Pace of development in India is coming at a cost - to its forest and the people whose survival depends on it. These are people who live in the fringes of the society and the much-touted development has hardly touched their lives. And quite understandably they feel let down. As a result, they oppose the model of development which we celebrate. The indigenous people and the tribals are thus locked in a bitter battle with the government.

So much so that on January 5, the supreme court also observed in a case related to atrocity on tribal women of Maharashtra ‘The injustice done to the tribal people of India is a shameful chapter in our country’s history.’

‘They were deprived of their land and pushed into forests and hills where they eked out a miserable existence of poverty, illiteracy, disease etc,’ the bench comprising Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra opined.

So where should we start to undo the wrongs? How do ensure really inclusive development? Professor Elinor Ostrom, the world’s first woman Nobel Prize winner for economics, has an answer – reach out to the locals, even before you plan your projects. “They hold the key to improved forest conditions,” Ostrom said in New Delhi.

Her theory ‘Governing the Commons’ which won her the economics Nobel in 2009 clearly states – “Common property resources will always be degraded, has given way to the realisation that these resources can be managed well by local communities.”

 “Monitoring by local users is a key to improved forest conditions,” she says. However, in India it can be seen that the locals have hardly any say in the management of common property. The country has 70 million hectare forests and the pace of development which India is following poses a threat to commons of forest areas.

Encroachment of forests areas is another grave problem, so is the poaching of animals. In fact, government took so long to  wake up to the problem that most of our fauna has been lost. However, it now recognises the problem being of leaving the locals out of a direct economic stake in forests. “When local users have long term rights to harvest from the forests they were more likely to monitor and sanction those who break the rules and better forest conditions,” Ostrom pointed out.   

The Indian Forest Act of 1927 is as old as now 74 years old and was implemented under the British. The Act gives rights to forest department not to the forest dwellers and tribals.

The ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) has hinted of changes in the amendment to provide the locals their say. The National Committee on Forest Rights Act (FRA) headed by Dr N.C. Saxena came out with a report and recommended – ‘a three-tier forest management system where some part of the forest will be under exclusive control of people living there— some under joint community-government management and remaining with the forest departments.’

A touch of Ostrom’s theory willingly or unwillingly seems included in the Saxena report.