They are people’s trees

I am often asked: “What steps should our policymakers take to conserve sacred groves of the country, and why.” Implicit in this question is the assumption that sacred groves are on a consistent decline, and that this is the result of waning religious and cultural beliefs. I would like to approach the issue with both the assumptions.

True, many traditional sacred groves are disappearing, but not everywhere. At places where communities are in control of natural resources and are motivated to safeguard their environment, sacred groves have survived, often with full vigour, as is the case in our tiny neighbour Bhutan that declares that protection of environment and clean administration are foremost to its pursuit of gross national happiness. Elsewhere, sacred groves have been revived, as in Manipur, or are emerging, as in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and eastern Maharashtra. Moreover, the root cause of their decline is not waning of religious and cultural beliefs but assault on sacred groves by commercial forces with active support from the state machinery.

Such an assault began early under the colonial rule. The East India Company commissioned Francis Buchanan to survey natural resources of the domains of Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore kingdom, following his defeat. Describing a sacred grove near Karwar in Karnataka, Buchanan remarked: “The forests are the property of the gods of the villages in which they are situated and the trees ought not to be cut without having obtained leave from the priest. The god receives nothing for granting this permission; but not asking his leave brings vengeance on the guilty person. This seems, therefore, merely a contrivance to prevent the government from claiming the property.”

This attitude of regarding all community-based practices of sustainable use and conservation as impediments to state control and unrestrained use of natural resources to serve commercial interests dominated policies of the British administration.

Having destroyed all their forests by the 17th century, the British had to bring in Dietrich Brandis, a German botanist as the first Inspector General of Forests, in 1864. Brandis respected India’s heritage of conservation practices. He says: “Very little has been published regarding sacred groves in India, but they are, or rather were very numerous. As instances I may mention the Garo and Khasia hills, ...the Devarakadus or sacred groves of Coorg. These are in the moister parts of the country. In the dry region sacred groves are particularly numerous in Rajaputana [present-day Rajasthan and parts of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat]. These sacred forests, as a rule, are never touched by the axe.” Brandis not only commended the prudent use of community forests by village residents but also advocated giving them full authority to continue this management regime. Some British administrators supported him. The Madras Revenue Department dubbed state takeover of forests as “confiscation, not conservation”. But the rest of the British administrative machinery opposed Brandis and pushed through state reservation of forest lands.

Part of the forest land taken over by the state was set aside for community use as “protected forest”. But this established a free-for-all regime. Since nobody was in control of these forests, outsiders overharvested the resources and encroached the forest land for cultivation. Local people, who had a genuine stake in sustainable use of forests, could not oppose them. The result was rampant forest degradation. Around the same time, the authority of communities over sacred groves was extinguished, and those with commercial interests began to liquidate these rich resources.

Regretfully, Independence has brought no change in the culture of forestry, and the forest establishment continues to uphold this legacy of Britsh colonialism. It is the only government agency that refuses to accept devolution of democratic authority and work as part of the machinery of panchayati raj.

Subsidising industry

The only change that Independent India saw in the culture of forestry was that the forest-based industry was now promoted at all costs with raw materials being supplied at throwaway prices. In 1972, when Chipko campaign was involving people of the Garhwal Himalayas in nature conservation and when the Wild Life Protection Act was passed, Karnataka forest department took up commercial felling in hitherto untouched sacred groves of Coorg, because the large softwood trees in demand by the plywood industry had been exhausted from reserve forests. These trees had been handed over to the industry for a pittance, for as low as R60 for a giant Appimidi mango tree that every year yielded mangoes worth hundreds of rupees famous for pickling.

While the forestry establishment refuses to change, Indian democracy has taken root. This has led to the enactment of progressive laws, including the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution, establishing the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 (PESA); the Biological Diversity Act (BDA) of 2002; and the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Rights over the Forest) Act (FRA) of 2006. These have conferred substantial rights and responsibilities over natural resources on communities, opening up possibilities for them to once again become the custodians of nature, engage in prudent use and conservation of biodiversity, while being rewarded for promoting public good.

BDA, for instance, provides for the establishment of biodiversity management committees (BMCs) of interested citizens at the level of local bodies. These committees will document local biological resources and traditional knowledge associated with them, and prepare People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBR). They are also authorised to regulate the collection of biological resources from their localities and levy collection charges. The BMCs will maintain a Local Biodiversity Fund to which the Central and State Biodiversity Authorities may make grants. It is appropriate that such grants be made as incentive payments for protection of sacred groves, thereby motivating communities for long-term conservation. Mendha (Lekha), a Gond village in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district, pioneered the preparation of a PBR as a voluntary effort as early as 2004. This led the village residents to realise that the fish of the Kathani river in their locality were being affected by the use of poisons (used to catch fish). They resolved to ban the use of all fish poisons in all 32 villages, including Mendha (Lekha) that constitute the traditional ilakha of Gonds. The ban is effectively in place even after several years.

