Actual Exercise of Land-resource Rights Within the Exising Government Frame- work

RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP The law defines indigenous territories as ancestral domains AD. However, this is something that must be demonstrated; therefore it requires proofs: ethnography of the people, genealogies spanning at least six generations, a census, and a geographical re- construction based on indigenous toponyms. With all this information, people from the communities included in an AD develop a process of self-delineation, which serves as a basis for the official survey and monumenting process. What follows are administra- tive procedures which end with the production of a claim book that includes all the documents of the process, the scrutiny of the claim book and survey maps by the Na- tional Commission on Indigenous Peoples NCIP, whose seven commissioners have to be present in at least three meetings. This leads to the formal approval and, eventually, the awarding of the CADT by the NCIP. The process to obtain a CADT takes a long time because of the large amount of proofs required. On average, this process can take between two and three years. In many cases in the Cordillera Administrative Region, the process has already gone on for more than ten years yet remains uncompleted. And the process is expensive. The NCIP has only a limited budget for processing CADT applications, and it has been estimated that about 500 are still pending. There are no limits to the size of a CADT or the number of communities that can jointly apply. Only in a few cases has an indigenous people decided to apply for a CATD covering its entire territory. These include the Matigsalug in Mindanao 102,324 hect- ares and the Buhid in Mindoro 90,000 hectares. In most cases, several CADTs have been issued or are being applied for by one particular indigenous people, covering be- tween a few thousand to a few ten-thousand hectares. In many cases, the communities applying for a CADT face considerable problems arising from conflicts between different government agencies, in particular the NCIP and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources DENR, regarding, for ex- ample, protected areas overlapping with AD claims, opposition from local governments and companies due to commercial interests, and the collusion of the NCIP with such in- terest groups instead of living up to its mandate to support the indigenous communities. Even when communities possess a CADT, they are often faced with pressure result- ing from corporate interests in accessing natural resources within their AD. The NCIP has often supported companies in obtaining the Certificates of Free, Prior and Informed Consent FPIC that they need to start exploiting the natural resources, rather than help- ing the communities in critically assessing the requests of these companies. Nevertheless, many indigenous communities all over the Philippines consider the IPRA an advancement since it allows them to secure their territorial rights. They also find that the lengthy and complicated proof-building procedure has in the end been valuable because it has allowed them to recover elements of their culture. And they ap- preciate having defined clear and exact boundaries of their AD with the help of sophisti- cated methods and technologies like GPS global positioning satellite. Communities possessing a CADT are, however, also well aware that a title is not enough, that they need to have their own development plans for their ADs and strength- en their traditional or newly formed institutions to confront the challenges they are faced with. 91 Module-4 RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP Case study 2. Community Forestry in Rasuwa District, Nepal written by Sara Subba, Program Development Officer of The Mountain Institute Community Forestry CF was first adopted by the Government of Nepal in 1989 for the sustainable management of the country’s forests by transferring management au- thority from the Department of Forestry to the Community Forest User Group CFUG. Today, after two decades, CF, specifically in the hills of Nepal, is considered quite a suc- cess. One of the major factors to this achievement is the fact that the CF strategy focuses on empowering local people, exclusively those that are deemed disadvantaged and mar- ginalized. As such, the CF policy in Nepal endorses equal access to resources resulting in the equal benefit-sharing of those resources. Another noteworthy accomplishment of the CF in Nepal is that it promotes participation of marginalized groups, especially women and indigenous communities, in decision-making process in the management and conservation of the forests. Rasuwa District of Central Nepal is nestled amidst the famous biodiversity-rich Ga- nesh Himal and Langtang Mountain range. This area is the stronghold of the Tamang ethnic group, an indigenous community with a rich culture and heritage. Like most of the hill regions of Nepal, Rasuwa lacks development activity. The people of the area are secluded from attaining any benefits from mainstream development. The availability of health and education facilities is extremely limited, and the living condition of the com- munities is poor. Thus, many people migrate seasonally to other areas to supplement their income through trade or wage-earning jobs, and the exploitation of natural re- sources, including endangered wildlife species, is very high. However, recent implemen- tation of CF has notably increased the access of disadvantaged groups, mainly women, and the condition of the forests is significantly improved. One example of CF success is the tiny village of Chilime in Rasuwa. The CF law re- quires that 13 of the members of the executive user committee be women. Considering this, the village of 1,000 went ahead and had an all-women 15-member executive user committee to lead and manage their community forest. In this case, increasing women’s participation in decision-making has not only pro- vided equal benefit sharing in the CF but has also empowered one of the most disadvan- taged groups in all of Nepal. Further, an all-women executive committee has significant- ly optimized the effectiveness of conserving forests and high-value species, as females are the main collectors of firewood, timber, medicinal plants and wild foods, and are also considered to have extensive indigenous knowledge on the management of natural resources. Thus, they are of extreme importance as retainers of knowledge on native plants and animals for food, medicine, and fiber. According to The Mountain Institute TMI, a non-profit organization supporting the villages of Rasuwa in the formation and registration of CFs, the people of Chilime are now more aware of the importance of privately cultivating tree species and endangered medicinal plants because the CFUG prohibits unsustainable harvesting of these plants and trees from the community forest. Similarly, the Chilime CFUG holds various programs and trainings on private cultiva- tion of these species, promoting sustainable harvesting while providing alternate liveli- 92 Module-4 RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP hood. With demonstration plots and nurseries to generate seedlings for plantations, the Chilime CFUG is indeed a winning example of the efficacy of CF.

