29/06/2021 - Environment

KEY POINTS

·        One of Asia’s largest tropical grasslands, Banni is home to great biological diversity and is the lifeline of its pastoralist communities.

·        However, climate change and the invasion by Prosopis juliflora  a species that covers nearly 54 per cent of the grassland  have severely impacted its unique ecology.

·        Maldhari community in the region uproot Prosopis in the pre-monsoon period and when it rains, the native grass species’ regenerate from their rootstock.

·        Local communities applying their deep knowledge of the local ecology to become “decision-makers” in restoring their commons is indeed novel in India.

·        Through the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, adivasis and other traditional forest-dwelling communities, including pastoralists, are legally empowered to decide on the management and restoration of their community forest resources (CFR).

·        Be it social forestry in the 1970s, tree growers’ cooperative societies in the 1980s, Joint Forest Management in the 1990s or the National Afforestation Programme and Green India Mission, studies have found them to have limited restoration benefits.

·        These initiatives have drawn criticism for paying little attention to the land and forest tenure of local communities, failing to incorporate traditional ecological knowledge.

·        The recognition of these rights, however, has happened at an extremely slow pace.

·        Less than 5 per cent of the total potential area has been brought under Community forest rights.

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