Shrinking pastoralism, fear of eviction — Forest Rights Act is the only hope for Van Gujjars of Sirmaur

Many families who are still landless cannot even buy land because of the state’s policy Article written by Himshi Singh & Prakash Bhandari published on 26/09/23 in Down To Earth Developed with World Bank funding, NH 907A from Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh, to Paonta Sahib is wide and smooth, unlike any typical mountain […]

🌳अंतर्राष्ट्रीय वन दिवस पर हिमाचल के वनों का बयान !🌳

हिमाचल जैसे पहाड़ी राज्य में जहां 2/3 भगौलीक क्षेत्र वन भूमि है वहां का स्थानीय समुदाय अपनी आजीविका के लिए वनों पर निर्भर हैं। कई अध्ययनों मे पाया गया है कि वन के संरक्षण और संवर्धन में वनों पर आश्रित समुदायों की महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका रही है। इन्हीं बातों को ध्यान मे रखते हुए भारतीय संसद […]

लेख -हिमाचल प्रदेश में वन अधिकार क़ानून का हाल बेहाल क्यों है

हिमशी सिंह द्वारा लिखित , द वायर द्वारा प्रकाशित किया गया है । दिसंबर, 2021 में वन अधिकार क़ानून को पारित हुए 15 साल पूरे हुए हैं, हालांकि अब भी वन निवासियों को अपने अधिकारों के लिए संघर्ष करना पड़ रहा है. आज जहां पूरे भारत में 20 लाख से अधिक वन अधिकार दावे मंज़ूर […]

Article | A Bureaucratic Unmaking Forest Rights Act in Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh

Written by Aditi Vajpeyi & Vaishnavi Rathore Published on Economic and Political Weekly The emergence of the Forest Rights Act reasserted the vitality of the role people play in conservation and management of natural resources and carving out legal channels for recognition of their forest rights. But, in Himachal Pradesh, the FRA suffers at the […]

Article | A silent betrayal

In a travesty of the Forest Rights Act set up to protect indigenous communities, members of the Lippa tribal village in Himachal Pradesh are being denied individual forest rights. Text by Manshi Asher Photographs by Sumit Mahar Himachal Pradesh, a State where two-thirds of the landscape is categorised as forest and 90 per cent of […]

Article | Eroding People Power

A Himalayan village’s struggle to assert its forest rights Manshi Asher 01 September 2019 Karam Sain led the way through the narrow paths of the temperate forest near the tribal village of Lippa, located in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. The cool May air was filled with the scent of dried chilgoza pine cones, […]

The Narrative Roadblock to Forest Rights Act

Article by Vaishnavi Rathore The Supreme Court order of February 13, 2019 on the forced eviction of more than 1,000,000 forest-dwelling households from forestlands across 16 states, once again brought to the fore the sharp ideological divide around the politics of ‘forest’ land ownership. Articulations by the ‘conservation’ lobby in support of the order also […]

प्रेस विज्ञप्ति: 3 अप्रैल 2019: वन अधिकार के लिए ‘चलो मंडी’ का नारा दिया 11 अप्रैल को देंगे जिला कार्यालय के सामने धरना

आज 3 अप्रैल को हिमाचल वन अधिकार मंच ने मंडी में एक प्रेस वार्ता में बताया के 11 अप्रैल को वन अधिकार कानून को प्रभावी और न्यायपूर्ण तरीके से लागू करने की मांग को ले कर मंडी में सेरी मंच पर होगा एक दिवसीय धरना. मंच के सदस्यों ने बताया कि यह कानून हिमाचल राज्य […]

Spectre of eviction looms over forest dwellers

EVEN as the Supreme Court has stayed its order directing state governments to evict occupants from forestland whose claims for land titles under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) have been rejected, about 20 lakh tribal and other forest-dependent families across the country continue to be on tenterhooks. The order was passed on a petition filed […]

New Awakenings in the Trans-Himalaya

As threats to common properties magnify, as people’s traditional access to living systems is denied, the Forest Rights Act starts making its way into people’s lives, in the trans-himalayan valley of Spiti, to uphold the rights that have sustained residents here for centuries. On an overcast day, we stirred a conversation with few members of […]