Global Forest Expansion and impact on Tribals

A symposium at the University of Arizona discussed the rights of indigenous people. It highlighted concerns about how the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, combined with India's Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act of 2023, will particularly impact the country's tribes, already affected by the establishment of national parks.

1: Dimension-Implication for indigenous community

• Resource at the cost of indigenous community: The goals of GBF seems to tilt the scale in favour of corporate houses eyeing forest resources at the expense of the indigenous communities living with nature.
• PAs as hunting grounds for elites: PAs were initially created “as recreational opportunities, hunting grounds for western colonial elites”.
  • The concept has not changed much with ecotourism or sustainable ecotourism projects reducing the indigenous peoples to animals in a zoo, made to sit in “model replicas” of traditional houses wearing traditional dresses and ornaments, and playing traditional musical instruments.

2: Dimension- GBF and India’s Case

• Threatened indigenous people: About 84% of India’s national parks (89 out of a total of 106) were established in areas inhabited by the indigenous peoples and meeting the GBF targets will threaten their existence.
  • For instance, the initiative to upgrade the Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary in Rajasthan to a tiger reserve will affect 162 tribal villages located inside and outside the sanctuary
  • The expansion of the Nauradehi Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh is set to affect 62 villages of mostly tribal people.

3: Dimension- Required measures to protect the tribal lands

• Consent: First, it has to recognise the right to free, prior, and informed consent as guaranteed under the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act and make further amendments to the laws to make the tribals custodians of the PAs as nature has largely been protected because of their special relations with the forests and their denizens.
• Creating PAs in non-tribal areas: If tiger reserves can be created in areas where there are no tigers such as Sahyadri (Maharashtra), Satkosia (Odisha), Kamlang (Arunachal Pradesh), Kawal (Telangana), and Dampa (Mizoram, PAs can be created in non-tribal areas.
• Addressing human right issues: There is need to address human rights violations in the PAs seriously such as access to education, healthcare, and housing.
• Respect and recognition for preservation: Thousands of indigenous people living within the PAs must be respected and recognised for preserving the biodiversity and the ecosystem and not punished.

Case Study: Indigenous People and Forest

• Indonesia: Indigenous peoples have been denied the right to housing, health, education, electricity, and security in Indonesia’s Ujungkulon National Park while Heng Saphen living, an indigenous leader living inside the Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary of Cambodia was convicted by a kangaroo court for cultivating on her own land.
• Cambodia: About 18% of Cambodia’s Botum Sakor National Park stand protected after much of its land was sold off to private firms.
• India: Involving the private sector in forest conservation is a bad idea and India has taken a step in that direction with the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act to 2023 to include zoos, safaris, ecotourism facilities, etc., as forest active.