Biodiversity Conservation vs. Indigenous Rights

As the global biodiversity crisis intensifies, conservation efforts around the world are facing criticism for sidelining Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs). In this backdrop, India’s Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, offers a unique legal framework that integrates biodiversity conservation with the rights and traditional knowledge of Adivasis and other forest-dependent communities.

How the Forest Rights Act (FRA) makes India different?

• India’s Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, commonly known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA), offers a progressive legal model that integrates indigenous rights with biodiversity conservation.
• It embodies all these principles and provides the legal framework for securing forest tenure and other pre-existing rights of Adivasi and local communities.
• ·         Key Contributions of FRA:
  • Recognises the historical injustice faced by Adivasis and forest dwellers who were denied legal rights to their ancestral lands.
  • Empowers gram sabhas (village assemblies) to manage and govern community forest resources.
    • Recognises a range of rights — from individual land titles to community rights over forest produce, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge.
    • Legally enables a bottom-up approach to forest governance, unlike the top-down, state-led protected area model.
• This makes India one of the few countries where conservation and indigenous rights are not in conflict by law, at least on paper.

Why IPLCs matter for biodiversity?

• Globally, there's a growing recognition that indigenous communities are crucial for conservation. Research has shown that biodiversity thrives better in territories managed by IPLCs than in many state-run protected areas.
• International institutions have also taken note:
  • Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD): Through Article 8(j), it urges countries to respect and integrate traditional knowledge and practices in biodiversity conservation.
  • UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007): Affirms the rights of IPLCs to manage their own lands and resources.
  • Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022): Envisions a more inclusive conservation approach and targets like "30 by 30", which aims to bring 30% of the world's lands and oceans under conservation by 2030 — with community participation.
• However, the implementation remains uneven, and fortress-style conservation still displaces communities in several countries.

India’s Constitutional and Legal Support for IPLCs:

• While India does not officially use the term "indigenous peoples", it has a strong constitutional framework to support Scheduled Tribes through:
  • Fifth and Sixth Schedules
  • PESA Act, 1996 (recognising self-rule in tribal areas)
  • Constitution of India provides Articles 244 & 244A, enabling tribal governance in Scheduled Areas.
• With over 104 million Adivasis, India has the world’s largest indigenous population in a single country.
• Laws like the FRA and PESA allow for a unique and legally supported model of decentralised, democratic resource management.

Gaps between Policy and Practice (Challenges)

Despite progressive laws like FRA, India's biodiversity governance still faces major issues:

• Implementation Gaps: The Forest Rights Act has not been effectively implemented in many states. Many communities still await title recognition.
• Displacement under Protected Areas: India has over 1,134 protected areas, and at least 6 lakh people have been displaced due to such conservation models.
• Updated Biodiversity Action Plan (NBSAPs): While India’s new plan under CBD mentions bottom-up governance and community rights, it still relies heavily on State-led mechanisms and does not fully integrate the FRA framework.
• Weakening of Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs): These local institutions are often under-resourced or not functional. Without their full operationalisation, inclusive biodiversity governance is difficult.