CONFLICT
In India, Protected Areas harm the rural poor most
   

Achanakmar wildlife sanctuary in Bilaspur, Madhya Pradesh was established in 1995. State forest department officials went to Ghameri village inside the sanctuary area and began to break down the houses of Baiga adivasis living there. The message was clear. Ghameri villagers and other Baigas inside the forest would have to get out.

The law of the land cuts people off from resources they depend upon and need to use everyday.

After the Gir National Park in Gujarat was created to protect lions, most of the Maldharis living in the area were forced to move out. Only a few groups remain inside, refusing to go. And what a life they lead now. Traditionally a people who wandered from place to place with their cattle, today those inside the park live in fixed settlements called nesses, their cattle kept in stalls. And tourists who come to the park visit these nesses. They walk into houses, right in without permission, take photographs, make Maldharis pose with them. Their way of living has become a tourist attraction.

The lives of entire communities turn upside down.

Poachers out to get tiger skins and bones at Ranthambore National Park, Sowai Madhopur, employ local Mogya adivasis as trackers. The Mogya are expert hunters. They used to depend on it, and on gathering fruits and wild roots, for their livelihood. The making of the park put an end to all that. So now they sell their skill to poachers. Rs 800 per tiger.

In India, Protected Areas cause anger. And protest.

People living in and around Shoolpaneshwar sanctuary in Gujarat want the sanctuary denotified. While trucks full of bamboo from inside go to a nearby paper mill, they cannot put it to their own use.

All over India, Protected Areas are the centre of a fight between local people and the government. It is a fight for the right to use resources. And the right to decide how to live.

The Gujjars of Rajaji National Park in Uttar Pradesh have drawn up their own plan to manage the Park. They presented it in 1997 to the then Prime Minister Deve Gowda. They are waiting for someone to say "Yes, go ahead".

Adivasis of Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka have declared self-rule. They do not wish anybody to come and teach them how to save forests and protect animals. They know it better.

Back then...simple folk could use forests much as they wished. They went hunting for food, and were allowed to catch only small game like hares or partridges. Rich nobles and kings went hunting for pleasure. And all the big game in the forest, like deer or tigers, were ‘reserved’ for them. In Mughal times, only the Emperor could hunt lion. He usually went with a huge party, as in this Mughal miniature. With British rule came the Forest Department, and control of forests by government. On a scale never done before. If you were a true Englishman, you could do no better than shooting a tiger or two. Killing such a dangerous animal proved to the ‘natives’ who the strongest one was, the one best suited to rule. Of course, it was also fun. Such fun that animals began to disappear at top speed. Forests also disappeared at top speed, especially after the railways began to be built 1859 onwards. To make available wood for sleepers and other things, the British thought of conservation. And brought all forests under their absolute control after 1927. Villagers hated the shikar. For them, it usually meant beating a drum and walking through the jungle. They couldn’t even use the wood, leaves and fruits of the forest anymore. For them, all such use was banned. Even now, government controls forests. And makes rules on how to use it.