In India, Indigenous Tribes Clash With the Government Over Trees

NEAT ROWS of saplings dot the grass on a new plantation about 750 miles south of India’s capital, New Delhi. Here, in the Ambagad Chowki Forest Range, the young teak trees are part of a nationwide effort to significantly reduce the country’s carbon emissions by 2030. The campaign requires any government or private project involving forest clearing to include plans to plant a new forest in some other part of the country. This patch of saplings is one of thousands now growing along the edges of this forest range.

The 7-inch high teak plants, whose big leaves give away the tall size of the mature tree, would seem to be the very image of a more sustainable India. And yet, projects like this one have engendered bitter and ongoing conflict. As local and federal officials appropriate land in order to make space for these plantations, indigenous communities — referred to collectively as the Adivasi — say their rights as the original inhabitants of that land are being violated for the sake of artificial forests that pay little heed to the local ecology. Across the country, Adivasi communities are protesting the loss of their historic lands.

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