Forest Preferences & Urbanization

in India’s National Capital Region
By David S. Grace
Dr. Dean Urban, Advisor
Dr. Marc Jeuland, Advisor
requirements for the Masters of Environmental Management degree in
the Nicholas School of the Environment
Duke University
May 2017
Executive Summary
Within its institutional setting, the sacred grove is understood as the forested abode of a deity or
multiple deities. However, the relationship between the forest and its divine host/s is expressed in
many ways, often in ways which seem incompatible to ‘rational-legal’ discourse and policy. Yet,
sacred groves are not confined to the most remote geographies or the most mythic theologies. In
fact, the sacred grove is entangled in very ‘modern’ ways of thinking, and bureaucratic
governance regimes, in places which are experiencing rapid urban growth and cultural change.
Thus, the sacred grove is not easily defined, and its relationship to state protection is
complicated.
The megacity extending from Delhi, India is formally administered as the National Capital
Territory, but is even more broadly conceived as the National Capital Region. The sacred groves
in this context have become increasingly characterized by urbanization and related culture
change. These conditions present rich theoretical opportunities to analyze changes in preferences
among residents in the institutional setting of the sacred forest, empirically, and to interpret
implications of any such changes in terms of demand for forest conservation as well as continued
collective action potential. To accomplish this task, this present study offers a survey of residents
(n=198) within four sacred grove sites in the NCR.
This study analyzes the sacred grove as a socio-ecological system situated within a wider
landscape consisting of non-sacred forest – with the exception of one site – as well as alternate
worship sites outside of sacred forests – here called temple sites. These three site types are
important markers in the landscape and are associated with differing types of values and are
ascribed different magnitudes of importance.
The survey approach seeks to characterize willingness to pay (WTP) for visits to these sites to
better understand marginal preferences by site type and characteristic. Details are collected on
respondent’s actual visits, and Revealed Preference models infer the characteristics of the
visitors to each site type. In specifying these characteristics, this study seeks to determine the
impact of important cultural evolution variables and urbanization on preference. Cultural
evolution proxy variables utilized include education level, percent calories purchased, and
primary worship of native deity. A measure of urbanization is provided by classification of
‘urban’ households based on land-use, land-cover classification as built-up environment. Cultural
evolution is analyzed in this Indian context, through the theoretical perspective of
Sanskritization, which has been proposed as the cause of institutional decline in the sacred grove.
My study contributes to this literature by testing for a Sanskritization effect on forest preferences
in a landscape perspective, while controlling for important socio-economic variables in addition
to distance to sacred grove and travel cost to nearest sacred grove and temple sites.
The Revealed Preference models provide evidence of use-values for the sites, describing actual
visits, as well as a baseline for non-use values which may be present. However, Stated
Preference survey methods are also utilized to better characterize the range of values present for
these sites, by offering hypothetical visits which 1) isolate the sacred vs. non-sacred forest effect
on preference, controlling for forest characteristics, and 2) derive relative preference for
important forest characteristics – size, temple presence, natural or planted quality, extraction
level, and distance from home – as well as marginal preferences among these characteristics by
observing trade-offs between varying levels of these attributes. The first item is accomplished
with a Contingent Valuation (CV) exercise, which first asks WTP questions for non-sacred forest
and then offers the hypothetical choice of a sacred forest visit rather than a non-sacred forest
visit, in terms of explicitly additional WTP. The second item is accomplished with a Discrete
Choice Experiment (DCE) which offers a series of choice tasks to each respondent, who choose
one of two forests described by the attributes above specified at varying levels arranged in a
blocked fractional factorial design.
This study finds greater WTP for sacred forest than non-sacred forest among residents of the
setting of the institutional setting of the sacred grove, in both revealed and stated preference
measures. However, a trade-off between sacred forest and temple site visits was observed among
those of ‘higher’ urbanization and Sanskritization characteristics. Primary worship of a global
deity rather than native deity is one predictor of temple preference, which accords with
Sanskritization expectations. However, proximity to sacred grove, holding a professional or
vocational degree, or living in an urban environment seem to be better predictors.
Overall, relative to the other forest characteristics described, the temple appears more important
for visit choice by a factor of two. In this marginal preference context, large forest size and zero
extraction level appear to be traded off, suggesting some concern regarding the relation of temple
preference and forest conservation demand.
Yet, the implications of this temple preference may not be antagonistic to conservation motives.
