"The little big forest of Namring" :

The little big forest of Namring

Or: Why the Tea Campaign promotes the reforestation in Darjeeling by Jürgen Zimmer

The Himalaya? Well, yes: Further above on the undulating Kanchenjunga there is snow, ice is piling up, but on the slopes further down there are no stretches of impenetrable rain forest spreading, at least nat in Darjeeling. The landscape rather looks eaten away, just as though the mighty Yeti had put out huge goats to pasture. In most cases the trees were torn out completely, so that the wood is very low and sparse now. Those who want to take pictures of the smiling tea pickers in the midst of well trimed tea plants have to be careful not to get too much into the picture: the corroded slopes, the soll erosion or deforested mountain crests for example.

A hundred years ago the world was still okay, Mr. Tiwari, the manager of the Namring tea-plantation, tells us. The forest together with the tea plants kept hold of the soil. They stored the water and thus provided for the dry season. Today the tea plants are growing in a well-ordered way, but they are pretty much out on a limb. It looks rather barren around the fields, not because these are high alpine circumstances, but because more and more people are living in this area, cutting down timber to build houses and huts and to make fire.

"Another fifty years", Mr. Pradhan, the Assistant Manager, is brooding, "and the soil will have disappeared." Darjeeling, at least the Darjeeling which is not screwed down, could be washed away and drift to the sea with the rivers. Wonderful perspectives? Every Sunday, tenants, owners and managers of the about seventy tea plantations meet in the Club of the Tea Planters in the town of Darjeeling. Drinking tea and playing billiards they are at odds with the future. "We all know that something has to happen", Mr. Banerjee of the Makaibari plantation says.

Even though the best tea of the world is growing here: The region is ill. It is going through the Same fate as many other regions of this world where deforestation leads to chains of local catastrophes. The catastrophe at the steep slopes of Darjeeling is not happening spectacularly, but rather quiet and steadily. The upper soll of the fields has already been washed away. The layers underneath make a very stony and barren impression. Landslides are tearing the plants down. The fields have a lot of gaps, as the plants cannot survive without soil. The harvest is decreasing, and to diminish the losses a lot of fertilizer is necessary.

And something eise is weighing upon them: The tea plants are too old now. They have to be replaced by new ones in the near future. But the planters are very afraid of changing them and of waiting for about five years until the leaves of the young plants can be picked with a profit.

The town of Darjeeling lies in the district of Darjeeling, which is situated at an altitude of 600 to 2000 metres - in India. The only thing is: Darjeeling is actually called Gurkaland, because the Gurkas, its inhabitants, are a sort of Indian Bavaria, which means that they are very keen on becoming a free state. In any case they are putting in for an autonomous status which does no longer oblige them to pay their hard-earned money to the Indian Government and to finance its administration. But the Indian Government doesn't acknowledge that they have their own language - Gurkali - but states that the language of this region was Nepali - and Nepali had already been recognized by them. And because the central government doesn't think much of a federal state called Gurkaland, with their own ministers and parliament, there is a lot of racket going on up there, and not only the slopes are sliding down, but wild talks are being given, government contracts are burnt publicly, black banners of sorrow and green banners of defiance are hoisted. So at least thin flagpoles are in some places replacing the missing trees.

The tea workers of Darjeeling are not only well organized ethnically, but they also have a very good trade union. This is one reason why they are considerably better off than the factory workers in the plains. The other reason might be that to the stick of the Indian government also belongs a carrot, and the region receives more money. The families of the tea workers - if you take the Namring plantation as an example - are living in houses put at their disposal by the plantation, they don't have to pay any fees for an education which is given to all the children. Out-patient and in-patient medical care is provided for, and every family has a heritable right for a job in the plantation. All of this was put down in the Terms and Conditions Booklet_ofthe__Darjeeling-Planters As-soci-ation, -and-not--given -the--amount--of firewood, which the plantation has promised to give to every working inhabitant, is missing.

Saturday, 25 July: About a dozen representatives are meeting on the veranda of the guesthouse of the Namring plantation. They are the leaders of those 12,000 people who work and live in Namring. The plantation is about eighteen kilometres long and has a width of five kilometres - a green stretch of land beautifully situated on a slope. The people live in small villages, the villages are located in between the tea fields; housing schemes with colourfully painted little houses of wood with gardens around.

