l Whose access and whose benefit? The Nagoya Protocol and customary rights in India 57
laws and non-legal approaches to protect
their customary rights. I explore some
examples of these from Andhra Pradesh in
the following sections.
Indigenous peoples (Adivasi) laws that
protect biodiversity rights
The rights of Adivasis and other communities to their resources, biodiversity and
associated traditional knowledge, are
protected through two strong domestic
laws.
• The Panchayats (Extension to the
Scheduled Areas) Act No.40, 1996
(PESA): PESA empowers communities to
take control over resources through the
aegis of village councils – known as gram
sabhas – and also to design and approve
development plans, including those for
agriculture.
• The Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of
Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA): FRA
recognises the rights of Adivasis and other
traditional forest dwellers over their intellectual property and traditional knowledge
related to biodiversity, and their right of
access to biodiversity and to govern their
forests according to their customs and
traditions. Free, prior informed consent
(FPIC) must be obtained before any forest
within customary boundaries is diverted
for non-forest uses.
Struggles to secure customary forest rights
The Savara Adivasis of Heeramandalam
Mandal, Srikakulam District, live on hilltops in forests and have refused to
‘descend’, despite several attempts over the
years by State authorities to bring them out
of the forest. In 2008, soon after the FRA
officially came into force, Savara Adivasis
began asserting their rights to live in the
forest, with the support of the Adivasi
Aikya Vedika (AAV) (see Box 1). Every step
of the way, they had to struggle against a
recalcitrant bureaucracy reluctant to part
with power and resources.
3
Box 1: Adivasi Aikya Vedika (AAV)
Adivasi Aikya Vedika is an alliance of Adivasi people
through which Adivasis can protect their cultural
identity, territoriality, governance, knowledge
systems and customary law that affirms their sacred
relationship with mother Earth. They challenge the
dominant external forces and models of
development that are displacing them from their
territories using constitutional safeguards and
legislations, particularly PESA and FRA, and affirm
their own customary laws and systems of
governance. Between 2002 and 2006, AAV played a
key role in mobilising Adivasis across Andhra Pradesh
to protest against forest evictions and to fight for
recognition of their customary forest rights, as part of
a nationwide mobilisation of Adivasis and other
traditional forest dwellers. AAV was formed in 2000,
at a gathering of Adivasi peoples from across the
state of Andhra Pradesh. Its leadership is drawn from
its members who are spread across nine districts of
Andhra Pradesh.
Box 2: Mapping our territories to
defend our rights
In November 2011, members of six adjacent village
gram sabhas sharing customary boundaries met with
government officials. They discussed details of the resurvey and decided to initiate the exercise in
Bondigudda, Srikakulam. It took three days to walk
around the entire customary forest boundary
perimeter, the people leading the surveyor, making
sure that he captured every turn as a waypoint,
which the community marked with a pile of stones.3
The customary sarrihadula or traditional border posts
of the village, identified by pre-existing physical
structures (e.g. rocks/ancient trees), were also
marked. The three-day march saw participation from
every family and also neighbouring villages. It
included elders (women and men) with historical
knowledge, women who have an intricate and multihued relationship with the forest, and the youth in
whose hands lie the present and future. The
experience pulsated with the spirit of selfdetermination and self-rule, and was a way of
collectively reconnecting the community to their
culture, traditional knowledge and territories. It
involved intense deliberation and dialogue to arrive
at consensus within and between villages, respecting
ancient traditions of porosity of boundaries.
The government unilaterally prepared
community forest resource titles, which
were to be jointly managed under a preexisting and highly controversial
A waypoint is GPS terminology that indicates a point captured with its latitude and longitude.