Afforestation grabed the land meant for tribals

Odisha’s Tribal Communities Are Reeling Under a Land Grab Project Masquerading as ‘Afforestation’

The forest department‘s move to aggressively promote commercial
plantation activities on community forest land in the name of
compensatory afforestation is usurping the forest rights of the tribal
communities.
Several weeks have passed since the Odisha forest department staff
descended on Pratima Mallick‘s village – Pidadamaha, in Kandhamal
district – to cut down 12 acres of their community forest, but she still can‘t
get the incident out of her mind.
―They came in the early hours of the morning,‖ she said, her eyes bright
with unshed tears. ―We saw our trees butchered – mango, jackfruit, kendu,
mahua, jamukoli, siyali, amala, bahada. We have nurtured and protected
our forest for generations; it sustains our livelihoods, our very lives. But, on
that day, we were told we had no legal rights to it,‖ she recalled.

Pratima and many others in the village said that the police had threatened
to displace them from the forest if they opposed the work of the state forest
department. The latter has been aggressively promoting commercial tree
plantation by supplanting forests nurtured by tribal communities, which
comprise 53% of the population of Kandhamal district.
In the forest land that is being targeted by the forest department, the tribal
communities have been growing a diverse food basket of millets, tubers,
pulses, and greens. From the forest they collect minor forest produce (MFP)
for household consumption and for sale at the local haats, which ensures a
major source of income.
In villages such as Pidadamaha, where there are no gas stoves, Mamita
Mallick pointed out, they gather fallen twigs, dried leaves and wood, ―to
make a fire over which we cook our food.‖ Every household maintains a
stock for the rainy season.
Cutting down the forest means cutting the roots of their existence, more so
in the wake of the pandemic induced lockdown. With the haats closed and
no traders visiting the villages, the income levels of tribal communities
have fallen sharply. If anything has kept hunger at bay in Kandhamal
during these months, it is the varied bounties of the forest.
Moreover, this is a time when migrant workers have been returning to
their homes in the wake of the lockdown. The fact that the forest
department has chosen to destroy a large part of the traditional forest in
Pidadamaha village at a time when their dependence on it is increasing,
exposes the department‘s total disconnect with the concerns of the
communities living in the area.
No wonder the Kondh community of Pidadamaha is so unhappy and
angry at the forest department‘s action. ―It was as if we were watching our
children being killed in front of us. Let them try and plant commercial trees
in our forest. We will uproot their saplings and destroy their plan,‖
declared Rajanti Mallick.
Then, as the flash of anger subsided, despair took over. ―They have killed
us. Without the forest, our life is doomed,‖ she said.

The forest department‘s action in Pidadamaha village has been severely
condemned by civil society groups and tribal rights activists. Prafulla
Samantara, a Green Nobel Prize winner for his work as an environmental
and tribal rights activist, told The Wire, ―The state forest department‘s
action was a blatant violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, in a
scheduled area.‖
Experts working on issues of tribal rights and forest governance point out
that what happened in Pidadamaha was not an isolated instance. Every
such case has demonstrated that The Scheduled Tribes and Other
Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, 2006 (Forest Rights Act as it is popularly
known), which was enacted by the Central government to address the
historical injustice suffered by India‘s traditional forest dwellers, is not
being implemented properly.
Under the Act, as much as 47% of India‘s forest land should be under the
management of gram sabhas of the Scheduled Tribes. If the claim of the
community over forest land is pending, then no external activity is to be
allowed on that land.
But there‘s a huge gap between word and deed. According to Samantara,
the forest department did not have the gram sabha‘s approval for its action
in Pidadamaha. The sacrifice of natural forest for the promotion of
commercial plantation is an attempt to help industries at the cost of
Adivasis, he said.
Samantara, who has been campaigning against the destruction of
community forests in Kandhamal, said he had already written letters to the
Governor urging immediate action. He was clear that the ―authorities are
simply taking advantage of the lockdown.‖
Kailash Dandapat, director, Jagruti, a not-for-profit organisation working
with the tribal and marginalised communities in Kandhamal, told The
Wire, ―The forest department has spent crores of rupees in Kandhamal on
plantation activities. But they hardly ever consult the local communities on
these matters. More importantly, such activities are counterproductive –
they usurp the forest rights of the tribal communities.‖