B. Advocacy and lobby

Case study 1. Forest Rights Struggle in India written by Gam A. Shimray In India, most indigenous peoples are classed under the administrative category of scheduled tribes STs. There are about 577 ST communities numbering 84.32 mil- lion as per the 2001 census, comprising 8.32 of the total population and making the Indian subcontinent the abode of more than a quarter of the world’s 350 million or so indigenous peoples. Most ST communities live in a contiguous belt stretching from Western to Eastern Central India on mainland India, and in the Northeast, an area lying between China, Burma and Bangladesh. On mainland India, which this case study focuses on, the indig- enous peoples are called Adivasi literally meaning original inhabitants or indigenous people. Prior to the British colonization of Adivasi areas, Adivasi habitations were largely independent realms, though large areas were nominally part of the regional kingdoms. These were, in effect, self-governing first nations. The introduction of the alien concept of private property began with the Permanent Settlement of the British in 1793. The colonization of the forests, which commenced formally with the Forest Act of 1864 and was consolidated with the Indian Forest Act of 1927, reduced the rights of the Adivasi to mere privileges conferred by the state. Incursions into and invasions of the Adivasi homelands by the British led to stiff resistance. The same Forest Acts have been used by the Indian State for the same logic and purpose. Hence, the resistance of the Adivasi has continued into contemporary times in various forms. Today, state-sponsored development and conservation have displaced 10 million Adivasi a conservative estimate, mainly in the mid-Indian region. At present, 62.9 of the Adivasi are officially landless. The Forest Survey of India data for 2003 show that the forest area is 23.57 of the country’s total land area. But other estimates show that this is much more than the actual forest cover, which includes areas such as coconut planta- tions and sugarcane fields as forest. It has been further argued that at least 12.4 of the country’s recorded forest area has no forest cover. The misrepresentation is being done to reach an arbitrary target of 33 set by the Forest Policy of 1952. Further, 22 of the forest area, or 5 of the total land area, has been declared as protected, with the establishment of 90 national parks and 501 wildlife sanctuaries. About 4.3 million people, mostly Adivasi, continue to inhabit the protected area, with progressive restriction of access to resources and the threat of forced eviction. As of 30 June 2005, there were 2,690 forest villages, with hundreds more not officially recorded. However, during this phase of eviction, whether their rights were recorded or not made little difference as the eviction drive covered almost all communities inhabiting forest areas. 93 Module-4 RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP According to the Forest Survey of India Report of 2003, about 37.82 of the forest cover of the country and 63 of the dense forests lie in 187 tribal districts out of a total of 449 districts in the country. Hence, the Adivasi were to face one of the worst expres- sions of state brutality in contemporary India. The current crisis was precipitated when the Inspector General of Forests issued a circular on 3 May 2002 to the chief secretaries, as well as the Secretary of Forests and Principal Chief Conservator of Forests PCCF of each state and union territory, outlin- ing a “time-bound action plan” for the eviction of encroachers by 30 September 2002. Between May 2002 and March 2004, evictions were carried out from 152,400 hectares. About 300,000 forest dwellers were removed from their habitat and deprived of their livelihood during this period. Their houses were burned, crops and food were destroyed, women were raped, and men were shot at and killed. Hundreds of villages were set on fire or demolished, and this led to clashes and deaths in police firings. Earlier, in 2000, the Supreme Court banned the “removal of dead, diseased, dying or wind fallen trees, drift wood and grasses, etc.” from all national parks and wildlife sanc- tuaries. This deprived about four million people living inside protected areas of access to a critical source of survival income. At the slightest sign of opposition, the Adivasi are branded as extremists, arrested, or shot at and killed. In May to June 2002, an estimated 40,000 families were evicted from their homes, with 15,000 families forced out in the Sonitpur District of Assam alone; eight people were killed in police firings in different parts of the state. Elephants were deployed to raze the villages. On 19 February 2003, mass police action forcibly dis- persed the peaceful protest occupation of barren, deforested land by the Adivasi, with one protester killed and hundreds injured in the Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary of Kerala. Stories of this type were widespread across the country. The unprecedented nationwide eviction drive led to widespread protests. The Cam- paign for Survival and Dignity CSD emerged as a result in the latter part of 2002. In July 2003, the CSD held a public hearing in Delhi, the nation’s capital, where the horror sto- ries from different parts of the country were narrated. In a coordinated move to thwart large-scale evictions, hundreds of thousands of Adivasi and other forest communities in the states of Orissa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal started filing claims of their rights in the offices of the district collectors. This process of filing claims to their lands has taken the shape of a mass movement. Around 70,000 Adivasi from the impoverished districts of Kalahandi, Bolangir and Nuapara in Orissa declared their boycott of the par- liamentary elections if their ownership rights were not settled. Towards the middle of 2004, the United Progressive Alliance UPA came to power with the promise to settle the rights of the Adivasi. In October 2004, the government was seized by crisis, and dialogue with the CSD commenced. On 21 December 2004, the Ministry of Environment and Forests MoEF was forced to issue another order to all states and union territories to stop evictions of forest dwellers until their rights had been settled. Even this had no effect. The Prime Minister, in a meeting held on 19 January 2005 with the ministers and other heads of all concerned departments plus the Plan- ning Commission, decided that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs would formulate a “Sched- uled Tribes and Forest Dwellers Recognition of Forest Rights Act” with the assistance 94 Module-4