The Niyamgiri hill range, spread across Odisha’s Rayagada and Kalahandi districts, is one of the most ecologically significant landscapes in the Eastern Ghats. Rising between 700 and 1,400 metres above sea level, these densely forested hills support rich biodiversity, perennial streams, unique wildlife habitats, and diverse agro-ecological systems. Environmentalists and conservation scientists regard the Eastern Ghats as one of India’s important biodiversity-rich regions, harbouring numerous endemic plant and animal species while serving as a critical ecological corridor across peninsular India.
Niyamgiri is not merely a geographical feature. It functions as a climate-regulating ecosystem that influences local rainfall patterns, conserves water sources, sequesters carbon, and supports the livelihoods of thousands of forest-dependent communities. The hill range feeds several streams and rivers that sustain agriculture and drinking water needs in the surrounding plains.
At a time when climate change is intensifying droughts, erratic rainfall, and ecological degradation across India, landscapes such as Niyamgiri have become increasingly important. Yet their conservation remains inseparable from the communities that have protected them for centuries.
The Niyamgiri hills are home to the Dongria Kondhs, one of India’s Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). For generations, they have lived in harmony with the forests, mountains, and streams of the region, developing a sophisticated system of ecological stewardship that combines traditional knowledge, spirituality, and sustainable resource management.
For the Dongria Kondhs, Niyamgiri is sacred. The hills are revered as the abode of Niyam Raja, their supreme deity. This spiritual relationship with nature has fostered a conservation ethic that has helped preserve forests, water bodies, wildlife habitats, and biodiversity long before the emergence of modern conservation policies.
Their customary institutions regulate access to forests, water sources, and agricultural lands. Sacred groves are protected. Hunting is governed by traditional norms. Forest produce is harvested sustainably. Community decisions often prioritise ecological balance over short-term economic gains.
The result is a remarkable example of indigenous conservation that challenges conventional notions of protected area management. Rather than excluding people from nature, the Dongria Kondhs demonstrate how communities can coexist with and actively conserve biodiversity.
Agriculture among the Dongria Kondhs is deeply intertwined with biodiversity conservation. Historically, families cultivated nearly 50 varieties of traditional crops, including millets, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, tubers, cereals, medicinal plants, and fruit-bearing species.
Unlike monoculture farming systems promoted under mainstream agricultural development programmes, Dongria agriculture relies on mixed cropping and indigenous seed diversity. This system enhances soil fertility, minimises pest attacks, reduces crop failure risks, and ensures year-round food availability.
Millets such as finger millet, little millet, foxtail millet, and several local varieties have evolved over centuries to withstand drought, poor soils, and erratic rainfall. These crops require fewer external inputs while providing superior nutritional benefits.
The community traditionally followed long rotational farming cycles. Land would be cultivated for two to three years and then left fallow for several years, allowing natural regeneration of vegetation, restoration of soil fertility, and recovery of wildlife habitats. Such practices maintained ecological balance while ensuring sustainable agricultural productivity.
Today, as climate scientists advocate agro-ecology, crop diversification, and nature-based farming solutions, many of the principles promoted globally already exist within the traditional farming systems of Niyamgiri.
Despite its ecological importance, the Niyamgiri landscape faces growing pressures. Changing land-use patterns, forest degradation, market-driven agriculture, declining traditional knowledge systems, and climate variability are contributing to biodiversity loss.
Several indigenous crop varieties that once formed the backbone of local food systems have become endangered or disappeared altogether. Farmers who previously cultivated up to 50 traditional varieties now often grow fewer than ten. This decline represents not only a loss of agricultural biodiversity but also the erosion of climate resilience.
Medicinal plants that supported traditional healthcare systems are becoming increasingly scarce. Wild edible foods, forest fruits, mushrooms, tubers, and leafy greens that once supplemented household nutrition have declined significantly. The shrinking availability of these resources directly affects food security, nutrition, and community health.
Wildlife habitats have also been affected by fragmentation and ecological disturbances. Declining populations of pollinators, birds, and other beneficial species threaten the ecological functions necessary for sustaining biodiversity-rich landscapes.