Poor implementation of FRA
Odisha provides a good example of all that is lacking in the
implementation of the FRA. The state‘s forests cover around 37% of its
topography. They are home to 62 Scheduled Tribe communities and 13
particularly vulnerable tribal groups that make up nearly 22% of the state‘s
population.
At least 32,711 villages are eligible for the recognition of their rights to
community forest resources (CFR) as they have forest lands within their
revenue village boundaries.
Sushanta Kumar Dalai, a development professional working with the
Dongria Kondh tribal communities in Niyamgiri, Odisha, told The Wire,
―Around 23,00,000 hectares of forest can be recognised as CFR in the state.
In practice, experts say, there has been a serious shortfall in the
implementation of the CFR – just 3 % of the area under CFR has been
settled through the award of legal title deeds between 2006 and 2017,
according to an assessment conducted by the US-based Rights and
Resources Initiatives, in 2017.
That seems to be the reality across the country, too. Y. Giri Rao, director,
Vasundhara, a Bhubaneswar-based not-for-profit organisation working on
the issue of tribal land rights and forest governance, pointed out the
operational challenges, ―There are long-pending applications, irregular
meetings of sub-divisional level committees (SDLCs) and district-level
committees (DLCs), and a lack of clarity about the CFR recognition
process.‖ Ironically, state tribal welfare departments often ended up
depending on the forest departments to verify the claims filed by gram
sabhas, he said.
As a result, pointed out Tushar Dash, a researcher at Community Forest
Rights – Learning and Advocacy, ―More than 50 % of the claims have been
rejected by states without following due procedure.‖ Activists have
repeatedly opposed these abrupt rejections and even challenged them in

court, saying these claims need to be reviewed by the state governments.
But such reviews are a rarity, Dash said.
In the last decade or so, tribal rights activists have severely criticised the
way in which non-state actors such as several wildlife conservation groups,
tendu leaf contractors, mining corporations and power-plant industries
have opposed the CFR rights of Scheduled Tribes.
―The instances of mining leases being granted in CFR areas without the
gram sabhas‘ consent has increased over the years,‖ said Giri Rao. For
example, CFR rights were withdrawn on January 22, 2019, at Ghabharra,
Chhattisgarh to promote corporate interest in coal deposits.
As per the law in India, if forest areas are used for infrastructure and
mining projects (non-forest use), compensatory afforestation must be done
on an equal area of non-forestry land, or in the case of degraded forest, on
double its area. The expenses are to be met from the Fund at the central or
state level, depending on the specific instance.
The Central government‘s argument is that such a scheme would increase
the forest cover. The Modi government is aggressively promoting CA, also
seeing it as a way of fulfilling a key commitment made under the 2015
Paris Climate agreement, to check climate change by co-creating carbon
sinks of 2.5-3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
But that is just one side of the story.
Experts say CAMPA tactically ignores and directly clashes with the
landmark FRA. It also goes against the principles of democratic devolution
outlined in the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments.
Manohar Chauhan, an independent consultant working on issues relating
to the FRA in Odisha and Chhattisgarh, told The Wire that the CAMPA Act
―is legitimising deforestation and acting as a tool to undermine the forest
rights of tribal people granted by the FRA.‖
In Kandhamal and Bolangir districts, Chauhan said, the state forest
department has used the CAMPA fund to illegally evict tribals and other

forest dwellers from protected areas. ―In Odisha and Jharkhand, there have
been conflicts due to the encroachment of CAMPA projects in areas
claimed by local communities under the FRA,‖ he revealed.
When local communities protested forceful encroachment, forest officials
filed false cases against them. They have been arrested and even physically
assaulted, forced to sign on blank papers. ―In many cases, prior to
encroachment or eviction, the forest department obtains consent from the
defunct Joint Forest Management committees which have no legal
validity,‖ said Chauhan.
Gopinath Majhi, the Odisha convenor of the Campaign for Survival and
Dignity, the forum which advocated the enactment of the FRA in 2006,
described how the CAMPA fund has been grossly misused by the forest
departments in question. ―There are multiple cases of ‗ghost plantations‘
[achieved on paper sans any plantation activity on the ground].‖ In
Bakingia village, in Kandhamal, the forest department has violated the
FRA by planting 40,000 commercial tree saplings under CA on land
claimed by tribals under CFR rights, Majhi told The Wire.
There are several reports of forest departments creating monoculture
plantations of non-native species under CA projects. Such plantations have
not only affected the forest-based livelihood of tribal communities living in
and around the forests; the presence of non-native species such as teak,
rubber and eucalyptus could lead to ecologically counter-productive
outcomes, said Majhi.
In most cases, the areas where plantation activities are supplanting forests
are significant for tribal communities at several levels: growing a diverse
food basket; gathering MFP; (mahua, tendu, tamarind, amla, harida,
bahada and a range of wild mushrooms, tubers, roots, berries and herbs);
grazing livestock; accessing cultural and religious sites; and as burial
grounds.
However, the practice followed by the forest department, of fencing off the
plantation and posting guards at the site, means that tribal and forest
dwelling people can no longer access those areas.