We are talking about the nature nearby and the wide world. The news is that the tea drinkers in Europe do not only appreciate pure tea, but that they are also worried about the landscape. One has a lot to do with the other - that's what the representatives think. The pests, badly affecting the tea plants, no longer have their natural enemies, which have ceased to exist as they have lost their hiding-places. And if we want to give the natural enemies a chance to survive, they would have to find food, that is those pests which at the moment are still fought against with chemicals. This Story reminds us of our greenflies which have to be less afraid of the ladybird than of the florist's poison.

Using less chemicals presupposes a recourse to nature. Darjeeling will only produce good-quality tea in the future if the soll is not slipping down more and more. The soll has to be held and slowly increased by growing trees, bushes and grass, by creating barriers of hedges, by leaving the weeds on the ground to compost once they are weeded out by doing without herbicides, producing organic fertilizer and above all promoting reforestation. And not to increase uncontrolledly. New plantations cannot prevent the explosion in the birth rate and its consequences, the overexploitation of the soil, the trees and bushes, and the Lady Bird Beetles of Darjeeling would have to stop working again.

The plan of the Tea Campaign is to have part of the Surplus from selling Darjeeling tea going back to India, more precisely: To Namring, in order to support the reforestation and to help initiating small projects. These projects might improve the income of families and support the ecological reconstruction of the plantation. The representatives are telling me that they had never experienced anything like this, that the Europeans were coming here to spend more money than what they had to pay for the tea. The representatives are glad about it, and the management confirmed that they were not thinking of interfering in the matters of the representatives, but that they were just suggesting to have an independent committee elected by the inhabitants of the plantation. This committee could then coordinate the necessary measures and decide about applications and how the financial means are being used.

Our discussions soon lead to the decision to create a revolving fund of the money which is already available in Berlin - DM 198.000 - and not to simply give it as a donation to the applicants. From this fund interest-free credits or those with reduced interests can be granted. They would have to be paid back, and the elected committee would have to have a vigilant eye on it. That way the bank account would not be emptied, but would be filled again, and other families could later on apply for a credit as well - the representatives are considering. This procedure would be better than what the politicians were doing, who were buying votes with donations and thus corrupting the souls of the people.

The representatives are drinking tea, they prefer the Tate crop of autumn. This tea does not turn bitter, even if you have it drawn for a long time. They
want to go back home to their villages. All of the representatives are men. Where were their wifes? The representatives are laughing. One of them says that the women had detailed them to come. Yes, the wouldn't have any objections to the women coming as well.

Dark clouds have drawn together above the mountains. It starts raining heavily. Muddy water is running down the steep hills in streams and flows in torrential brown streams.

Tuesday, 28 July: The Namring plantation h_as more thanfourteenprimary_ schools with 2.800 children and two secondary schools with 500 pupils. The delegated teachers of the schools are meeting. Tea is served. "You Europeans", says Mr Tiwari, who joined us, "are always taking far too much". It would be enough to take one level teaspoon per cup. Some drops of fresh milk and a bit of sogar would especialiy bring out the taste of the Darjeeling tea. The sun is beating down, behind the crests the first clouds are appearing. The pupils of Namring are supposed to and want to participate. The teachers as well. For biology and geography do not have to be taught in a classroom. Lessons can take place where trees are planted and tended.

An idea is discussed: If for example every child planted twenty trees and was responsible for caring for it, making sure that they survived the dry seasons and were not eaten by animals in the first few years, if the children protected the trees, then they should profit from it. One could for example say: Fifteen of the twenty trees are part of the forest that is supposed to exist in the Jong term and five of them can be used economically after a few years. These five trees could then be given to the children as a gift in case they had looked well after the twenty trees. "Stop", says Mr Tiwari from Calcutta, he had doubts about that. One of the tribal laws of the Gurka says: If someone plants a tree, he or she takes possession of the ground around it and starts owning it. The meeting ends without taking a decision in this respect, but they all agree that the committee to be elected should think about it.

