In India, the creation of nature reserves displaces people

In nature reserves, can we reconcile human presence and preservation?
There are many nature parks in India, causing conflicts between residents and nature conservation associations. The expulsion of entire villages for the protection of the tiger raises the question: are we in an ecological logic or in a primarily tourist approach?

Many brickworks are located between the hospital and the city of Coimbatore. The bricks are baked in wood-fired ovens, which requires heavy traffic of trucks loaded with tree trunks… hence the risk of deforestation.
While walking around the hospital, we come across a police station that blocks the access road to the park. A staff member explains that it is a matter of checking trucks to avoid illegal logging… because the brickworks we have seen on the road between the city and the hospital bake their bricks with wood. The park is rich in trees of the Sandalaceae family, from which sandalwood is extracted, which is used, among other things, to make incense sticks, aromatherapy and pharmacy. Trees that are now endangered.

The brickworks, the hospital, a retirement home… have attracted the population and summary constructions have been built everywhere. Wardens ensure that nothing is built inside the park.

This is a debate that has been stirring the green world for a very long time
We do not know if any populations have been evacuated in this park. But this has happened in many other Indian nature parks, resulting in a recurring controversy between indigenous peoples’ advocates and wildlife conservation associations.

For more than 20 years, the NGO Survival International has been campaigning against the population displacements that sometimes accompany the creation of nature parks, particularly in India as part of tiger protection. The conservatives of nature, from the Western world, consider that the « savages », who have known how to live in harmony with the forest for thousands of years, can no longer manage the issue of nature protection themselves today!
We are touching here on a debate that has been stirring the ecological world for a very long time: do we think that humans can live in nature and take what is useful to them (wood, food…) or should we, as a « conservationist » tendency advocates, consider that nature must be maintained independently of human presence? This debate could in itself be interesting if we lived in a world where money does not pollute everything. But behind the major nature conservation associations, there are generous sponsors interested… and nature parks are also used to attract tourists to « ecolodges » and to make safaris using highly polluting 4x4s.

Marcus Colchester sums it up as follows: « Indigenous peoples face four major problems inherent in the traditional conservationist approach. First, most conservationists have placed the preservation of nature above the interests of human beings. Second, their conception of nature has been shaped by a cultural representation of wilderness, in complete contradiction to the cosmic vision of most indigenous peoples. Third, they have resorted to state authority to regulate the interactions of man and nature. Finally, the perception of indigenous people by conservationists has been tinged with the same prejudices as those faced by indigenous peoples everywhere else. The result is the marginalization of indigenous populations. »

These evictions destroy the lives of people forced to leave their homes, but they do not help the tigers either
To avoid such slippages, one way would be to accept that solutions to problems (such as the risk of tiger extinction) should be addressed through local reflection. But this presupposes that environmental conservation associations have a different vision than the current neo-colonialist approach.

Since 2013, Survival International has been running a campaign to boycott tourist activities in natural parks. Following numerous press reports, travel agencies have agreed to discontinue these activities. In November 2017, the association launched a specific boycott campaign against tiger reserves in India. While Indian law states that population movements can only be carried out on a voluntary basis, Survival has published numerous testimonies of villagers forcibly and violently displaced by forest rangers. She reports that in Andra Pradesh, for the establishment of the Nagarjunsagar Srisailam reserve, about 600 people have been expelled.

On 16 March 2018, a demonstration brought together the inhabitants of 70 villages in the Achanakmar region (Madhya Pradesh) threatened by the creation of a biological corridor between two biosphere reserves. Survival Director Stephen Corry said: « These evictions, both inside and outside the tiger reserves, are totally unjustified and illegal. Not only do they destroy the lives of people forced to leave their homes, but they do not help tigers either. The authorities and WWF promised that there would be no evictions. However, as has often been the case in the past, these promises have proved to be worthless. »

As one expelled villager put it: « We are told that we are degrading nature by gathering, cutting wood and keeping tigers away from our villages, but don’t the thousands of tourists who drive by all year round trying to approach the animals do more damage?