Odisha tribals lose food source to teak plantations
Jayashree Nandi
Burlubaru (Kandhamal):
TNN
Kanigalaru Majhi's food stocks are running out. A middle-aged woman of the Kutia Kondh tribe in Odisha's Burlubaru village, Majhi is worried the day is not far when she and her tribespeople will no longer be able to depend on the hills for their food.
Until recently , there was no dearth of food in the dense forests surrounding Majhi's hamlet. This was before the forest department started planting teak and other nonedible varieties in the tiny shifting cultivation plots of Kutia Kondhs across Kandhamal as part of an afforestation drive. It's been about three years since teak plantations took over `podu' or subsistence farms without the settlement of forest rights, amid protests by the Kutia Kondhs, who struggled to make space in their own forests -theirs under the forest rights Act -to plant indigenous food crops like millets, pulses, and vegetables. Kutia Kondhs are one of Odisha's 13 `particularly vul nerable' or `primitive' tribal groups who mainly live in the hills and have an indigenous diet. They also grow wood apple, turmeric and wild flowers with medicinal value. The primary health centre in Belghar, several kilometres away , often doesn't have a doctor.
“We eat what we grow. We are not used to eating so much rice, but since our podu land is shrinking we are eating more rice,“ said Majhi, while displaying the maize and millets she grew. “We can't eat teak.Why should we accept these plantations? We have been aking care of the forests for ages. It's our protector,“ added Tumna Majhi, her son.
Activists as well as environmental organisations recently wrote to the ministry of tribal affairs and the minis ry of environment and forests (MoEF) that under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples UNDRIP), the Centre is obliged to sustain the rights of ribal and indigenous people o traditional subsistence ac tivities for livelihood, food and nutritional security .
The forest department, however, claims that Burlabaru is a successful `Vana Samrakshana Samiti' (forest conservation committee) project where forests are taken care of by communities. “We had taken villagers' views and a resolution of joint forest management was passed. We have that resolution as proof of tribals' consent. But forest rights titles were settled after we started plantations, which is causing the problem. There are always two to three people in a village who are against every government scheme,“ said a forest official responsible for the range.All the tribals in the hamlet TOI spoke to, however, said plantations were severely affecting food resources.
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