A group of tribal voluntary forest guards in Thengapalli forest in Odisha (Photo by Ranjan K Panda)
India needs to proactively include indigenous communities and forest dwellers in its efforts to restore and expand forest cover to sequester carbon, and not exclude them from forestry management
In India, a new wave of admiration about our traditional knowledge has emerged in public discourse, but it is not reflected in the ways the State wants to manage our forests. Politicians, bureaucrats and intellectuals are holding forth on importance of indigenous knowledge and practices. For instance, the Indian government has been championing the cause of Yoga in the international arena, and has successfully put it on the global map by pushing for an International Yoga Day. Similarly, traditional medicines including Ayurveda have become a buzzword among policymakers.
In this rush to promote India’s traditional knowledge and practices, policymakers have seemingly forgotten another longstanding, rich tradition of India. Indians, especially the indigenous communities living in and around forests, have been living with and protecting India’s biodiversity-rich forests for thousands of years, with a vast repository of lived and traditional knowledge about forest ecosystems.
Most importantly, many of them have demonstrated scientific methods of conservation much before modern forest science emerged. Thousands of villages across India have been protecting natural forests for decades. For example, over 10,000 communities in Odisha have been protecting state-owned forests, often through voluntary labour, and have a deep understanding and commitment to conservation. The vast number of scared groves across the country remains a living testimony to the traditional conservation ethics of Indian tribal communities and forest dwellers.
Ranjan K. Panda, from India Climate Dialogue