The degradation of biodiversity is not merely an environmental issue; it is also a livelihood, nutritional, and cultural crisis.
The impacts of climate change are increasingly visible across the Niyamgiri hills. Community members report irregular monsoon patterns, prolonged dry spells, delayed rainfall, rising temperatures, and shifting agricultural seasons.
Traditional farming calendars that guided sowing, harvesting, and forest resource collection are becoming less predictable. Water sources that once flowed throughout the year are showing signs of seasonal decline. Soil moisture levels are reducing, affecting both agricultural productivity and forest regeneration.
These changes have serious implications for food security. Many households experience seasonal food shortages during the lean months between August and November. Women, children, and elderly persons are often the most vulnerable to nutritional stress.
Ironically, communities that have contributed least to climate change are among those experiencing its most severe impacts.
The experience of Niyamgiri highlights the importance of recognising indigenous rights as a cornerstone of conservation.
The enactment of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, marked a historic shift in India’s forest governance framework by recognising the rights of forest-dwelling communities over land, forests, and community resources. The law acknowledges that indigenous communities are not encroachers but legitimate custodians of forests.
The landmark Gram Sabha decisions in Niyamgiri, which asserted community rights and protected the hills from destructive, mining proposals, became a globally recognised example of democratic environmental governance. The struggle demonstrated how indigenous communities can play a decisive role in safeguarding ecologically sensitive landscapes.
However, implementation of FRA remains uneven across many parts of India. Community Forest Resource rights, which empower communities to manage and conserve forests, are yet to be fully recognised and operationalised in several regions.
Strengthening these rights is essential for both biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation.
Conservation policies have often treated forests as spaces that must be protected from people. The Niyamgiri experience challenges this assumption.
Evidence from India and around the world increasingly shows that indigenous-managed landscapes often achieve better conservation outcomes than many state-controlled protected areas. Traditional ecological knowledge, collective decision-making and cultural values provide strong incentives for sustainable resource management.
Yet policy frameworks frequently overlook these contributions. Development programmes often prioritise production enhancement without adequately investing in biodiversity restoration, indigenous seed conservation, traditional knowledge systems, or community-led natural resource governance.
This disconnects risks undermining the very systems that have sustained biodiversity for generations.
Protecting Niyamgiri requires a comprehensive approach that combines ecological restoration, biodiversity conservation, climate adaptation, and community empowerment.
Indigenous seed conservation programmes should be strengthened to protect traditional crop diversity. Community-managed biodiversity registers can help document and preserve valuable ecological knowledge. Soil and water conservation measures, agroforestry systems, and restoration of degraded landscapes can enhance ecosystem resilience.
Equally important is supporting Community Forest Resource governance under the FRA. Empowering Gram Sabhas to manage forests and biodiversity can strengthen local stewardship while ensuring ecological sustainability.
Investment in climate-resilient agriculture, traditional food systems, and biodiversity-based livelihoods can help improve food security and reduce vulnerability to climate shocks.
As governments and international institutions search for solutions to the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change, Niyamgiri offers an important lesson. Conservation is most effective when indigenous communities are recognised not as beneficiaries but as partners, rights holders, and knowledge holders.
The Dongria Kondhs have protected forests, conserved biodiversity, maintained traditional seed systems, and safeguarded water sources for generations. Their way of life demonstrates that ecological sustainability and human well-being are not competing objectives but mutually reinforcing goals.
The future of Niyamgiri will depend on whether policymakers, conservationists, and development practitioners recognise this reality. Protecting the forests of Niyamgiri means protecting a globally important biodiversity landscape. It means conserving one of the Eastern Ghats’ most valuable climate-resilient ecosystems. Most importantly, it means respecting the rights, knowledge, and stewardship of the Dongria Kondhs, whose relationship with nature offers valuable lessons for an increasingly uncertain world.
At a time when climate change threatens ecosystems across the planet, Niyamgiri stands as a powerful reminder that indigenous communities remain among the strongest allies in the fight to conserve biodiversity and build climate resilience.
Chitta Ranjan Pani is an independent researcher on livelihood and natural resource governance
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth