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theses

Wildlife and human needs are often enmeshed within discursive representations and praxis of wildlife conservation in the Global South. In India, more than three quarters of forested area is “unprotected.” These spaces are categorized as Reserve Forests and support diverse flora and fauna within complex landscapes of human settlement and agricultural fields. Much of this biodiversity remains understudied and underrepresented. This dissertation explores how biophysical and social factors coproduce space to create a conducive landscape for wildlife in the semi-arid Eastern Ghats of South India. I employ a mixed-methods approach to respond to calls for more integrated research in conservation, and use a range of data sources such as semi-structured interviews, household surveys, faunal surveys and satellite imagery. The findings illustrate how livelihood diversity and everyday practices of rural communities living on the periphery of four Reserve Forests shape both landscape composition and structure. Species distribution models that assess relative likelihoods of distribution of the Sloth Bear, Four-horned Antelope, Wild boar and Leopard in the study area provide insight into the socio-ecological conditions under which shared spaces are created and maintained. This allows me to untangle the relationships mediating wildlife presence in unprotected forests. By drawing on lifeworlds of a marginalized forest dependent community, I argue that representations of Reserve Forests need to be contextualized based on actual vegetation characteristics and the relations between people, wildlife and forests. The results show that heterogeneity in land-use/cover produces a permeable landscape that resists precise classification. This dissertation attempts to disrupt traditional conservation paradigms by showing that wildlife persists in human-dominated landscapes through a complex intersection of landscape composition and structure, forest management policies, everyday practices of rural communities and mutual adaptations between wildlife and people. Thus wildlife conservation in Reserve Forests should understand the landscape matrix, take into consideration diverse land uses and acknowledge the value of forests to rural communities.

ETD_8832

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Diya Paul

doi:10.7282/T3V98CH8

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.