BIOTROPICA 39(5): 575–577 2007
10.1111/j.1744-7429.2007.00333.x
Conservation in India and the Need to Think Beyond ‘Tiger vs. Tribal’
Pankaj Sekhsaria1
Kalpavriksh, Apartments 5, Sri Dutta Krupa, 908 Deccan Gymkhana, Pune 411004, India
SHOULD INDIAN TRIBAL COMMUNITIES BE GRANTED THEIR HISTORand if they are, what
impact will this have on India’s forests and beleaguered wildlife
populations?
In recent years those arguing for tribal rights and those seeking
to conserve wildlife and forests have been grappling incessantly
with these and similar questions: articulating, arguing, counterarguing, fighting, debating, and then articulating their opinions
all over again. This has resulted in an extremely polarized debate
with clear positions on either side of the divide. The history of
this debate is long and complex: an important milestone being the
start of British control in the region. A significant aspect of 19th
century British policy in India was bringing forests under state
control and the curtailment and even annulment in many cases of
the customary right of communities over these forests. This started
a process of alienation that continued through the decades, through
independence and goes on even today.
This, in short, is the situation that a new legislation, recently
approved by the Indian parliament, seeks to address.
ICALLY DENIED RIGHTS IN FOREST AREAS,
A NEW LEGISLATION
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers
(Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, hereafter the Act, came into
being in January 2007. It seeks, primarily, to correct the historical
injustices committed in denying traditional rights over forest lands
to tribal communities across the length and breadth of the country. If implemented correctly the Act has the potential to provide
livelihood security and secure land tenure to a multitude of people
from the most marginalized and vulnerable sections of Indian society (Gopalkrishnan 2007, Kothari 2007, Prasad 2007). It can only
be considered a welcome and desirable step.
But there might a downside that a section of wildlife conservationists and the forest bureaucracy are extremely worried about.
One of the biggest concerns is that the Act will undo the many
conservation successes that India has seen in the last four decades,
particularly after the promulgation of the Wildlife Protection Act
in 1972. Conservation initiatives in India have led to the creation of a large network of protected areas, numbering nearly 600
wildlife sanctuaries and national parks and covering an area of about
1
Received 12 April 2007; revision accepted 18 May 2007.
Corresponding author; e-mail: psekhsaria@gmail.com
4.5 percent of the country’s landmass. A number of biosphere reserves have been created in diverse ecosystems, and other areas have
been notified as Ecologically Sensitive Zones.
Opponents argue that, at best, the Act will undo the gains
of the last four decades and will accelerate the destruction of
the already fast declining forest cover, and at worst it could become another convenient cover for vested interests (including land
and timber mafias in collaboration with political forces) to capture
large resources of land, forests, and timber (Mazoomdar 2006a, b;
Bhargav 2007).
This complex issue has no clear resolution, but there are alternative and less polarized positions. It has been articulated that
fear of the heightened destruction of India’s remaining forests, expressed by those opposing the Act, is overstated. Additionally, some
of the demands being made in the name of tribal rights (like regularization of all encroachments till 2005) were not desirable, and
would in fact play into the hands of vested interests. The bill, I have
argued ‘appears to want solutions to all the historical and present
problems of tribals and forest dwellers through one single move.
This won’t be possible unless there is a significant course correction
in the present paradigm of development that willingly sacrifices the
lands and livelihood of millions in its name or guns down tribals
for opposing huge projects. . .’ (Sekhsaria 2006a).
TIGER VS TRIBAL?
This issue was also the subject of an opinion piece titled ‘Balance
needed in the tribal bill discussion’ that I sent to one of India’s
leading English newspapers that had itself taken a clear position of
opposing the provisions of the proposed act for fear of its negative
impacts on India’s remaining forests. The piece appeared with little
editing but for the headline, which read ‘It needn’t be tigers vs
tribals’ (Sekhsaria 2006b).
This title change is significant in that I had neither perceived
nor articulated the issue in this light. It had not been my intention
to position the tiger so directly against the tribal in this manner.
