: ‘My village, my rule’: Forest rights are fostering self-sustaining communities in Maharashtra #IndiaNEWS The setting sun painted the sky a ripe orange as Pawar Singh Hidme – a lean 45-year-old

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‘My village, my rule’: Forest rights are fostering self-sustaining communities in Maharashtra #IndiaNEWS
The setting sun painted the sky a ripe orange as Pawar Singh Hidme – a lean 45-year-old man from the Gond Adivasi community, dressed in a plain shirt, khaki pants with a pink gamcha (scarf) around his neck – took us on a tour of his farm.“Twelve different types of produce – lemon, jamun, chillies, onions, garlic, mango, papaya, rice, guava, lima beans, chickpea lentils and pigeon peas,� Pawar Singh said, with evident pride. His farmland is surrounded by forest on three sides. Mahua, tamarind and baheda trees shaded sparse grass and small shrubs, and a stream flowed on one side. Birdsong trilled over the landscape, birds returning to their homes occasionally landed to drink from the stream.It was not always like this. Until 2009, Hidme was considered an “encroacher� on this land. His father was routinely arrested for cultivating on the land. The copies of complaints registered against him served as evidence when the family applied for forest rights under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of 2006.In 2013, his village Dhamditola, along with 100 other villages, received community forest rights over 295 hectares of land, which allowed them to use and access non-timber forest produce for sale...Read more

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