Tribal land struggles inside Protected Areas reveal the tension between conservation and livelihood. Discuss with reference to the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

Protected Areas (PAs) were built on the idea of "fortress conservation", in which people are kept out so wildlife can thrive. The 2003 Muthanga agitation in Wayanad shows the cost of that idea. Landless Adivasis occupied land in a Wildlife Sanctuary, were evicted by police and faced a trial that lasted 23 years. The Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 tries to reconcile the two goals, but only in part.

Conservation vs livelihood: the tension

• Historical injustice: Forest laws treated long-time dwellers as encroachers. Kerala's 1975 law for restoring alienated tribal land [4] has not ended landlessness, so Adivasis look to forests.
• Conservation concern: When the FRA was a Bill, PRS noted there was no reliable estimate of eligible families, which could mean a loss of forest cover [2].
• Criminalisation: Before the FRA, occupying land in a sanctuary was simply illegal. Livelihood demands were treated as law-and-order problems, as at Muthanga.

How the FRA addresses it

• Coverage: The FRA recognises rights on all forest land, including Sanctuaries and National Parks [3].
• Eviction safeguard: Rights holders can be relocated from Critical Wildlife Habitats only after scientific proof that coexistence is impossible, free informed consent of the Gram Sabha and an agreed resettlement package [3].
• Community stewardship: Rights holders and Gram Sabhas are empowered to protect wildlife and biodiversity [3]. Dwellers become partners in conservation, not threats to it.
• Outcomes in Kerala: 29,422 Individual Forest Rights titles have been granted over 38,794.10 acres, and these areas are being converted into revenue villages [1].

Continuing gaps

• Claims are rejected in large numbers, and the paperwork needed to prove occupation is hard to produce.
• Forest departments resist community forest resource rights, and some "voluntary" relocations happen without real consent.
• Landless Adivasis who were already evicted gain little, because the FRA recognises existing occupation; it does not give out new land.

Way forward

• Give Gram Sabha-led community forest resource rights priority inside PAs.
• Combine the FRA with land-restoration laws so landless tribals are not pushed into sanctuaries.
• Settle conflicts in PAs through dialogue and independent inquiries, not force.

Conservation and livelihood need not compete. The FRA offers a rights-based framework in which tribal communities help protect forests. Implementing it fully, in the spirit of Article 21, the Fifth Schedule and SDG 15 (life on land), would make conservation both just and lasting.