The tiger, in any case, had only one passing mention in the entire
piece of over 1000 words. Undoubtedly, there is a journalistic need
to create the impression of conflict to sell newspapers, but perhaps
this headline better reflected the positions of those articulating the
debate (this writer included) and less about the real situation on the
ground.
There is no denying that India’s forests, wildlife, and the entire
natural resource base is under severe stress. There are, as we all know,
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C 2007 The Author(s)
C 2007 by The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation
Journal compilation !
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Sekhsaria
reasons that are visible and proximate—the poor tribal cutting a tree
to cook his daily meal, or killing a tiger or some other wild animal
for additional income. Our failure lies, perhaps, in mistaking the
symptoms with the underlying cause: equating the malaise with its
manifestations. The questions that I want to ask therefore are these:
Is the tiger really positioned so obviously against the tribal? Are
conservation and tribal people mutually exclusive? Isn’t reality far
more complex and multi-layered?
India is a country of more than a billion people of which tribals
account for only about 10 percent. The tribal identity itself is heterogeneous and dynamic: value systems and traditions are in flux,
and so are peoples’ aspirations. Many within tribal communities
have even become wealthy and powerful. The overall picture, however, and one that few will deny, is of a section of Indian society
that is the most vulnerable and marginalized, and the section that
has been most sacrificed in the great nation-building project called
India. These and other similar communities have been displaced,
often brutally, from their ancestral forests, fields, and livelihoods to
make way for one big project after another—for dams, mines, urban expansion, and infrastructure projects. When they have resisted,
and there are innumerable cases of this, they have been physically
assaulted and sometimes killed by forces of the state that are meant
to protect them (Kalshian 2005, Gadgil & Guha 2007).
In such a huge country, then, with so many points of view and
importantly, so many stakes on resources, it seems strange that many
conservationists attribute the problems of forests, conservation, and
even the tiger to impoverished and marginalized tribals almost to
the complete exclusion of all else.
MANY THREATS
While tribal policy and rights often gets discussed for their negative
impacts on conservation, little if ever, is discussed on these lines
in other contexts. Conservation in India appears to have a blind
spot when it comes to tribal rights. There is little discussion of
the implications of a number of other significant developments in
the country. There is little talk about the impact on wildlife or the
forests of India’s 9 percent GDP growth. Thousands of hectares of
productive lands are being designated as Special Economic Zones
(SEZs). Traditional tribal lands, many of which are thickly forested
and home to a range of large wildlife, are allocated to mining interests that seek to attract billions of US dollars. The fascination
for huge dams continues to drown pristine forests in the biodiversity hotspots of the Western Ghats and the Eastern Himalayas, and
across the landscape infrastructure projects continue to cut through
forested areas, and migratory corridors. Tourism projects are being proposed in the name of wildlife conservation in lands where
traditional communities are being displaced.
A few of years ago tribal people were blamed for large-scale
encroachment and tree felling deep inside the Simlipal Tiger Reserve in Eastern Indian state of Orissa. Yet these same people had
been recently displaced by mining projects in neighboring Jharkhand (Anonymous 2004; B. Mohanty, pers. comm.). Displaced
people must go somewhere and do something to ensure their survival and that of their families. It may be that they were impacting
the tiger and its habitat in Simlipal, but that is only the most
visible and obvious development. Does the fundamental responsibility lie with the tribals, or with the processes that destroy their
homelands and force them to move? Is this simply a tiger vs. tribal
situation?