Perhaps unexpected to Sanskritization literature, temple preference seems to correspond with
conservation-oriented forest preferences for non-sacred forests. These conservation preferences
are suggested by a perception of non-sacred forests as more useful for ecosystem services among
temple visitors. An increase in non-use values for non-sacred forest may also be evident in the
observation of a greater willingness to pay an entrance fee for non-sacred forest by those who do
not worship a native deity primarily. Taken together, these suggest a potential increase in
perception of non-sacred forest value and a potential willingness to pay for its non-use ecosystem
services.
The development of these conservationist preferences for non-sacred forests may yield positive
collective action results for community forests facing urbanization threats in which land-use is
increasingly contested and alternate uses become feasible tradeoffs with the status quo
landscape. Sanskritization, as a transfer from local to global deity worship within the tradition of
Hinduism, accords with cultural evolution studies on the relation of complex societies and ‘big
Gods.’ The enabling and constraining impacts of these changes for collective action within the
institutional setting of the sacred grove are considered to lead to two options: 1). a wider
cosmological and social world which creates the enabling conditions for multi-scale governance
linkages or 2) a shift in the locus of significance from the forest to the temple, suggestive of a
transition from commons to open-access land subject to degradation in the absence of
enforcement external to the institutional setting of the sacred grove. This study finds evidence in
both directions, and recommends further study of collective action in community forest settings
sensitive to cultural evolution.
INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……….1
BACKGROUND………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3
RESULTS…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….….…………….34
o Visits to Sacred Forest, Non-Sacred Forest, & Alternate Worship Sites
Stated Preferences…………………………………………….……………………………………………………41
DISCUSSION…………………………………………………………………………………………….……..……………………48
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….61
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….62
APPENDICIES……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………65
HINDI/REGIONAL TRANSLATIONS
NCR- National Capital Region, includes Delhi, Faridabad, and Gurgaon in my study area and
other areas. Perhaps is also inclusive of Hodal based railroad and commuter connection between
Delhi and Hodal.
Bani – common designator for sacred forest in the region.
Chameli Van – Forest Flower
Gummat Mandir – ‘Gummat’ Temple
Jharna Mandir – Waterfall Temple
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INTRODUCTION
URBANIZATION
Urbanization is correlated with cultural change, and possibly a driving factor in social
change processes. The twin developments of a global urban majority population and the
concentration of population growth in cities calls attention to these processes. While the global
population was approximately 70-30 percent rural-to-urban in 1950, projections suggest a near
reversal of this distribution by 2050, with a 34-66 percent rural-to-urban population (UN 2014,
p.7). Global urbanization comes after the rapid development in the west since the industrial
revolution followed by the offset, though not equivalent, growth in the ‘developing’ countries.
Shifts in life expectancy, yielding an older aged population with lower fertility, the ‘demographic
transition’ is also underway (Lee 2003). It is in the ‘developing’ country context where urban
population growth will be concentrated in the future. India features prominently in this trend and
is projected to become the most populous country within half a decade.
The urban agglomeration of Delhi, India, now administered as the National Capital
Region (NCR), is the second most populous city in the world with recent population growth
exceeding that of Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Mexico City, and New York City combined (UN 2014).
Recent remote land-use, land-cover research in Delhi and Southwest Delhi in the period of 1977-
2015 shows clear conversions of cultivated area to built-up area and from dense forest to scrub
and degraded forest (Jain et. al 2016). Within this geographic context of rapid change, forested
areas that hold long-standing spiritual significance among forest-dependent communities –
termed sacred groves – are confronted with novel cultural and ecological threats to their
persistence. The plight of sacred groves amidst urbanization is a collective action problem and
has not been adequately studied in terms of the cultural and ecological variables which have
allowed the religious and ecological relationships of forest-dependent communities and sacred
groves to persist. It is precisely this knowledge gap that I examine in my work.
The implicit conception of sacred groves in conservation discourse, the canonical model,
has been critiqued as a falsely homogenous and idealistically ahistorical entity (Gajula 2007).
Certainly heterogeneity is evident in beliefs related to the sacred grove, property ownership type,
and management style. Nonetheless, I define the sacred grove as a socio-ecological system
where religious valuation is coextensive with a geographically-bounded forest area. As coarsely
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defined, the canonical sacred grove exists as a geographically-bounded forest located centrally
within a mythic social geography. The sacred grove is located in a physical geography and social
geography. Stated differently the sacred grove exists in a domain of being, with physical
boundaries, in addition to domains of knowing and thinking with social boundaries.
