<p>Habitat Rights for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups and other forest hamlet drifters are bio-cultural rights that can extend beyond village boundaries to include places of religious and cultural importance for ethnic tribes. These rights are imperative from the perspective of climate change as they foster indigenous communities to preserve their local biodiversity.</p><p>A study undertaken by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs concluded that ‘Habitat’ for a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group refers to an area where they have both spiritual and material relations. Spiritual connection entails an expanse crucial to fulfill socio-cultural prerequisites of the group and comprises burial grounds, seminaries, temples, deities, ancestral lands or areas used for festivals and soirees. Customary land usage for livelihoods such as forest produce, fishing resource, cultivation and seasonal migratory lands also fall under this category.</p>.<p>The Forest Rights Act, 2006, legislated to annul historic prejudices to tribal and other forest-dwelling communities in India, recognises a diverse range of privileges for these groups. These rights ensure that indigenous and forest-inhabiting communities can access their ancestral land and resources, practising their traditional livelihood. Of these, Habitat Rights are classified as community forest rights. According to the United Nations Development Programme, Habitat Rights recognise ‘demographic and geographic, socio-cultural, economic and livelihood systems as well as traditional knowledge to ecological systems and biodiversity.’</p>.<p>A seminal study by Ramachandra Guha and Madhav Gadgil in This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India (2012) highlighted how colonial practices led to authoritarian British control over forests and subjected indigenous tribes to decades of deprivation. The Indian Forest Acts of 1865, 1878 and 1927 had listed British mercantile interests, regulating local communitarian access to forest resources. With the granting of Habitat Rights by four state governments – Odisha,Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra – cultural practices, knowledge systems and traditions intricately linked with the forest-dwellers’ natural surroundings can be better preserved. So, Habitat Rights are not mere rights to a tract of woodland but also an array of privileges that comprises the bonding of tribal communities to their sustenance and societal ethnography. </p>.<p>Nondescript villages on the fringes of reserved forests, home to semi-nomadic families and their offshoots have been major beneficiaries of Habitat Rights. In Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, the Mankidias dotting the outskirts of Simlipal National Park were granted Habitat Rights in September, 2024. Towards the end of 2024, the Juangs, Chuktia Bhunjia, Saoras and Dongria Kondhs of Odisha were clubbed under the habitat umbrella. The Baigas from Dindori district in Madhya Pradesh were the first Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group to be conferred Habitat Rights in 2016. While Chhattisgarh has provided Habitat Rights to two susceptible tribal communities, Maharashtra has provided these rights to the Maria Gonds. </p>.<p><strong>Interplay of rights</strong></p>.<p>There is a crucial rider in these deliberations. Can one group’s Habitat Rights be protected by infringing on another community’s traditional practices? Section 3(e) of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) states that Habitat Rights refer to rights of primitive tribal groups and pre-agricultural communities. Section 5(c) of the Act empowers forest right holders and their institutions to ensure that the habitat of forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other woodlanders is conserved from any damaging activities affecting their cultural and natural heritage.</p>.<p>For the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, there are other challenges. Many areas where predominantly vulnerable tribal clans live and can claim Habitat Rights intersect with mining projects, areas shifted for industries, protected domains like tiger reserves or land earmarked for compensatory afforestation. This makes it harder to distinguish Habitat Rights in these multifarious pockets.</p>.<p>Habitat Rights are not necessarily limited to one community and may be pooled with other communities in the habitat area, based on traditions of affinity and reciprocity. Hence mapping of potential habitat rights of tribes is a crucial exercise.</p>.<p>The recently released India State of Forests Report has been gung-ho on an increase in forest-tree-mangrove cover, carbon stock, and agroforestry. Despite the government singing paeans to its ecological achievements, community forest rights and habitat indigenisation have never been focus areas. Mainstreaming of community-conserved areas for preserving biodiversity can be a giant leap. Permitting legal rights to protect forests through habitat would incentivise younger generations to engage in conservation. Such protection will preserve their ecological links and contribute to decreasing carbon emissions by safeguarding forests. While monitoring might be obligatory, this recognition is long overdue. As in other parts of the world where wilderness areas and natural ecosystems are often managed by local communities, India must align with this discipline.</p>.<p><em>(The writer is a commentator on politics and society)</em></p>
