A special undercover investigation by French TV channel Canal Plus has exposed the illegal eviction of thousands of tribal people from Kanha Tiger Reserve, says a leading organisation campaigning for the rights of tribal people. According to Survival the tribal people are being evicted “in the name of conservation, while more than a hundred thousand tourists are welcomed in every year.”
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said” “So-called ‘conservation’ continues to destroy tribal peoples as it has for generations. They’ve never threatened the tigers, who would do better if the tribes remained and the tourists stopped. Tribal peoples are generally better conservationists anyway than industrial-sized NGOs like WWF which stand by in silence while the parks forcibly evict people like Sukhdev and his family. It’s time these evictions are stopped and this scandal exposed.”
In Brief
- A TV reporter visited families of the Baiga tribe evicted from Kanha in 2014 and found they were struggling to survive after being scattered in surrounding villages.
- The TV crew gained access to a confidential official report which lists the systematic resettlement of 22,000 people from tiger reserves across the region.
- India’s Forest Rights Act recognizes tribal communities’ rights to remain on their land and harvest its resources, even when it’s turned into a conservation zone.
In Depth
- Read the original article on The Hindu.
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