Similarly, FRA secures tenure rights of tribals and other forest dwellers, the responsibility and authority of sustainably using and conserving biodiversity while maintaining the ecological balance. It also secures their tenure rights over community forest resources, defined as customary common forest land within the customary boundaries of the village, including reserved forests, protected forests, sanctuaries and national parks. On such land, which may run into 1,000 ha, forest-dependent communities enjoy the right to protect, regenerate, conserve and manage any community resource, including sacred groves.

Our lawless state

But the authorities are refusing to acknowledge these laws and are abusing people’s rights to promote commercial interests that profit from the destruction of biodiversity. Such attitude is dissuading people from conserving the biodiversity. In Odisha, the hill range of Niyamgiri, with its forests and springs sacred to the Kondhs, is a striking example of such perversity. The controversy over the Vedanta mining lease on the upper reaches of the Niyamgiri hills in Odisha which must be assigned to gram sabhas (village councils) as per FRA is a tragic demonstration of lawlessness of the state apparatus. This issue was examined by an official committee headed by N C Saxena. I quote below from this report: “The Niyamgiri massif, a source of the Vamsadhara river, is important for its rich biodiversity, linking a series of forests and wildlife sanctuaries.

The entire Vedanta area is clearly the Community Forest Resource area as well as the habitat of the two Primitive Tribal Groups Kondhs. These villages have been vested with recognizable community and habitat rights by GOI under section 4(1) of the FRA. Despite the reluctance of the administration, several gram sabhas have passed resolutions claiming community and habitat rights over the VEDANTA area, (but) Orissa government has gone to the extent of forwarding false No Objection certificates. The VEDANTA Company has consistently violated the Forest Conservation Act, Forest Rights Act, Environmental Protection Act and the Orissa Forest Act in active collusion with the state officials.”

Emerging sacred groves

Despite this negative approach of the state apparatus, local struggles can yield positive results as has happened in Gadchiroli and Chandrapur districts of eastern Maharashtra. Gond and other communities of the districts have won community forest rights under FRA over extensive areas. In Mendha (Lekha) and Pachgaon, people have spontaneously decided to set apart substantial areas as strict nature reserves, or as pen geda. The conferment of these rights activated Pachgaon citizens to work out a series of regulations in consultation with all households. The list was then debated at two days of gram sabha meetings, leading to the finalisation of 115 regulations that were adopted by consensus. The community has now taken to the implementation of the regulations wholeheartedly.

Notably enough, the regulations include setting apart 34 hectares, or 3.4 per cent of the community forest area, as a strictly protected sacred grove. This is an area with the best preserved natural forest, rich wildlife and the sources of perennial streams. The proportion of forest set aside as sacred grove in Pachgaon is close to the proportion of the total forest area of the country set aside as wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. It so happens that tendu leaves, used for bidi-making, is a major produce of the community forest. Since harvesting tendu leaves entails extensive lopping and setting of forest fires, Pachgaon residents have decided to forego this income, and instead focus on marketing bamboo. With stoppage of leaf collection, the tendu trees are much healthier and the fruit yield has gone up. These are highly nutritious and can help earn substantial income. However, Pachgaon residents have decided to eat the fruit themselves while letting birds and other denizens of the forest enjoy them.

Nature can thrive only if people are motivated to nurture it. BDA and FRA could accomplish just this. It could bring an end to the systematic 150-year-old campaign to render India’s forest cover monotonous and useless from the perspective of local people. The Aranyasukta in Rig Veda says: “I praise thee, goddess of the forest, fragrant with incense, mother of wild life, who, even though uncultivated, produces an abundance of food!” Implementation of the BDA and the FRA could permit us to once again turn these forests into uncultivated lands, productive of abundance of food and teeming with wildlife. So, implement the laws of our land in letter and spirit and empower the people of our country, who, as our Constitution declares, are the sovereign rulers of the Republic of India. This is what is needed for our sacred groves not only to be conserved but thrive and multiply with renewed vigour!

The author is an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, engaged in basic and applied, in particular, action research as well as teaching, communication and advocacy.

He can be contacted at madhav.gadgil@gmail.com

Subscribe to Daily Newsletter :

SUPPORT US

We are a voice to you; you have been a support to us. Together we build journalism that is independent, credible and fearless. You can further help us by making a donation. This will mean a lot for our ability to bring you news, perspectives and analysis from the ground so that we can make change together.