Tribes in India
India's tribal village first to get rights over its forests
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24 December 2009 A tribal village in western India has been granted the right to cultivate and manage its forest, as per the provisions of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest-Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006. For over a decade the villagers have fought against the commercialisation of their land.
As climate change negotiators try and figure out how to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, a tribal hamlet in Maharashtra has shown the way
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The Gonds in Gadchiroli in Maharashtra take pains to protect forest resources/ Photo credit: The Hindu
This month the adivasi or tribal village of Mendha (or Mendha Lekha), in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, became the first village in the country to get a legal record of rights to manage its forests, water and forest produce under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest-Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006.
The Act gives due recognition to the forest rights of tribal communities, including the right to live in the forest, to self cultivate, and to use minor forest produce. The gram sabha is empowered to initiate the process of determining the extent of forest rights that may be given to each eligible individual or family.
In Mendha, it is the community as a whole, not individuals, that is invested with the rights. The gram sabha, which includes one member of each of the 480 Gond adivasi families, makes all the decisions by consensus.
The most important decision it takes is regarding custodianship of the 1,800 hectares of surrounding forest. The village protested the felling of trees for commercial use way back in 1999.
It stopped ‘outsiders’ from entering its territory, laid down explicit forest conservation rules for its own people, and insisted that no government from Delhi or Mumbai could tell it how to use its own resources.
Mendha has another first to its
[pic]
24 December 2009 A tribal village in western India has been granted the right to cultivate and manage its forest, as per the provisions of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest-Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006. For over a decade the villagers have fought against the commercialisation of their land.
As climate change negotiators try and figure out how to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, a tribal hamlet in Maharashtra has shown the way
[pic]
The Gonds in Gadchiroli in Maharashtra take pains to protect forest resources/ Photo credit: The Hindu
This month the adivasi or tribal village of Mendha (or Mendha Lekha), in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, became the first village in the country to get a legal record of rights to manage its forests, water and forest produce under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest-Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006.
The Act gives due recognition to the forest rights of tribal communities, including the right to live in the forest, to self cultivate, and to use minor forest produce. The gram sabha is empowered to initiate the process of determining the extent of forest rights that may be given to each eligible individual or family.
In Mendha, it is the community as a whole, not individuals, that is invested with the rights. The gram sabha, which includes one member of each of the 480 Gond adivasi families, makes all the decisions by consensus.
The most important decision it takes is regarding custodianship of the 1,800 hectares of surrounding forest. The village protested the felling of trees for commercial use way back in 1999.
It stopped ‘outsiders’ from entering its territory, laid down explicit forest conservation rules for its own people, and insisted that no government from Delhi or Mumbai could tell it how to use its own resources.
Mendha has another first to its