Statement on NTCA’s 19th June order to expedite evictions in the name of tiger conservation - CNAPA

Oct 03, 2024
Tags: CNAPA, Adivasis, Conservation, Ecology
Related Issue: Rights of Dalits and Adivasis, Indigenous communities, Environmental rights

We, the undersigned Indigenous community leaders, solidarity activists, journalists, and academics, call on everyone concerned about the rights of Indigenous and forest-dwelling communities and the future of conservation to pay urgent attention to the recent despotic move of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to evict people in the name of tiger conservation. As found in an RTI query made by CNAPA, NTCA’s order dated 19th June 2024 has sought priority-based action plans from tiger reserves across 19 states to evict 64801 families from around 591 villages situated within the so-called critical tiger habitats (CTHs). 

Since the launch of Project Tiger by the Government of India in 1973, aided by international lobby and capital, the rights of Indigenous and forest-dwelling communities have been continuously trampled through forced evictions, curtailing their fundamental rights and violently uprooting peoples from ancestral territories. Here, we want to reiterate that since the formation of NTCA in 2005, forced evictions from tiger reserves have been disguised as ‘Voluntary Relocation’ and have caused irreversible harm to peoples’ lives, livelihoods and cultures. NTCA’s 19th June directive is yet another attack on Indigenous autonomy and continuation of the theft of Indigenous bio-cultural life worlds. 

NTCA’s figure of 64801 families residing in the so-called CTHs is grossly misplaced, as CNAPA has learned from various sources that NTCA, MoEFCC, and State Wildlife Departments do not even have accurate data on evictions made so far. In reality, the actual number of families currently residing in CTHs is much higher, and this number is bound to increase due to the ongoing cartographic reorganisation of boundaries and expansion of the so-called CTHs. While having been blind to the violent ground realities, NTCA is now dismayed that “the progress of village relocation [sic] is very slow, and it poses grave concern in light of Tiger conservation”. This shows the worth of Indigenous lives in the power corridors of conservation. 

‘Tigers can only be conserved through inviolate and militarised spaces’ —an idea that was implanted by the domestic and international conservation cartels in order to exorcise their own historical guilt. The sudden sympathy of these state-backed cartels, who were once game hunters, timber mafias and plunderers and are now greenwashing agents for global extractive industries, is not surprising. Rather, it is this guilt-complex that is now manoeuvred into a profit-making enterprise of tiger conservation. Habitual environmental criminal and human-rights abuser Vedanta Ltd.’s funding to tiger reserves is aimed at intensifying militarisation and mass surveillance across Indigenous territories with the help of the conservation lobby; and at the same time, scandalously attempting to offset its heinous crimes behind the mask of tiger conservation. This apart, the recent attempt to build Hyatt Hotel and Resorts in Kaziranga, Assam (one of the most militarised national parks in the world) and the game-drive tourism project being implemented in Similipal, Odisha, are cases in point. 

India’s officially declared 55 tiger reserves are on Indigenous territories. The Government of India has never bothered to seek consent from the communities who have been living on these lands for centuries. Indigenous communities, forests and wildlife have been dwelling together—a way of life that has carefully evolved over time. This way of life is being violently disrupted by the Government and its conservation cartels who have no mind space to comprehend this co-existence, mainly because of their patronising-saviour gaze towards peoples, forests and wildlife. 

The paradigm of doing tiger conservation in inviolate-fenced spaces has always been driven by the hegemony of conservation science coupled with the anthropocentric gazing of nature as pristine wildernesses while deliberately obscuring its bio-cultural interconnections. India’s powerful conservation lobby, represented by the likes of K Ullas Karanth and Rajesh Gopal, who have served in top positions in several agencies in India and abroad, are aggressively pushing Project Tiger to aspire and manage 15,000 tigers across the Indian forest landscapes that are home to Indigenous communities. It has been estimated by NTCA and WII that each tiger requires approx.10 sq. km of territory. So, in order to fulfil this erroneous scientific fantasy, India requires an inviolate land area that would be roughly equal to the size of Bangladesh. How was this estimate of 10 sq. km per tiger arrived at? The politics of creating this estimate and its underlying assumptions need a thorough examination since Indigenous communities who have lived alongside tigers contend that such an estimate is bogus. Every lifeform has its own territoriality, but dictating a threshold in the name of science policy is pure violence; not conservation. 

This development comes at a time when there is a global outcry about climate change and biodiversity loss. It is this outcry that the international conservation cartels, in connivance with the government, are appropriating in order to invade Indigenous territories and make more profits. The often-promoted carbon-biodiversity offsetting and wildlife tourism are, in fact, greenwashing agendas of the global market that hide beneath conservation propaganda. 

