- The ‘Forest Man of India’, Jadav Payeng, is sharing his expertise in the North American country.
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Jadav Payeng, a Padma Shri award winner known as the “Forest Man of India”, recently signed an agreement with Fundación Azteca, a non-profit organisation, to regrow forests in Mexico. It is heartening that other countries are learning from traditional Indian experiences, though, back home, they do not get the required attention.
When pondering how to engage with people at the grassroots level who may not be able to grasp the intent behind a policy, why don’t we think about involving those like Mr. Payeng to whom people will be able to connect better and stir a change in the nation’s environmental outlook?
Mr. Payeng, who started off by growing bamboo at the age of 16 and later raised the famed “Molai” forests on 550 hectares of a barren sandbar in Majuli island on his own, has often reiterated the role coconut trees can play in drought-stricken areas.
But we hardly see such ideas being taken seriously. Conditioned as we are to believing only in expertise, the ideas of people who have the “experience” are put on the backburner. The reality is that combining experience and expertise is crucial for sustainable development.
Mr. Payeng’s home State, Assam, helplessly faces floods every year, leaving many homeless and destroying crops and livelihoods. While Mexico is using the knowledge of an Indian to start afforestation drives, we are far from doing that. By starting similar afforestation in the neighbouring States such as Meghalaya, Assam’s problem of floods can be minimised, if not ended.
Today, though least responsible for the problem, indigenous populations are at the receiving end of environmental apathy, facing forced displacement, loss of culture, livelihood, homes, biodiversity and so on. On top of that, they are totally devoid of the ability to influence decisions. This approach is a blunder in developing countries where we see a clear “paradox”, as these countries have more common natural resources than others in the world but stand least benefited from that advantage.
Kenyan environmental scientist Joseph Mutanga, a representative in the United Nations Economic and Social Council, is known for fusing science and indigenous knowledge on conservation, food and medicinal plants to protect ecosystems and create livelihoods. One of the low-cost methods to fight climate change, says the World Resources Institute, is securing the land rights of indigenous people. However, we do not even think of exploring it.
Realising the teaching the importance of ecology early, American schools have started teaching students about Indian conservators like Mr. Payeng. However, it is disheartening that there is a lack of awareness of such environmental activists among Indian students. Thus, our education system needs reforms to develop in young budding minds a sensitive approach towards the environment and the will to contribute early on. Students should be taught beyond classrooms through field expeditions and visits to national park and bird sanctuaries. Environmental societies in schools and colleges are helpful too.
The administration and local bodies need to start the “desegregation” between expertise and experience by including indigenous people, who are known as the best nature conservators, before making decisions about dams, mining, forests and so on.
While traditional knowledge is rendered invaluable in Indian culture, we hardly see the same logic being applied to environmental matters. If this can be corrected, we can easily succeed in overcoming many of our environmental issues.
Cooperation among the media, youth and civil society too can facilitate such an approach. With information and awareness aided by the media, the civil society agents such as NGOs and environmental policy think-tanks can work with environmental activists for inputs and to start awareness and ecological drives. With the help of youth, such initiatives can reach a larger audience and we can be assured that future responsibilities will fall on more responsible shoulders.
As much as knowledge is a prerequisite for prescription, it is incomplete if not supplemented with experience. We need the environment way more than it needs us. It is high time we marked a new chapter in our approach towards solving environmental problems, for innovative ideas such as the Sustainable Development Goals need an innovative approach.
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- Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund.
- LEAF is supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon.com, Inc, Nestle, Airbnb, Inc as well as Emergent, a US-based non-profit.
- The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
- Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
- Tropical forests are massive carbon sinks and by investing in their protection, public and private players are likely to stock up on their carbon credits.
- The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretising the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.
- REDD+ was created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It monetised the value of carbon locked up in the tropical forests of most developing countries, thereby propelling these countries to help mitigate climate change.
- It is a unique initiative as it seeks to help developing countries in battling the double-edged sword of development versus ecological commitment.
- The initiative comes at a crucial time. The tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
- Of this, a loss of 4.2 mha occurred within humid tropical primary forests alone. It should come as no surprise that most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
- Brazil has fared dismally on the parameter of ‘annual primary forest loss’ among all countries. It has lost 1.7 mha of primary forests that are rich storehouse of carbon. India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8 kilo hectares.
- Between 2002-2020, Brazil’s total area of humid primary forest reduced by 7.7 per cent while India’s reduced by 3.4 per cent.
- Although the loss in India is not as drastic as in Brazil, its position is nevertheless precarious. For India, this loss is equivalent to 951 metric tonnes worth carbon dioxide emissions released in the atmosphere.
- It is important to draw comparisons between Brazil and India as both countries have adopted a rather lackadaisical attitude towards deforestation-induced climate change. The Brazilian government hardly did anything to control the massive fires that gutted the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
- It is mostly around May that forest fires peak in India. However, this year India, witnessed massive forest fires in early March in states like Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram among others.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service claimed that 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon was emitted in the Uttarakhand forest fires.
- Implementation of the LEAF Coalition plan will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognise the contributions of their forest dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
- With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
- Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest dwelling population.
Context:-
At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arrest the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
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Why LEAF Coalition?
Brazil & India
According to the UN-REDD programme, after the energy sector, deforestation accounts for massive carbon emissions — close to 11 per cent — in the atmosphere. Rapid urbanisation and commercialisation of forest produce are the main causes behind rampant deforestation across tropical forests.
Tribes, Forests and Government
Disregarding climate change as a valid excuse for the fires, Indian government officials were quick to lay the blame for deforestation on activities of forest dwellers and even labelled them “mischievous elements” and “unwanted elements”.
Policy makers around the world have emphasised the role of indigenous tribes and local communities in checking deforestation. These communities depend on forests for their survival as well as livelihood. Hence, they understand the need to protect forests. However, by posing legitimate environmental concerns as obstacles to real development, governments of developing countries swiftly avoid protection of forests and rights of forest dwellers.
For instance, the Government of India has not been forthcoming in recognising the socio-economic, civil, political or even cultural rights of forest dwellers. According to data from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs in December, 2020 over 55 per cent of this population has still not been granted either individual or community ownership of their lands.
To make matters worse, the government has undertaken systematic and sustained measures to render the landmark Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 ineffective in its implementation. The Act had sought to legitimise claims of forest dwellers on occupied forest land.
Various government decisions have seriously undermined the position of indigenous people within India. These include proposing amendments to the obsolete Indian Forest Act, 1927 that give forest officials the power to take away forest dwellers’ rights and to even use firearms with impunity.
There is also the Supreme Court’s order of February, 2019 directing state governments to evict illegal encroachers of forest land or millions of forest dwellers inhabiting forests since generations as a measure to conserve wildlife. Finally, there is the lack of data on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths among the forest dwelling population;
Tardy administration, insufficient supervision, apathetic attitude and a lack of political intent defeat the cause of forest dwelling populations in India, thereby directly affecting efforts at arresting deforestation.
Way Forward
Tuntiak Katan, a global indigenous leader from Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, aptly indicated the next steps at the Climate Summit:
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of indigenous peoples.We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change”
Perhaps India can begin by taking the first step.