Skip to main content

Forest Rights Act, PESA-empowered Adivasis 'effectively' braved Covid lockdown: Report

 
A new civil society report on the impact of Covid-19 lockdown on Adivasi and forest dwelling communities has said while it true that “vulnerabilities, atrocities and injustices that forest communities” due to forest, conservation and economic policies have increased during the pandemic”, yet examples galore suggesting that these communities have “coped with the crisis with remarkable resilience”.
Especially citing areas where land and forest rights of Adivasi and forest dwellers have been recognised and gram sabhas have been empowered under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 (FRA) and Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act 1996 (PESA), the report states that legally empowered forest communities have successfully coped with the “pandemic and widespread distress.”
Released on October 2, the report, “Community Forest Rights and the Pandemic: Gram Sabhas Lead The Way”, the Gandhi Jayanti day, cites case studies to illustrate how “the recognition of forest rights to use and manage community forests under the FRA has made it possible for many Adivasi and forest dwelling communities to overcome the distress and swing into action to address the situation created by the Covid pandemic and the lock down.”
Prepared by a team of independent researchers as part of Community Forest Rights (CFR) Learning and Advocacy and Vikalp Sangam initiative, the report says, local communities and gram sabhas “better understand the local complexities than local administrations while dealing with a crisis situation as presented by Covid-19, and respond faster especially when empowered by FRA.”
Thus, the report says, the gram sabhas in Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh, initiated “a holistic Covid-19 governance plan, while local administrations followed later on.” It narrates, in this context, how secure tenure and empowered gram sabhas “can help reduce distress out migration.”
The report quotes Pratibha Shinde, member of Lok Samanvay Pratisthan, an NGO which works in Nandurbar district in Maharashtra, as stating that “until 2016, a lot of people used to migrate out of Nandurbar district for work. Workers would go for six months as labourers to work in agricultural fields, however ever since getting CFR recognition, that has stopped.”
Shinde adds, “During the Covid-19 lockdown, the villagers had livelihood: in collection of forest produce, tree plantation through Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and building ponds and water harvesting for irrigation and other purposes through the CFR management committees.”
Pointing out that the lockdown coincided with a major season for minor forest produce (MFP) collection, the report says, case studies show that ownership rights over forest produce ensured “better and timely livelihood opportunities during the lockdown.”
Thus, in Gondia, Maharashtra, close to 50 gram sabhas are organised as a federation, who guaranteed competitive prices and bonus for the communities for their MFP collection even during a crisis. The federation of 29 villages earned Rs 2.5 crore by selling tendu leaves, while managing everything themselves and taking precautions against the spread of Covid-19.
Then, in Chamarajnagar, Karnataka, Soliga Adivasi communities survived the lockdown due to their collections of honey and tubers, on which as they have the right to market.
The report further says, local knowledge and long term conservation efforts led by local people has created healthy and diverse ecosystems which makes communities more resilient. Thus, in Nayagarh, Odisha, Adivasi Kondh communities were consuming diverse forest foods during the lockdown as they have been regenerating their natural forests for over four decades now.
In Dhule, Maharashtra, communities had saved up food grains and vegetables, as they have been practising self-sufficient agriculture as a way of long term cluster development for many years now since their CMF were legally recognised.
In Kutch, Gujarat, local knowledge of water systems, grasses and soils allowed Maldhari pastoralists and the hundred thousand cattle species to survive and thrive during the lockdown which coincided with a dry period.
Pointing towards what happens when local institutions, such as the gram sabha, are empowered, and women play a key role in managing the crisis, and other vulnerable communities such as returning migrant workers, pastoralists and Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) are attended to, the report says, “In Dindori, Madhya Pradesh, women organised a system of food distribution and water collection that made sure that physical distance was maintained in the Baiga PVTG villages.”
In Narmada district, Gujarat, gram sabhas ensured that Govaliya nomadic communities received foods. The report quotes Trupti Mehta of ARCH-Vahini as saying, “Till now, communities had chartered their ways through difficult terrain, but nobody had ever imagined that communities would have to face the situation that was totally beyond their imagination, and control Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.”
“Yet”, Mehta asserts, “This was the first time when the gram sabhas were actively involved and were entrusted in the management and protection of the forest resources”, though adding, “The main challenge remains that they carry out their processes in a democratic and transparent way and continue the forest management and protection work.”

Comments

TRENDING

Patriot, Link: How Soviet imbroglio post-1968 crucially influenced alternative media platforms

Adatata Narayanan, Aruna Asaf Ali Alternative media, as we know it today in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), didn't exist in the form it does today during or around the time I joined formal journalism at Link Newsweekly as a sub-editor in January 1979. However, Link, and its sister publication Patriot, a daily—both published from Delhi—were known to have provided what could be called an alternative media platform at a time when major Delhi-based dailies were controlled by media barons.

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's all hype with an eye on UP polls, asserts keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

Breaking news? Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

Morari Bapu echoes misleading figures to support the BJP's anti-conversion agenda

A senior Gujarat activist phoned me today to inform me that the well-known storyteller on Lord Ram, Morari Bapu, has made an "unsubstantiated" and "preposterous" statement in Songadh town, located in the tribal-dominated Tapi district. He claimed that while the Gujarat government wants the Bhagavad Gita to be taught in schools, the "problem is" that 75% of government teachers "are Christians who do not let this happen" and are “involved in religious conversions.”

An untold story? Still elusive: Gujarati language studies on social history of Gujarat's caste and class evolution

This is a follow-up to my earlier blog , where I mentioned that veteran scholar Prof. Ghanshyam Shah has just completed a book for publication on a topic no academic seems to have dealt with—caste and class relations in Gujarat’s social history. He forwarded me a chapter of the book, published as an "Economic & Political Weekly" article last year, which deals with the 2015 Patidar agitation in the context of how this now-powerful caste originated in the Middle Ages and how it has evolved in the post-independence era.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.

Justifying social divisions? 'Dogs too have caste system like we humans, it's natural'

I have never had any pets, nor am I very comfortable with them. Frankly, I don't know how to play with a pet dog. I just sit quietly whenever I visit someone and see their pet dog trying to lick my feet. While I am told not to worry, I still choose to be a little careful, avoiding touching the pet.

New York-based digital company traces Modi's meteoric rise to global Hindutva ecosystem over several decades

A recent document, released by the Polis Project Inc.—a New York-based digital magazine and hybrid research and journalism organization—even as seeking to highlight the alleged rise of authoritarianism in India, has sought to trace Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meteoric rise since 2014 to the ever-expanding global Hindutva ecosystem over the last several decades.

What's wrong with those seeking to promote Sanskrit? An ex-Hindi professor has the answer

Ajay Tiwari  I have always wondered why certain elite sections are so fascinated by Sanskrit, to the extent of even practicing speaking a language that, for all practical purposes, isn’t alive. During my Times of India stint in Gandhinagar, the Gujarat state capital, I personally witnessed an IAS bureaucrat, Bhagyesh Jha, trying to converse with a friend in Sanskrit.