A more recent case is that of the Polavaram Dam in the southern
Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The dam that is to be built at a cost
of over three billion US dollars will submerge more than 40,000 ha
of agricultural lands and affect the lives and livelihoods of nearly
200,000 people in about 290 settlements and villages. The dam
will also submerge about 55 km2 of forest land including some
17 km2 of Papikonda Wildlife Sanctuary. This matter of the dam
clearance was taken to the Central Empowered Committee (CEC),
a high-powered body created by India’s Supreme Court to deal
with matters related to forests. One of the conditions for the final
approval suggested by the CEC in its report to the Supreme Court
is that nearly 500 km2 of forests adjoining the Papikonda Wildlife
Sanctuary be added to the sanctuary, and this be then declared
a national park (CEC 2006). Spread over 1000 km2 this would
then become one of the largest national parks in the country. India’s
Wildlife Protection Act prohibits people from living within national
park and extinguishes all their traditional rights relating to the use of
the forest and its resources. Although the number of people directly
affected by this notification will, in this case, not likely be very large,
it is the principle that is more relevant: additional displacement is
being created as a condition to ensure the main displacement will
take place. While there is no respite for the 200,000 who will be
directly displaced because of submergence, additional displacement
is being created in the name of wildlife conservation. The report of
the CEC can only be considered a powerful reinforcement of the
conflicts and contradictions that have come to underline wildlife
conservation in the country.
Can wildlife conservation of this kind ever hope to gain the
support of the local communities? We have to bear in mind that
while only 4–5 percent of India’s landmass is protected for wildlife
as part of the country’s protected area network, upward of three
million people live within, or are directly dependent upon, these
areas (Kothari et al. 1995). Can conservation really work by denying
their rights and livelihoods?
A quick overview of the situation in India today will serve
to provide a more balanced perspective of causes of environmental
degradation. In Orissa, there is mining in the tiger- and elephantrich forests of Niyamgiri (Devarajan 2004, Sethi 2007), and a huge
port project at Dhamra in the middle of the world’s most important
Olive Ridley Turtle nesting grounds (Sekhsaria 2004). In Jharkhand, coal mining in the North Karanpura Valley will affect critical
wildlife migratory corridors (Vagholikar et al. 2003). In Karnataka,
the Mhadei Dam is being constructed amidst evergreen forests of
the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot. In Arunachal Pradesh in
Eastern Himalayas, a series of dams on the Subansiri River will submerge some of the best standing forests in that part of the country
(Menon et al. 2003).
Other significant impacts of development are rarely reported or
recognized. In Gujarat in Western India Forest Department figures
reveal, for instance, that nearly 150 wild animals including leopards,
hyena, and nilgai (Indian bluebull) were killed in road accidents
Commentary
between 1998 and 2004 in the Vadodara Forest Circle that covers
about 3000 km2 (David 2004). An animal killed by a tribal could
perhaps be eaten or sold, but what is the value gained from one that
is flattened between fast rubber and rock hard bitumen?
THE PARADIGM OF DEVELOPMENT
Let me elaborate this irony further with the role of the judiciary in
India today. The Supreme Court of India has played a very active
role in the last decade in protecting India’s forests and wildlife. Its
role has been much applauded and appreciated in this context. A
completely different picture becomes apparent when conservation is
put up against the dominant notion of progress and development as
symbolized by large development projects. For example, a proposal
to increase the height of the Mullaperiyar dam in southern India
has been opposed on grounds of, among other things, the negative
impact on wildlife, as parts of the Periyar Tiger Reserve will be
submerged. The verdict of the Supreme Court was to allow the
height increase based on the following logic: ‘The increase of water
level will not affect the flora and fauna. In fact, the reports placed on
record show that there will be improvement in the environment. It is
on record that the fauna, particularly elephant herds and tigers will
be happier when the water level slowly rises to touch the forest line.
In nature, all birds and animals love water spread and exhibit their
exuberant pleasure with heavy rains filling the reservoir resulting in
a lot of greenery and ecological environment around’ (Murali 2006,
Supreme Court 2006).
It is obvious that the issues, questions, and debates about
tribals and conservation are subsumed by the overwhelming belief in the priority of a particular type of a development paradigm.
This paradigm drives India’s institutionalized prioritization of industrialization that sidelines tribal rights and conservation responsibilities such that the tiger has no hope, and neither does the
tribal.
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SEKHSARIA, P. 2006b. It needn’t be tigers vs tribals. Indian Express, 11 September
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SETHI, N. 2007. Under pressure institute eats own works. The Times of India,
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