kuttoor’s words. Mr. Uthaman says that the situation of the women in the forested regions near Moozhiyar, Sayippinkuzhy, and Gavi is pathetic also. Evidently, about 59 nomadic Malapandaram families, averaging 10 to 15 people each, live in that area, and 37 families with about 200 people total live in the Chalakkayam area.

The District Tribal Development Officer, O.A. Rasheed, told the reporter that the department would soon establish another settlement colony for the Malapandaram on 4.4 hectares of forest land near Laha, where his agency would “rehabilitate” 26 families. However, he told Mr. Kuttoor, the Malapandaram rarely prefer to settle in a colony. Mr. Uthaman adds that the young people are eager to settle in the proposed colony and end their nomadic forest lifestyles. They advocate living in close contact with both human habitations and with the forest.

The District Collector, Pranab Jyotinath, visited the forest areas near the proposed colony in May. He argued that it is important to educate the Malapandaram on the value of living in a community and of becoming part of the mainstream of society.

Mr. Uthaman appears to have the same view. He advocates allotting five acres of land for each tribal family under the provisions of the national Forest Rights Act, where they should be “rehabilitated on the land.” He argues that the resettlement should be monitored by a committee which would include Malapandaram individuals as well as Tribal Welfare Department officials. The committee should monitor and support the development of farming and the education of tribal children.

In one key paragraph of the article, Mr. Uthaman indicates that the Malapandaram are now becoming affected by anemia and malnutrition, especially the women and children. Morris (1982) predicted that tendencies to settle and give up their nomadic forest lifestyle would be detrimental to the Malapandaram. He wrote, prophetically, that as long as they subsisted primarily on gathered wild forest foods they would continue to have a high protein intake. Settling into subsistence agriculture would serious affect their nutrition, he argued.

“Perhaps [their] general reluctance to take up agriculture, even with the support and encouragement of welfare officials, reflects their awareness of the ‘path to progress’ that lies ahead—of what it means, in terms of basic livelihood, to sever the links that hold them to the forest,” Morris concluded (p.108).

Prince Charles vacationed in India’s Kerala state last week, and on Tuesday he drove into the mountains to visit waterfalls on the Chalakudy River and the nearby Vazhachal Forest. He showed a lot of interest in the research being carried on in that forest, where he met some Kadar employees who help monitor wildlife conditions.

The prince, who serves as the president of the WWF-UK, was hosted by officials of the WWF-India. They explained to their royal visitor the challenges of effectively preserving wildlife in that section of the Western Ghats, an important mountain range of southwestern India.

A major challenge for wildlife managers in the area is to lessen human/elephant conflicts. Elephants that raid crops may be killed by farmers in retaliation. The prince visited the Inspection Bungalow in Vazhachal where he saw a short video showing a local elephant collaring operation and a demonstration of live satellite tracking of the animals.

Dr. Sejal Worah described for Prince Charles the results of tiger monitoring in the forest. She indicated that the area, which had not had a significant tiger population earlier, had recently been declared a tiger reserve, largely as a result of the WWF work. Dr. Worah said that the visit by the Prince of Wales “will be a tremendous boost to the conservation of the ecologically fragile and threatened Western Ghats.”

For his part, Prince Charles expressed strong interest in this sort of research work. He was especially intrigued to learn that tigers could be identified by the patterns of their stripes.

After his visit to the Inspection Bungalow, forest officials took him to visit the elephant corridor, about 5 km further into the Vazhachal Forest. He spent 40 minutes in the area, but he did not get to see any elephants. He had arrived in the midst of a tropical downpour—no thunder or lightening, just monsoon rain. Nonetheless, he was intensely curious about the flora and fauna that he did see.

On the way back, the party stopped again at the Inspection Bungalow, where he met five members of the Kadar community, workers who have been trained for two years as ecological monitors. In 2011, they were already gaining experience in monitoring hornbill species in the same forest, so it is evident from the news stories last week that their experiences as forest monitors and research assistants have been broadening.

The Kadar evidently believe that rain on any auspicious day, such as a wedding or the beginning of a new project, brings good luck. So they decided that the downpour on Tuesday signified that the Prince of Wales will have a long-lasting connection with the wildlife and the forests of Kerala.

Prince Charles asked them about their work, the forest products they collect, and the foods they eat. According to Abdul Nazerkunju, Divisional Forest Officer, he discussed the geographical specialties of the area with the Kadar employees. They showed him some products that they are harvesting sustainably from the forest.

He met more scientists and officials before leaving late in the afternoon, driving once again past the famous waterfalls on the way back down to Kochi, a major city on the coast of Kerala.

On Wednesday, he and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, spent a relaxing day at Kumarakom, a lakeside resort, where, on Thursday morning, he celebrated his 65th birthday. Later in the day, the couple flew to Colombo, Sri Lanka, where the Prince opened the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting on Friday. He opened the conference in place of his mother, Queen Elizabeth, who has decided that due to her age she will be curtailing her overseas trips.

Peaceful Societies

Peaceful Societies

Promoting Tourism in Tahiti

Promoting Tourism in Ladakh

Thailand Celebrates its Peaceful Traditions

Ju/’hoansi Community Forest Threatened

Inuit Artists of Cape Dorset

Amish Family Flees to Protect their Daughter

Tristan Islanders Support Typhoon Relief

Piaroa Leaders Assert their Peacefulness

Consequences of Abandoning the Forest

A Tropical Downpour Is a Good Omen

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