The Indian government has scrapped its controversial policy of expelling tribal people from wildlife-rich areas to turn them into national parks.
Under new proposals, tribal people can only be evicted with their free, prior and informed consent. Tiger reserves, however, are excluded from the new policy – Survival International has written to the Indian Environment and Forests Ministry urging it to apply the same rules to tiger reserves.
The previous policy had to be hastily withdrawn following criticism that it would ‘inevitably lead to violations of people’s rights and [to] greater displacement [of tribal peoples].’
Tensions have been growing between those advocating for the rights of India’s 84 million tribal people, and those fighting for wildlife reserves to be people-free ‘wildernesses’.
The withdrawn policy had assumed that people would have to be removed from ‘critical wildlife habitats’. An estimated 100,000 people have already become conservation refugees following eviction from conservation areas in India. These refugees lose access to the lands and resources they have relied on for generations and often have sacred sites and burial grounds from which they are barred, with terrible impacts on their mental and physical health.
The government’s new draft policy recognizes that coexistence between people and wildlife is possible in some (but not all) cases, and that where it is, forest dwelling communities should be involved in the management of the park.
Survival International’s Director, Stephen Corry, said On May 16, “The vast majority of the world’s best conservation areas are home to tribal peoples. This is no coincidence. It is madness to suggest that the best way to preserve wildlife is to evict the very people who have protected it for so many years. The Indian government seems to be beginning, finally, to see sense.”
About Survival International
Survival International is a human rights’ organization formed in 1969 that campaigns for the rights of indigenous people and uncontacted tribes, seeking to help them to determine their own future. Their campaigns generally focus on tribal peoples’ fight to keep their ancestral lands, culture and their own way of living. Survival works for the people who they call “some of the most vulnerable on earth”. A part of their mission is to educate people from misconceptions that help justify violations of human rights against indigenous people, and the risks that they face from the advancement of corporations, governments and also good intentions based on an idea of “development” that is forced upon them. Survival believes that in fact their alternative way of living is not lacking, they represent a model of sustainability in the environment that they are a part of and they possess a rich culture from which we could learn. For more information, visit www.survivalinternational.org.
Source: Survival International.