What is more frustrating is that the claim of the Kutia Kondh community to
that land has been recognised under the FRA and yet that area has been
devoured by a CA project. ―This is the face of the forest bureaucracy,‖ said
development professional Dalai. In his view, such actions ―could further
increase displacement and unrestrained exploitation of the forest dwelling communities.
According to a 2017 study conducted by the Ministry of Environment,
Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), over 70 % of these plantations
have been executed on forest lands instead of non-forest lands.
―This is in violation of Para 3(2)(i) of the guidelines issued under the Forest
Conservation Act, which states that compensatory afforestation must be
undertaken on non-forest land in the same district where forest land has
been diverted for non-forest purposes,‖ pointed out Majhi.
In Odisha, large-scale commercial plantations have been initiated by the
forest department in areas where forest rights have either been recognised
under the FRA or where such recognition is still pending. In most cases,
gram sabhas were not consulted in the process. A study conducted by
Vasundhara in 22 villages of Kandhamal and South Forest Divisions of
Kalahandi district found that plantation projects had been initiated without
the consent of gram sabhas.
Under the CAMPA Act, the gram sabha is required to give its consent for
afforestation. What is happening in Odisha is just the opposite. The Act is
alienating it from the decision-making process when it comes to the
management of natural resource management in tribal areas.
As far as the regeneration of degraded forests is concerned, there are any
number of examples in Odisha where tribal communities have proven that
they are the best guardians of the forest and die-hard conservationists.
―Involving tribal communities in forest management will strengthen
conservation efforts,‖ was the view of Jagruti director Dandapat. He was
unequivocal that ―they should be considered as allies by the forest
department.‖ Empowering them by recognising their land and forest rights
under the FRA could go a long way, he felt.
The importance of community-based conservation initiatives cannot be
overemphasised, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. What the
state government should be doing is develop afforestation plans in
collaboration with the gram sabha, especially in the fifth scheduled areas.
Experts say the plantation of non-native species cannot regenerate natural
forests. ―Timber is not the solution; the focus should be on indigenous
species of forests which would provide food, shelter and medicine for the
local communities,‖ Rao, director of Vasundhara, stressed. ―The local
community is more likely to protect the forest which gives them their
means of survival and food security. It will be a win-win situation,‖ he
added.
His view was echoed by Joy Daniel Pradhan, Delhi-based development
practitioner who has extensively worked with the tribal communities in
Odisha. “The forest department should play the role of a facilitator rather
than act like a colonial and post-colonial forest bureaucracy,‖ he said.
Pradhan‘s logic was simple — if the government allows the present level of
tribal dispossession from forests and access to its resources, it is bound to
exacerbate conflicts. In fact, that is already happening.
The solution to the problem lies with the gram sabha. The guidelines
issued by the Ministry of Tribal Welfare (MoTA) in 2015, stated that the
gram sabhas should be involved in CA activities, and their prior consent
obtained before carrying out any plantation; also that CAMPA funds can
be directly transferred to the gram sabha for utilisation. However, the
guidelines were never translated into action.
Experts point out that the onus should be on the forest department to
ensure that all CA activities are accomplished with the prior and informed
consent of the gram sabhas. However, it has been seen that it is the forest
department which undercuts their role.

As usual, everything boils down to a question of intent. Pratima Mallick of
Pidadamaha village had the last word on this issue when she said with
great clarity, ―The forest department babus (officers) should protect the
forest. It is their duty, but you see they are happily destroying our forest.
Who gave them the right to do so?‖