We strongly denounce and resist the ongoing clandestine strategies of the NTCA, State Wildlife Departments and the international conservation cartels extracting profits out of indigenous lands and bio-cultural life worlds in the name of tiger conservation. This is an appeal to extend solidarity with lakhs of Indigenous and forest-dwelling people whose lands have been trespassed upon by imposing tiger reserves.

CNAPA puts forth the following demands: 

  1. De-notification of all tiger reserves, where consent has not been sought from the Gram Sabhas/Village Councils as per the FRA,2006; PESA Act, 1996; and WLPA, 1972 (as amended in 2006). 
  2. Conduct a Judicial review and inquiry of the due processes followed in notifying tiger reserves, human rights atrocities, forest rights violations and historical injustices that communities have been enduring because of Project Tiger since 1973. 
  3. NTCA must retract its 19th June order. Unless a Judicial review and inquiry are conducted into Project Tiger since its implementation, no further Tiger reserves must be declared in India. 
  4. MoTA & MoEFCC must issue combined directions to NTCA to immediately stop evictions of families from tiger reserves across India. 
  5. The National Human Rights Commission must immediately take suo moto cognisance of the increasing militarisation in tiger reserves and the killings and atrocities committed against Indigenous peoples in the name of tiger conservation. 
  6. All fabricated and malicious cases against members of Indigenous and forest-dwelling communities on whose lands tiger reserves have been declared must be immediately quashed. 
  7. Put an immediate halt to all tourism activities, including ecotourism, safaris and game drives, where proper consent has not been sought from the Gram Sabhas/Village Councils as per the FRA,2006 and PESA Act, 1996. 
  8. Remove all restrictions on land use and movements imposed upon Indigenous communities and forest dwellers on whose lands tiger reserves have been declared. 
  9. MoTA must issue a special order directing all state governments to recognise forest rights (community and individual) of Indigenous communities and forest dwellers on whose lands tiger reserves, national parks, and wildlife sanctuaries have been declared. Further, the rights of communities who have been evicted without Free Prior Informed Consent must be recognised on their ancestral lands as part of the right to return under FRA, 2006. 

On behalf of CNAPA: Thimma, Pranab, Arjun, Telenga, Leeladhar, Rajan, Amir, Venkatesh. 

Signatories: 

  1. Nagarahole Adivasi Jammapale Hakku Sthapana Samithi, Nagarahole, Karnataka 
  2. Kendriya Sangharsh Samiti, Palamu, Jharkhand 
  3. Van Sanrakshan Sangrami Mancha, Chandubi, Assam 
  4. Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Committee, Kaziranga, Assam 
  5. Tharu Adivasi Mahila Mazdoor Kisan Manch, Dudhwa, Uttar Pradesh 
  6. Maa Mati Suraksha Samiti, Similipal, Mayurbhanj, Odisha 
  7. Gram Sabha Federation, Sitanadi, Gariabandh, Chhattisgarh 
  8. Gram Sabha Federation, Udanti, Dhamtari, Chhattisgarh 
  9. PESA Committee & Forest Rights Committee, Padmaram Gram Panchayat, Appapuram, Telangana
  10. PESA Committee & Forest Rights Committee, Padmaram Gram Panchayat, Pulitheegalabanda, Telangana
  11. Vivasayigal Thozhilalargal Munnetra Sangam, Tamil Nadu
  12. Van Gujjar Tribal Yuva Sangathan, Uttarakhand
  13. Achanakmar Sangharsh Samiti, Mungeli, Chhattisgarh
  14. Sundarbans Jana Sramajibi Mancha, Sundarbans, West Bengal
  15. West Bengal Jana Sramajibi Mancha, West Bengal
  16. Adivasi Sakti Sangathan, Chhattisgarh
  17. Baiga Sakti Sangathan, Achanakmar, Chhattisgarh
  18. National Adivasi Alliance
  19. Search for Action and Knowledge of Tribal Initiative, Telangana
  20. Centre for Social Knowledge and Action, Gujarat.

Community Network Against Protected Areas (CNAPA) is a growing coalition of Indigenous peoples and forest-dwelling communities, Gram Sabha/Village Council federations, activists, journalists and academics from across India. CNAPA came into being to debunk the idea of protected areas and advocate for justice, rights, and dignity of Indigenous and forest-dwelling communities through dialogues, resistance and cross-solidarity. This community network is committed to strengthening peoples’ movements against the destructive idea of militarised fortress conservation imposed upon communities. We work together to dismantle the extractive-colonial-capitalist-casteist conservation model that is inherent to protected areas and to ensure that forests, peoples and animals continue to live as equals.