<p>Habitat Rights for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups and other forest hamlet drifters are bio-cultural rights that can extend beyond village boundaries to include places of religious and cultural importance for ethnic tribes. These rights are imperative from the perspective of climate change as they foster indigenous communities to preserve their local biodiversity.</p><p>A study undertaken by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs concluded that ‘Habitat’ for a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group refers to an area where they have both spiritual and material relations. Spiritual connection entails an expanse crucial to fulfill socio-cultural prerequisites of the group and comprises burial grounds, seminaries, temples, deities, ancestral lands or areas used for festivals and soirees. Customary land usage for livelihoods such as forest produce, fishing resource, cultivation and seasonal migratory lands also fall under this category.</p>.<p>The Forest Rights Act, 2006, legislated to annul historic prejudices to tribal and other forest-dwelling communities in India, recognises a diverse range of privileges for these groups. These rights ensure that indigenous and forest-inhabiting communities can access their ancestral land and resources, practising their traditional livelihood. Of these, Habitat Rights are classified as community forest rights. According to the United Nations Development Programme, Habitat Rights recognise ‘demographic and geographic, socio-cultural, economic and livelihood systems as well as traditional knowledge to ecological systems and biodiversity.’</p>.<p>A seminal study by Ramachandra Guha and Madhav Gadgil in This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India (2012) highlighted how colonial practices led to authoritarian British control over forests and subjected indigenous tribes to decades of deprivation. The Indian Forest Acts of 1865, 1878 and 1927 had listed British mercantile interests, regulating local communitarian access to forest resources. With the granting of Habitat Rights by four state governments – Odisha,Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra – cultural practices, knowledge systems and traditions intricately linked with the forest-dwellers’ natural surroundings can be better preserved. So, Habitat Rights are not mere rights to a tract of woodland but also an array of privileges that comprises the bonding of tribal communities to their sustenance and societal ethnography. </p>.<p>Nondescript villages on the fringes of reserved forests, home to semi-nomadic families and their offshoots have been major beneficiaries of Habitat Rights. In Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, the Mankidias dotting the outskirts of Simlipal National Park were granted Habitat Rights in September, 2024. Towards the end of 2024, the Juangs, Chuktia Bhunjia, Saoras and Dongria Kondhs of Odisha were clubbed under the habitat umbrella. The Baigas from Dindori district in Madhya Pradesh were the first Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group to be conferred Habitat Rights in 2016. While Chhattisgarh has provided Habitat Rights to two susceptible tribal communities, Maharashtra has provided these rights to the Maria Gonds. </p>.<p><strong>Interplay of rights</strong></p>.<p>There is a crucial rider in these deliberations. Can one group’s Habitat Rights be protected by infringing on another community’s traditional practices? Section 3(e) of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) states that Habitat Rights refer to rights of primitive tribal groups and pre-agricultural communities. Section 5(c) of the Act empowers forest right holders and their institutions to ensure that the habitat of forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other woodlanders is conserved from any damaging activities affecting their cultural and natural heritage.</p>.<p>For the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, there are other challenges. Many areas where predominantly vulnerable tribal clans live and can claim Habitat Rights intersect with mining projects, areas shifted for industries, protected domains like tiger reserves or land earmarked for compensatory afforestation. This makes it harder to distinguish Habitat Rights in these multifarious pockets.</p>.<p>Habitat Rights are not necessarily limited to one community and may be pooled with other communities in the habitat area, based on traditions of affinity and reciprocity. Hence mapping of potential habitat rights of tribes is a crucial exercise.</p>.<p>The recently released India State of Forests Report has been gung-ho on an increase in forest-tree-mangrove cover, carbon stock, and agroforestry. Despite the government singing paeans to its ecological achievements, community forest rights and habitat indigenisation have never been focus areas. Mainstreaming of community-conserved areas for preserving biodiversity can be a giant leap. Permitting legal rights to protect forests through habitat would incentivise younger generations to engage in conservation. Such protection will preserve their ecological links and contribute to decreasing carbon emissions by safeguarding forests. While monitoring might be obligatory, this recognition is long overdue. As in other parts of the world where wilderness areas and natural ecosystems are often managed by local communities, India must align with this discipline.</p>.<p><em>(The writer is a commentator on politics and society)</em></p>
