On Sunday, PM Modi released the tiger census report in Mysuru kicking off Project Tiger's 50th-year celebrations.

It was 50 years ago that tribals near Mysuru were evicted from their lands to make way for a tiger reserve

This was the Nagarhole Tiger Reserve. A day before the PM's arrival in Mysuru, the evicted tribals submitted a memorandum of demands asking for rehabilitation and recognition of their forest rights.

Using the Wildlife Protection Act, the government fences off biodiversity-rich regions as Protected Areas to be conserved. Human activity is either restricted or banned. This includes the livelihood rights of tribals and other traditional forest dwellers.

This changed with the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. People's rights over forest resources were recognised. It allowed the creation of "critical wildlife habitats" where people's rights can be modified to conserve wildlife after they consent to it and get fair compensation.

In the last 7 years, we have recorded 34 cases of land conflicts caused due to the creation of Protected Areas. Many are long-drawn conflicts going on for several decades and affecting around 2 lakh people. (5/11)

Here are some findings from our latest report:

Twenty-six conflicts have been going on for over a decade, while 12 conflicts have lasted more than two decades. About 5 conflicts have been going on for more than 50 years!

Almost 41% of these conflicts involve tiger reserves. People around many tiger reserves, including Kanha, Ranthambore and Corbett, continue to face threats of eviction against their will.

In other cases, communities are yet to receive compensation and rehabilitation.

By cutting off their access to the forest, conservation policies [of successive governments] have also criminalised several activities that communities depended on for their survival like fishing, gathering forest produce, etc.

In several cases, constitutional rights violations have been documented. Particularly, when communities tried to access forest resources or at times resisted eviction. This included threats, arrests and even killings.

Most cases involve the non-settlement/violation of FRA while in almost half of the cases, people are still awaiting rehabilitation.

Courts are often people's last resort. And even court decisions do not end conflicts on the ground. In many cases, the court decisions were not in the communities favour.

Of the 13 cases that went to court, the decision did not favour communities in 6 cases.

Want to access the entire report? Click the link to subscribe and become an LCW Community member. As a member, you get access to exclusive reports and research insights and your support sustains our work.

https://landconflictwatch.org/support-our-work…

Written by @mrinali_7 | Anchored by @furquansid