Civil Society and Indigenous Groups Demand Revocation of the Appointment of Persons with Conflict of Interest to Odisha Wildlife Board

Oct 01, 2025

By Joint Statement

President of India
Chairperson, National Board for Wildlife, Govt. of India
Minister, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Govt. of India
Chief Minister, Govt. of Odisha
Minister, Forest, Environment and Climate Change Department, Govt. of Odisha
PCCF & HoFF, Forest, Environment and Climate Change Department, Govt. of Odisha

Subject: Objection to the appointment of persons with conflict of interest to the Odisha State Board for Wildlife, amounting to gross dilution of the mandate and integrity of the Board

Dear Madam / Sir,

We, the undersigned Adivasi/Indigenous community organisations, concerned citizens, former civil servants, conservationists, academics, lawyers, journalists, students, poets and activists, write to express our urgent objection to the recent appointment of a person with a serious conflict of interest to Odisha’s State Board for Wildlife, which amounts to the dilution of the Board’s mandate and its integrity.

It has come to our knowledge that Mr Aditya Chandra Panda, who operates private safari tourism businesses within forest and wildlife habitats and has known affiliations to World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which has a proven record of complicity in human rights abuses against forest-dwelling communities, has been appointed as a member of the Board in February 2025. We raise our strong objection as the appointment of Mr Aditya Panda is arbitrary, undeniably inappropriate, and violates the principles of impartiality, transparency, and ecological justice that should guide such appointments.

The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, envisages the State Wildlife Board as a statutory advisory body that must serve the public interest in protecting wildlife and natural ecosystems, provided that it shall not interfere with or affect the rights of local people, particularly Scheduled Tribe communities. Appointing a person to the Board whose commercial ventures depend directly on exploiting socio-ecologically sensitive areas is an evident and serious conflict of interest. It risks compromising the integrity of the Board’s decisions and may skew policy directions in favour of business goals rather than upholding ecological protection and community rights.

It has also come to our knowledge that the said person has been repeatedly misusing his position and social privileges to leverage his quid pro quo nexus with certain forest officials and gain undue access to wildlife habitats, particularly in eastern and central Indian states, in violation of established rules and conservation norms. Such actions not only undermine the rule of law but also compromise the ecological security of India’s most sensitive and biodiversity-rich landscapes, which are also the ancestral territories of millions of indigenous people. The private use of protected areas under the guise of safari tourism or personal interest is a blatant misuse of position and erodes public trust in the Odisha Forest Department. Mr Panda has been using his past position as Honorary Wildlife Warden of Angul and his current membership in the State Board for Wildlife and Joint Task Force to promote his credentials and leverage his commercial networks. For instance, Mr Panda uses his roles in government and statutory bodies as references to promote tourism companies like Natural Habitat Adventures, USA and India Safari & Tours Ltd, New Delhi.

Our gravest concern is about the way Mr Panda has been using his influential status and his privileges to manufacture misleading public opinion on the issue of village evictions from inside protected areas. Apart from vilifying the indigenous communities at large, Mr Panda has been involved in campaigns against the customary rights of forest dwellers over ancestral lands and forest territories, which starkly contradict the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 – a landmark legislation enacted to rectify the historical injustices committed against forest-dwelling and indigenous communities. This reflects Mr Panda’s racist, casteist, and colonial mindset that is incompatible with the inclusive and democratic spirit of conservation envisioned under Indian law and global human rights frameworks. Furthermore, Mr Panda has also been actively propagating misinformation that vilifies indigenous and forest-dwelling communities, portraying them as obstacles to conservation within Protected Areas. Such malicious narratives undermine the constitutional and legal recognition of customary rights, knowledge systems, and the historical stewardship roles of forest-dwelling indigenous communities in protecting India’s forests and wildlife.

Furthermore, India has been a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, wherein, Article 8, which pertains to in situ conservation, imposes an obligation on contracting parties to preserve and maintain the practices of indigenous communities and Article 10(c) provides that contracting parties shall, as far as possible, and as appropriate, protect and encourage customary use of biological resources in accordance with traditional cultural practices. In this context, Mr Panda’s ethical positions and political agenda reflect an exclusionary approach to conservation that is out of step with contemporary ecological justice frameworks and democratic values, and hence antithetical to the overall mandate of the Board.

