Wizened old Jidemadamma has to depend on her neighbours for meals. Her son and daughter-in-law have gone to Kodagu to collect pepper from trees and will not be back before two weeks. “They took the children along because I cannot move around much. Earlier, all of us stayed together here. Now there is nobody,” says the septuagenarian, sitting outside her hut in Kaneri Colony, one of the 62 hamlets in Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (brt) Wildlife Sanctuary in southern Karnataka.

Jidemadamma is among the few Soligas, an indigenous community, left in the hamlet. Soligas, literally meaning the “bamboo children”, are known for their environment-friendly practices and sustainable collection of minor forest produce. But most have migrated in search of livelihood since the government banned collection of non-timber forest produce