So, are you for the tigers or the tribals?
The debate is how we can provide rights to people, and still protect our natural heritage…ANANT SUDARSHAN
W HEN it comes to tigers, nothing’s certain in our country. Maharashtra is not even up to a comprehensive census this summer. But one thing that activists, politicians and some NGOs seem to uniformly agree upon is that any big problem is invariably also a zero sum game. In recent months we have heard a lot about one such battle: Tigers vs Tribals. On the one hand, you have the tiger conservationists who fear that the recently notified Scheduled Tribes and Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 will finally end our efforts to save one of the most majestic animals on the planet.
On the other, are those who believe that it provides richly deserved justice to a long exploited people. Now if the options before us truly involve either wiping a highly evolved species off the face of the earth, or continuing a history of oppressive behaviour towards our own kind, then there really is no “correct” decision we could make. Thankfully however, the reality is a little more nuanced.
It is important to appreciate the context in which the Forest Rights Act has been created. The history of forest rights legislation in India has been based upon laws passed by the British (such as the Indian Forest Act of 1927) which were premised upon a treatment of India’s forests as a source of revenue, and their in habitants as an inconvenience to be removed. Between 1961 and 1988 the area falling within reserved forests increased from 26 million ha to 46 million ha. With no rights over land declared as forest, today, over 62 per cent of the adivasi people are completely landless. Examples of state apathy towards tribal rights abound, a prime example being the non-implementation of the 1988 Indian Forest Policy, which for the first time had recognised that tribal communities are dependent on forests for their survival and livelihood.
If the FRA is implemented, it will enable a comprehensive reclassifi cation of forestland across the country. It is not widely recognised that India’s “recorded forest cover” (land owned and controlled by the forest department) far exceeds actual forested land. A comparison of forest department records with satellite imagery from the Forest Survey of India (2003) suggests that, at least, about 12.4 per cent (about 96,000 sq km) of India’s recorded forest cover is misclassified.
Put simply, when you consider that entire communities of people are being rendered criminals purely for living as they traditionally have, it becomes evident that the status quo is contrary to any principles of a democratic society. The need for change is hard to question.
The central thesis of the conservationist argument is that the only possible way for the tiger to survive is through isolation from human contact, and that this legislation renders that goal impossible. There are various problems with this line of reasoning. It fails to recognise that the FRA has implications that go well beyond the tiger alone. It is not selfevident that the implementation of the act will result in the wholesale decimation of the tiger population.
The FRA provides for the specification of critical wildlife habitats, which, once notified, cannot then be used for other purposes. This is an opportunity to scientifically evaluate those sites that are most important for conservation, and identify the extent of human activities that may occur within them. It is not true that all wildlife requires the complete absence of human habitation to survive, and indeed examples exist (such as the spread of the Paspalum weed in Bharatpur following a ban on grazing) where the ecosystem has been negatively affected by the re moval of traditional human activity.
Because circumstances vary across ecosystems it is perfectly possible that many communities could be given basic rights without hurting conservation efforts in general.
It is also useful to remember that since Project Tiger began, adivasi people have had no rights over forests and have consistently been treated as encroachers. As for the problem of poaching (the greatest danger to the survival of the tiger), there is widespread agreement that currently forest authorities are too abysmally understaffed and underequipped to be at all effective. The solution lies in hiring more guards, providing them with top quality equipment, tackling smuggling and enlisting and employing local people in the conservation effort. Once again this is not inconsistent with implementing the FRA.
The underlying motivations of both the FRA and the tiger conservationists are perfectly justified. Yet if we wish to see either effort succeed, we need to acknowledge that the debate that is necessary is not whether we should provide rights to people, but rather how we can do so and still protect our natural heritage.
The writer is doing a PhD in energy and environment policy at Stanford University anant.sudarshan@gmail.com
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