While the social is informed by and mapped onto the physical, it is not a direct, linear
relationship. The mind is not a tabula rasa, or blank slate, solely conditioned by sense perception
of the physical environment. Rather, the social is conditioned by the historical, and the historical
is conditioned by the narratives in which it is understood. These narratives develop as a
consequence of cultural evolution with increasing social complexity (Mayer 2014 p.9). These
operating conditions comprise the majority of cognition processes and occur before
rationalization, which argues against a narrow view of the human species as primarily rational,
utility maximizers and instead suggest a view of the human species as “efficient complexity
manager” (Levine et. al. 2015). This is not to displace the rational actor theory, but to highlight
the bulk of cognitive mechanisms obscured in its appropriation as the sole behavioral logic. This
study argues that what is obscured in this narrow behavioral logic is actually of central
importance in understanding how preferences are shaped in the long-run and therefore in
prediction of how preferences will change with future cultural and ecological change. Within this
perspective, rational actor theory becomes more useful for understanding collective action
settings sensitive to cultural evolution.
Until very recently, collective action problems have been conceived primarily in the
narrow terms of rational actor theory and, in an extended formulation, in an institutionalism
which bounds these actors’ rationality within constraints of norms and values. The noteworthy
work of Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons, pointing toward collective action failure, can
be seen as prompting investigation of ‘success stories’ of the commons, most notably in Elinor
Ostrom’s Nobel Prize winning research. However, though the work of these authors is different
in orientation, both belong to the domain of rational actor theory and institutionalism. This
domain of study, however, does not provide an adequate understanding of the cognitive
mechanisms driving behavior, as it is constrained by the behavioral logic ascribed in the
underlying rational actor model. Chiefly, it does not address cognitive processes identified in
cultural evolution theory. For this reason, it is particularly unable to address systems which are
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defined primarily in their relation to cultural valuation, such as the sacred grove. It is arguable
that this is a more general fault, as culture is basic to behavior and thus to collective action
problems generally. Empirical data from highly controlled settings in economic games makes
this suggestion (Heinrich 2000).
Therefore, a lurking problem in sacred grove conservation initiatives, which depend on
cultural protection mechanisms, is the hallmark quality of culture: change, or, more precisely,
cultural evolution. Does urbanization in the physical environment of sacred groves lead to
‘urbanization’ of cultural and psychological states, seen as an increase in relative temple-to-
forest preference, decreased forest conservation preferences, or decreased forest worship mode
choices? I address these questions in my study.
Main Questions:
1) Does forest conservation preference and worship mode choice vary with urbanization level?
2) Does forest conservation preference and worship mode choice depend on distance to sacred
groves?
3) Does forest conservation preference depend on worship mode choice, forest type (i.e. sacred
or non-sacred), or other factors indirectly related to urbanization?
BACKGROUND:
This study attempts to isolate the effect of urbanization on land use from cognitive
processes relating to land use preferences. It is important to analytically disaggregate physical
and social geography in my study, as culture matters for both cognition and behavior. Culture
has been demonstrated to impact spatial cognition (Haun et al. 2006). Additionally, Joseph
Heinrich has led a series of cross cultural studies, demonstrating cultural variation of behaviors
in economic games (Heinrich 2000; Heinrich et al 2005; Heinrich et al 2010). Using group-level
averages of percent calories purchased, rather than grown, hunted, or gathered, Heinrich et al.
(2005) found market integration and payoffs to cooperation to significantly explain much of the
variation in ultimatum game offers. In a follow-up study, Heinrich et al. (2010) found market
integration and participation in a world religion, as opposed to a tribal religion or no religion, to
predict increased offer size in both dictator and ultimatum games, which is suggested as
increased cooperation.
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These economic games allow a highly controlled setting in which to analyze motivations
for economic behavior, largely based on game theory. Dictator and Ultimatum games are two of
the most common. A dictator game is typically played between two individuals and involves one
individual starting with funds given to them – an endowment – and they are simply instructed
that they can keep the money or they can choose how much they give to the other individual.
That is the end of the game. Any offer by the dictator is a violation of the self-interested, utility-
maximizing assumptions of rational actor theory, which predicts the dictator to give nothing.
