‘Implementation should focus on community rights’ says Ashish Kothari of Kalpavriksh

FORESTS and their people are of concern to the Kalpavriksh Environment Action Group. Its network has experts and activists from all walks of life. Serious work has been done like analyzing the way India does environment-impact assessments to documenting the status of forests and protected areas. Kalpavriksh has also helped people save trees and green spaces.

Ashish Kothari of Kalpavriksh told Civil Society that if Adivasis had got clear rights to land after Independence, Maoism would not have been able to grow roots.

What do you think the alienation of tribal communities and forest- dwellers is due to?

Several factors are responsible for this alienation. Taking over of commons by the State deprives them of spaces they depend on for their livelihood, survival, and culture.

Then there has been the handing over of such areas to companies for mining and industry. Tribals have also been displaced and dispossessed by conservation projects.

There has been utter disrespect of indigenous knowledge and practices and cultural diversity, including in education systems imposed from above.

Misguided attempts have been made at ‘integrating tribals into the mainstream’ even when they may have been better off being left alone.

Where there were genuine problems of illness, destitution and social inequities there have been botched attempts at providing them ‘development’ using ecologically and culturally inappropriate models such as chemical- intensive agriculture and hybrid cattle.

There has been an imposition of inappropriate models of governance. Electoral politics have replaced the diverse, locally adapted Adivasi systems. This has resulted in internal cultural and economic changes and led to weakening of conservation traditions and exploitative relations with forests.

If Adivasis had been granted clear tenurial rights and responsibilities across central India soon after Independence and also been helped to work out their own models of ‘development’ appropriate to local ecological and cultural contexts, the problem of ‘extremism’ seen today would have been far less or even absent.

Do you think implementation of the Forest Rights Act of 2006 can ameliorate this alienation?

Yes, but only partially. It can help reverse State and corporate take-over of forest commons and provide some governance controls back to communities. It can become a catalyst for strengthening indigenous knowledge and cultures, with appropriate changes where these traditions may be iniquitous or ineffective in the face of modern situations.

However, implementation of this Act needs to focus more on the community rather than the individual. It also needs to be supplemented by measures for appropriate health, education, and livelihood opportunities, building on what Adivasis already have in their own traditions. Crucially, some of the law’s own provisions (the 2005 cut-off date or the lack of limits on rights for resource use) could lead to deforestation or forest degradation. This needs clear institutional mechanisms within and with communities to avoid such impacts. Other existing laws such as PESA, NREGA, the Biodiversity Act and so on can be used in conjunction with the Forest Rights Act for this.

But laws can only go so far. More fundamental changes are needed in governance and development models working towards pathways that are envisaged with Adivasis.

Apart from granting land rights should we be moving towards community forest management?

Indeed, this is crucial. Central to the Adivasi way of life has been strong community or collective mode of functioning. There is a legitimate fear that if the Act’s implementation focuses on individual land rights, as it has done so far, this may further fragment communities.

There are several provisions for community rights and responsibilities in the Act and its Rules and these need urgent attention. There are also thousands of sites in India where communities are already, de facto, protecting and regenerating forests (we’ve documented several). The Act could provide powerful backing to these against both external threats and forces of destabilisation within communities.

Shouldn’t forest villages also get roads, schools, health clinics and be linked to the rest of India?

The Forest Rights Act has a provision to convert all forest villages into revenue villages. This will enable them to receive such benefits. Additionally, many such development facilities are now granted as a right in the Act. However, communities need to be enabled to consider and deal with the possible ecological impacts of such activities, especially in ‘deep’ forest areas where infrastructure can lead to fragmentation and negative impacts on the ecosystems and wildlife.

A lot of competing interests vie for control of forest resources. How can India’s forests meet all these needs?

What is important is for the country to decide what its priorities are. The National Forest Policy 1988 put the ecological functions of forests as the highest priority but also stressed the need to secure benefits for forestdwellers. That policy can be built on to bring in a new one that is appropriate in the modern context.

The two overarching objectives should be ecological security and livelihood security for forest-dwellers. All other uses of forests must be secondary.

A national land-use planning exercise should demarcate at least a third of India that is permanently off-limits to mining and industries and large-scale commercial exploitation. It should be reserved for ecological health (including wildlife, water, soils) livelihood and cultural survival. This would automatically meet climate change mitigation requirements which are not met through artificial plantations or cultivating jatropha. As for industry and infrastructure, its time we decided that there will be no more large-scale diversion of natural forests. Only such decisions will push us to search for alternative pathways of development that are sustainable.

What kind of forest management would you like to see?

We need fundamental changes in forest governance and management. From the stage of making working plans to deciding on forest budgets, forest-dwelling communities need to be involved, their knowledge coming on a par with modern forestry science. Gradually, all forests which have resident or user communities should shift to community-led or collaborative management, with appropriate checks against misuse of powers by both communities and the bureaucracy.

Whoever is in control needs to envision forests as places not only for human use, but also for the rightful survival of the rest of forest species that India is blessed with.

This could mean sacred, inviolate spaces singly or jointly protected by local people and government agencies, surrounded or abutted by stretches that are used for bona fide livelihood needs. Obviously this change cannot come overnight, and indeed in some places could lead to temporary setbacks due to vested interests or lack of local capacity. Yet in the long run this is the only thing that will conserve the country’s forests, and secure the sustenance of forest-dwelling communities.