In addition, it is imperative to highlight the broader failures of the Board, which are being compounded by such appointments of persons with conflicts of interest. At a time when Odisha’s forests and wildlife habitats are being systematically destroyed by mining projects, industrial expansion, tourism, and linear infrastructure, the Board has utterly failed to exercise its statutory powers to prevent ecological damage. Instead of acting as a safeguard, the Board is complicit in facilitating these extractive priorities. In socio-ecologically sensitive areas like Sijimali, Niyamgiri, Maliparbat, Baphlamali, Balda, Kutrumali, Majingmali and surrounding regions in Southern Odisha, the mindless diversion of forest land for bauxite mining has been pursued in flagrant violation of laws and Free Prior Informed Consent from the local indigenous communities. The Board has deliberately maintained silence, demonstrating its nexus with ecologically disastrous mining projects. At the behest of bauxite mining lobbies, the Board unhesitatingly endorsed the proposal to alter the boundary of Karlapat Wildlife Sanctuary.

We use this letter to raise certain pertinent issues around the way tourism is operating inside Protected Areas. We ask: whose interests the Open Jeep Safari Tourism ventures inside the core areas of Similipal Tiger Reserve trying to serve? While thousands of indigenous families have been forcefully evicted and put into destitution under the guise of creating “inviolate areas” for tiger conservation, how come tourist SUVs have now been facilitated to roam inside the so-called “inviolate areas” of Similipal Tiger Reserve? It is unambiguously clear that, in violation of all legal provisions, the State Wildlife Board misused its authority and engineered such a discriminatory and extractive conservation model inside Similipal and other Protected Areas.

Further, we are shocked to know the ongoing attempts to dilute Eco Sensitive Zone (ESZ) notifications to bypass the “no commercial construction” clause of the Environmental Protection Act 1986 and enable commercial tourism infrastructure within ESZs. These glaring cases reflect the Board’s double standards – rather than protecting the forests, wildlife habitats and indigenous territories, it has been covertly enabling corporates and vested interest groups to advance their commercial agenda. Odisha has been witnessing a spate of elephant and human casualties due to mining-induced deforestation and habitat fragmentation across many districts. The Board has done nothing substantive to address this alarming crisis and has instead been complicit throughout, reflecting a failure to uphold its mandate.

Against this backdrop of inaction and complicity, the appointment of persons with direct commercial and ideological conflicts of interest further dilutes the credibility of the State Wildlife Board. It demonstrates a dangerous shift in priorities from ecological justice and indigenous rights to nepotism, corruption and the appeasement of private profiteering.

Indeed, the Preamble, Article 48A, and Article 51A(g) of the Constitution mandate the State and its citizens to protect the environment and safeguard the forest ecosystems. However, conservation governance must be participatory, inclusive, and uphold social justice – not driven by elite capture or private profiteering. As clarified by the Supreme Court in several judgments (e.g., Centre for Public Interest Litigation vs. Union of India, (2012) 3 SCC 1), any appointment to statutory bodies must be based on transparent criteria and free from arbitrariness or favouritism, particularly when public interest and natural resources are involved.

It must be noted that the doctrine of natural justice, a fundamental tenet of administrative law, requires that those in decision-making roles must be free from bias or vested interest. Appointing a person whose business benefits from decisions regarding access, tourism regulation, or conservation priorities constitutes a direct conflict of interest, violating the universal doctrine of nemo judex in causa sua no one should be a judge in their own cause.

We strongly believe that such an arbitrary appointment:

Breaches the public trust in Odisha’s Forest Department.
Undermines the statutory mandate and moral authority of the State Board for Wildlife.
Violates the principles of natural justice by allowing a conflicted party to influence decisions that benefit their business.
Sends a dangerous signal that commercial interests can supersede ecological integrity and social justice.
Alienates and marginalises the very communities that have historically protected forests and wildlife.

In light of the above, we demand:

Immediate revocation of the appointment of Mr Aditya Chandra Panda and reconstitution of the State Board for Wildlife with members having genuine credibility.
The Minister of Forest, Environment and Climate Change, Govt. of Odisha, must publicly commit to preventing future appointments of individuals with conflicts of interest to statutory wildlife bodies.
The inclusion of representatives from forest-dwelling communities, independent ecologists, legal experts, and civil society members in the Wildlife Board with due diligence, in line with the objectives of participatory and just conservation.
Full transparency in the nomination and appointment process, including public disclosure of selection criteria and stakeholder consultations.
Suo motu public disclosure of the functioning of the State Board for Wildlife, including proposals tabled, minutes of meetings, correspondence and decisions.

We urge you to take this matter with the seriousness it deserves. Odisha’s rich biodiversity and forest-dwelling communities deserve protection not from wildlife, but from such unjust governance and commercial encroachment, particularly commercial tourism, mining and other extractive industries. We trust that you will uphold the mandate of the State Wildlife Board and act in accordance with the constitutional and ecological values enshrined in law.

Sincerely,

Signed by numerous concerned organizations and activists.