Man versus wild: In the last two decades, forest and biodiversity conservation in the country has meant ruthless and unjust evictions of the people and communities living in their midst

In the last two decades, forest and biodiversity conservation in the country has meant ruthless and unjust evictions of the people and communities living in their midst

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Jaideep Hardikar   |   TT  |  17.06.22  : Earlier this month, a small hamlet called Bothli in the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district pressed for the legal recognition of its community forest rights. Wildlife conservationists promptly filed a public interest litigation claiming that the people living in the core protected forest need to be moved out since the area is a critical wildlife habitat.

It is likely that the residents of Bothli — in spite of their community forest rights — would be thrown out, as have other communities from protected forests all over the country. It isn’t the first or the last village to be uprooted from a protected forest. The list of such villages is growing.

As this column goes to print, five villages with some 175 mostly tribal families in the Satpura Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh’s Narmadapuram (erstwhile Hoshangabad) district are being evicted as part of the policy of clearing the core areas off human settlements, notwithstanding the fact that the Forest Rights Act speaks of undoing such historic wrong by recognising the rights of people over their own forests. They are evicted without any assurance of basic rehabilitation and resettlement entitlements. It isn’t a coincidence that most of those getting evicted are tribal people.

In the last two decades, forest and biodiversity conservation in the country has meant ruthless and unjust evictions of the people and communities living in their midst. Ironically, these are the same people who conserved the forests over many millennia as an integral part of that ecosystem. It’s not just an Indian problem; biodiversity conservation sans people is a global phenomenon that has intensified in the process of globalisation, with the argument being that forests and people cannot co-exist.

India, according to data from the ministry of environment and forests, has some 990 protected areas, including 106 National Parks, 565 Wildlife Sanctuaries, 100 Conservation Reserves and 219 Community Reserves, covering a total of 1,73,306.83 square kilometres of geographical area or 5.27 per cent of the total land area in the country. Nearly a million people live in and around these forests.

While the FRA specifically lays down rules and asks for CFR to be granted to the traditional forest dwellers even in the critical wildlife habitats, the forest departments and wildlife lobbies are pushing for the removal of people from such areas, denying communities a scope to air their views.

No Indian state is free of this issue — under the current Narendra Modi-led dispensation, such drives have only intensified: expelling people from their forests in the name of conservation but brazenly building infrastructure and gigantic projects that eat away at pristine wildlife habitats and people’s rights.

Take for instance but one example, that of the Gir forests: lions and humans stare at the same fate there. Lion prides in the areas outside the protected forest have become like stray animals while traditional communities living in Gir are driven out of the forests with impunity. Once they had happily co-existed.

How have the tribals evicted from the forests in the past fared? A fact-finding report on the status of the tribal people evicted from the Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka two decades ago speaks of a saga of abject betrayal. It drives home the point that forest conservation sans people is not only a bad but also an obsolete idea.

The Indian Parliament has skirted the contentious issue for about a decade. The higher courts too have not cleared the air. The result? There is a growing antagonism between forest departments and lobbies working on wildlife protection, and communities and their advocates, which does not bode well for either the people or the forests.