This violation has been found consistently across many populations. Additionally, offer size
distributions have been found to vary with culture (Heinrich 2000). An ultimatum game is an
extension of the dictator game, where the individual who receives the offer can choose whether
to accept or reject the offer. In the choice to reject the offer, the individual forfeits their offer but
also ‘punishes’ the offeror by cancelling their funds as well. Interpretation of behavior in these
games is suggestive for behavioral logics in behavioral economics. The ultimatum game offers
insight into ‘conditional cooperation’ where offers may be made on the basis of reciprocation or
other concerns, since the giver is aware that their ultimatum can be rejected. The ultimatum
game also provides insight into willingness to enforce ‘fairness’ norms, as the recipient can
reject the ultimatum, punishing the offeror, but at the personal cost of losing the offered funds.
Cooperation and motives other than simple self-interest, such as fairness norms, are suggested in
these games, because in the first instance the ‘dictator’ can simply keep the money, without
personal cost, and in the second, the ‘ultimatum’ can be rejected, punishment inflicted at
personal expense of the opportunity cost of keeping the offered funds.
The study of Purzycki et al. 2016, utilizing economic game settings, advances this
research in specifying the positive effect of belief in supernatural punishment from the God/s of
the world religions, as opposed to local traditions, on cooperation between co-religionists,
suggested to support a cultural evolution theory of expanding prosociality alongside increasing
social complexity. This study finds that deities of the world religions are thought of as more
knowledgeable and moralistic, with greater supernatural punishment, corresponding with greater
offer sizes. This, in turn, is interpreted functionally as providing a panoptic means of promoting
cooperation in the absence of face-to-face monitoring and enforcement possible in small group
sizes.
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These global, cross-cultural studies are helpful in charting a direction in cultural
evolution theory. Chiefly, they empirically support aspects of the classical linear development
theories of late 19th and early 20th C. anthropology and sociology after the implications of Social
Darwinism made these theories taboo in their own fields. The tendency of understanding cultural
evolution as a linear development process, often yielded an interpretation of Europeans as the
pinnacle of development, but this arguably reflects the mobilization of theory in service of
colonial interests. Further, an absence of long-range studies linking culture and environment, in
terms of directional cultural evolution framing, has not stayed the persistence of such theories –
explicit or implicit – in popular perception, academia, or in public policy application. Addressing
this knowledge gap, empirical research in cultural evolution has suggested directionality in key
factors of cultural evolution and proxies for their measurement, such as market integration,
measured as percent calories purchased, and world religion, measured as local or global deity
type worshipped.
From linear models to non-linear interpretations
Recent scholars have rejected a simple linear ascent of ‘development,’ but have also
suggested the possibility of retaining empirical truths in cultural evolution theory while
discarding its normative biases (Bellah 2011). Additionally, the non-western world, particularly
Asia, is experiencing rapid industrial development alongside novel cultural changes, leading
some commentators to suggest the possibility of ‘multiple modernities.’ The concept of
modernity is proposed as a social result of structural physical changes, marked by
industrialization, and the degree of western influence is a subject of some debate. Prasenjiit
Duara’s The Crisis of Global Modernity outlines the migration of western historical imagination,
particularly in a loss of authoritative sources of transcendence, to the rest of the world in the late
19th C. This western historical imagination, often recently theorized as one of secularization, has
been linked to modernity, industrialization, and consumerism, and resultant ecological problems
by contemporary scholars (Northcott 1996, p.105, Wirzba 2015, p.5).i However, the theory of
secularization has also been nuanced. Duara provides the term ‘traffic’ as descriptor of the
migration of religious ideas into ‘non-religious’ spheres with effects that are hard to predict
(p.16). In this way, Duara highlights the possibility of sacred groves in a modern sphere as
offering a re-enchantment of the commons, or a subversion of the tragedy of the commons, in his
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identification of the “embryonic idea of treating commons as a new area of inviolability,
sacredness and transcendence” (p.17). This introduction of non-linear schemes of cultural
evolution provide a more nuanced understanding of the ways that a change from local to global
deity worship, or Sanskritization, may introduce constraining and enabling behavior for
collective action around forests – sacred and non-sacred – amidst urbanization.
Sanskritization
The organizing center of my study is the theory of Sanskritization. Malhotra et al. (2001)
have provided a concise definition of the theory in relation to the sacred grove: “In many places,
local folk deities have been, and continue to be, replaced with Hindu gods and goddesses. This
has resulted in the erection of a temple in the sacred grove.”ii It is a shortcoming of the research
on Sanskritization that it has mostly been considered historically and anecdotally and without
reference to the cultural evolution research which analyzes the…