Wednesday, 29. July: Now the women are there as well. Yes, their husbands had told them everything. And they, the women, had many ideas for small projects. What is more, all of them wanted to plant trees - this they owned to their children and the future of them. They also talked about trees that grow slowly and exist for a long time, and those with a shorter lifespan and an immediate profit. Both varieties could be planted, and thus ecology could be linked with economy.

The women are self-confident. This was not surprising, the Indian professor Chakraborty later teils us in the valley. The Gurka had been a matriarchal society before the British colonists found this tradition inadequate and tried to reverse the circumstances. Completely? It doesn't seem so.

Friday, 31 July: The great meeting begins in the afternoon. People from all the villages of Namring, adults and children, have come. The gentlemen representatives have arrived early, though there are significantly less men than women now. During the last couple of days families and neighbours have developed ideas about the small projects and the big forest to be planted. They distinguish between self-imposed duty - more forest is necessary - and economically lucrative options, the small projects.

Ideas for projects? Some groups give a statement. Ideas are plentiful: There was a tree for example that was much appreciated by the silkworms; it could be planted, cocoons could be cultivated and sold to silk manufacturers. Or: Kindergartens for tea plants were not only important, but money could be earned with them as well. Or: If one day there would be more forest and it could retain more water, the wells would be more profitable, then they could lay pipes and grow vegetables. Or: Darjeeling had a good climate for medicinal plants. The British had already known about it. Later on they had fallen into oblivion. They, the inhabitants of Namring, could cultivate fields with medicinal plants, there was enough space, and the customers paid well. Or: In the area a lot of orchids were growing, they could be collected and cultivated. Question: How should they get to the valley and the big cities before they started wilting? Answer: The question was right, but they didn't know an answer straight away. But: They could breed pigs and poultry, lay out fish ponds and seil it on the local markets. Last but not least: The oranges
of Darjeeling admittedly were small, but they had a very good taste and were well paid. Many of them would like to plant orange trees.

An agreement becomes apparent: The trees of the forest ought to be planted by everyone together, and the plantation also gives a stretch of land for firewood. The orange trees and the vegetables could be cultivated in the gardens that belong to every house. The committee to be elected ought to take further decisions about all this, they say.

One idea is rejected, namely the consideration to equip the houses with biological gas supply. The calculation was as simple as shattering: To supply a_small---installation for- every family wit-h energy, not-only the excrements öf all family members are necessary, but also those of at last six cows. But what would 72.000 cows do to the Namring plantation? They would pounce upon the tea plants like a locust plague and eat them up.

A feast at the end. Dances and chants of the Gurka. The Gurka? Yes, but a bit of Indian schmaltz and western rock and pop can be heard as well. "We watch video films with Indian stars", one girl teils us, "and then we teach everything to ourselves." There is a big crowd. A fat toad is hopping between the legs of the spectators and catches a big cockroach - it might have been her last meal. The sky remains clear this evening. The crescent of the moon looks as though it was tipped over a bit. A priest in a temple nearby Sounds the gong. "Bring along more people from Germany next time you come, we like having guests", the women say.

The next day, an our rumbling journey back to the distant valley, the car has to stop because of a horde of monkeys sitting by the wayside. They were the monkeys of king Hanoman of the Ramayana-story, the driver teils us. They were adored by the lorry-drivers. Just then an artic, loaded up with wood, Stops. The driver feeds the monkeys with popcorn, and I hope that Hanoman will watch him as well as our car, especially when we would have to pass by the point where a landslide had taken down the street and only a very small, slippy lane was left.

Back in Germany. The attempt of the Tea Campaign to transfer the money to India an an account to be opened failed for several weeks due to the resistance of the Indian bureaucracy. The administration apparently had developed their procedures during their fight against the British and seems to regard everything that comes from abroad as threatening. Now that all the conditions are met and all the signatures are collected, the rain period in Darjeeling is over. Trees cannot be planted in the dry season. So some of the small projects and especially the big forest of Namring will have to wait until the firnt heavy drops are falling.

"The Little Big Forest of Namring."
Quelle: International Community
Education Association, DArjeeling/India, 1992