Convention on Biological Diversity states, “Protect and encourage customary use of biological resources in accordance with traditional cultural practices that are compatible with conservation or sustainable use requirements,” which is further supported by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Centre is obliged to follow it.
Kutia Kondh tribe in Kandhamal's Burlubaru village in Odisha faces a serious threat as they will no longer be able to depend on the hills for their food in near future. Teak plantations have uprooted entire patches of forest where tribes people sourced millets, pulses, tubers and vegetables, reports an English daily.
Kutia Kondhs are one of the 13 "particularly vulnerable" or "primitive" tribal groups in Odisha who mainly live in the hills and have an indigenous diet but now efforts to afforest Kandhamal could snatch away their only source of nutrition, reports the English daily.
Not only food, but they also depend on the forest for medicine by growing wood apple, turmeric and wild flowers as they don't have access to medical facility in their close vicinity. Quoting an assessment by Vasundhara, an environmental organisation in Odisha, the report says that massive plantations have been carried out without settlement of forest rights in several other parts like Rangaparu, Pandamaska, Kusumunda, Madalkuna, Deogada, Guchuka, Tidipadar, Kadapana where people from Kutia Kondh tribe live.
"We can't eat teak. Why should we accept these plantations? We have been taking care of the forests for ages. It's our protector," said a local in the report.
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) states, “Protect and encourage customary use of biological resources in accordance with traditional cultural practices that are compatible with conservation or sustainable use requirements,” which is further supported by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Centre is obliged to follow it.
Several independent activists and environmental organisations have written to the written to the Ministry of tribal affairs and the Ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) about the same, report says.
Although the forest department considers the teak plantation as a forest conservation scheme that was supported by most of the locals and they claim to have the tribals' consent in writing. All the tribals in the hamlet who were approached by the English daily, however, said plantations were severely affecting their food resources and that they never given consent for it.
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