The Eastern Ghats, a chain of broken hill ranges stretching across five states and covering nearly 75,000 square kilometers, remain one of India’s most ecologically diverse yet critically endangered landscapes. In Andhra Pradesh, they shelter an extraordinary wealth of biodiversity and sustain the livelihoods of over one million tribal people in the Scheduled Areas of the erstwhile Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, and Godavari districts, where the majority of the state’s forests are located. However, climate change, intensified by decades of unsustainable human activity, now threatens to unravel this delicate socio-ecological fabric.
For centuries, tribal groups such as the Kondareddy, Bagatha, Chenchus, Kondh, Porja, Jatapu, Konda Dora, and Savara have depended on the forests of the Eastern Ghats for food, medicine, and income. Non-timber forest products like bamboo, honey, gum karaya, and adda leaves form the backbone of their local economy. However, population pressure and shrinking forest cover have shortened shifting cultivation cycles, leading to land degradation, forest fires, and the disappearance of moisture-loving plant species once common in these hills. This erosion of ecological health has gone hand in hand with the weakening of traditional knowledge systems built on sustainable resource use.
A partial corrective came with the Forest Rights Act of 2006, which sought to address historical injustices to tribal and other traditional forest dwellers. In Andhra Pradesh, it recognized the forest land occupations of about 226,000 tribal families, covering roughly 455,000 acres. This recognition has enabled communities to take up agriculture and horticulture plantations, offering some economic stability. Yet, high-altitude tribal areas remain heavily dependent on rainfed farming, leaving them extremely vulnerable to droughts and erratic rainfall. Climate shifts are already disrupting crop yields, reducing the availability of non-timber forest products, and increasing dryness, conditions that encourage herb growth at the expense of tree diversity. Experts warn that climate change could cause an 18 percent reduction in evergreen and deciduous forest cover in the region by 2050, delivering a devastating blow to biodiversity and livelihoods alike.
The Eastern Ghats have long faced biodiversity loss, beginning with colonial-era clear-cutting of forests for teak plantations and continuing with post-independence monocultures and cash crops. Invasive species now outcompete native flora, while dam construction projects like Polavaram, mining, settlement expansion, and tourism fragment the remaining habitats. Sacred groves, once resilient reservoirs of biodiversity, are also under threat. The weakening of these ecological strongholds reduces the region’s capacity to withstand the shocks of a changing climate.
Addressing these realities demands a course correction in climate action. Ground-level realities, erratic rainfall, declining water quality, and shrinking crop yields must guide planning. Climate-resilient crops, eradication of invasive species, and soil moisture conservation are urgently needed. Water security can be strengthened through decentralized, climate-friendly irrigation and safe drinking water systems. Safeguarding biodiversity must prioritize the protection of disappearing native species. Expanding green livelihoods through renewable energy projects, agroforestry, and skill development could enable tribal youth to move into sustainable employment. In remote areas where mainstream healthcare rarely reaches, herbal and ayurvedic systems offer practical alternatives. Sustainable transport solutions, including electric mobility in tribal regions, could cut emissions while improving connectivity.
Legal provisions already exist to strengthen such community-led conservation. Under Section 41(1) of the Biological Diversity Act of 2002, every local body must constitute a Biodiversity Management Committee to promote conservation, sustainable use, and documentation of biodiversity. Section 41(2) mandates these committees to prepare and maintain People’s Biodiversity Registers, which document local biological resources and the traditional knowledge associated with them. In Andhra Pradesh, however, the functioning of Biodiversity Management Committees faces significant challenges. Many exist only on paper and lack trained members to carry out their responsibilities. The preparation of People’s Biodiversity Registers is often a one-time exercise conducted by a few technical personnel rather than through the participation of people in the Gram Panchayat area, and they are rarely updated thereafter.
Awareness among local communities about their legal rights, access and benefit-sharing provisions, and the protections available under the law remains limited. Data integration between district-level and state-level biodiversity registers is weak, producing fragmented records that undermine effective conservation and enforcement. In the state’s Scheduled Areas, People’s Biodiversity Registers are of particular importance. They record the traditional ecological knowledge of tribal communities, preserve information about local species and their uses, and provide an evidentiary base for legal claims under the Forest Rights Act of 2006 and the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996. They can also form the basis for benefit-sharing agreements when pharmaceutical companies, research institutions, or commercial enterprises use local biological resources, ensuring that the communities who have safeguarded these resources for generations receive their fair share of the benefits.
Moreover, the Community Forest Resource rights recognized under the Forest Rights Act go beyond granting access to forest land. They impose a statutory duty on the Gram Sabha to protect, conserve, and sustainably manage forests, biodiversity, and associated cultural heritage. This empowers Gram Sabhas to play a decisive role in safeguarding ecosystems while integrating traditional conservation practices with modern environmental governance. As per the 2011 Census, approximately 2,456,000 acres of forest area lie within the cadastral boundaries of 2,982 revenue villages in Andhra Pradesh. As of June 2025, 1,822 claims under the Forest Rights Act have been recognized as community rights over a forest area of 526,454 acres. Thousands of potential forest villages still hold community forest resource landscapes within notified forest areas. In the newly created Alluri Sitharama Raju district alone, an estimated 2,623 potential villages have forest areas as per reports. Recognizing Community Forest Resource Rights over these forests would not only secure livelihoods but also greatly strengthen biodiversity conservation.
The future of the Eastern Ghats is not merely an environmental concern; it is a question of climate justice. Here, the survival of ecosystems and the rights of tribal communities are inseparable. Without coherent, community-driven climate action, the region risks both ecological collapse and cultural erosion. The challenge is not simply to adapt but to transform policy, grounding it in the lived realities of the people who have safeguarded these hills for generations.
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