Capacity building of Forest Rights Committees, Kutch, Gujarat

Natural Justice India has been working with pastoralists in Kutch, Gujarat and collaborating with a local organization, Sahjeevan. At present, the pastoral communities are facing a range of issues especially with access to resources. The different objectives and priorities for the stakeholders involved, in particular the Forest Department and increasingly the emerging industries in the Kutch region pose a threat to the communities and their traditional livelihoods. In the face of such issues, Natural Justice has been working to secure land rights and traditional grazing routes through the implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2008.

From the 11th to 22nd September, Revati Pandya, Sandeep Mudhar, Stella James and Alphonsa Jojan from the India team went on a field visit to meet with the communities and their newly formed Forest Rights Committees (FRC). These committees, under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) Rules, 2008 are to play a crucial role in claiming for rights over traditional resources, in particular the forested grazing lands. The aim of the visit was to build capacity of the FRC members and provide tools for them to better understand and effectively carry out their roles and responsibilities.

Workshop Design

The workshop consisted of three parts: a discussion on knowledge about the FRA to understand the current level of mobilisation; a mapping exercise to engage with the community and gain more information about community resources and identify any potential issues faced by members with regards to accessing these resources, and lastly; an overview of the claim-making process with the use of visual tools from the paralegal toolkit as well as the FRA “Claim” Game.

The workshop was conducted in 8 villages and, overall, was well received. The visual tools were effective for some individuals in communicating complex legalities. Visuals from the FRA puzzle game were also a good, interactive means to relate resource use to the nature of evidence required for the claim making process of the FRA. The mapping exercise and discussion on the FRA highlighted some essential aspects to be included into the work.

Current Status

From the discussions and mapping exercise it became apparent that initiating the claim-making process requires further research into the community dynamics and their traditional systems of resource management. Most villages use communal forest areas, known as rakhals. This sharing of resources amongst different villages complicates the initiating the claim-making process as the question of filing for joint claims over rakhals or independent community rights for each village arises.

Moreover, the impacts of the industries and the issues faced by the community as a result emerged in the discussions. This will be an interesting domain for Natural Justice as other legal options beyond the FRA can potentially be explored.

Next Steps

In order to move forward with the FRA claim-making process, deeper research on the specific aspects of communities and their resource use is required. Similarly, visual tools and outreach materials such as posters can be used to  increase the level of awareness and mobilization amongst communities, and to build capacity of the FRC members

Furthermore, it would be useful to discuss interests and capacities for identification of paralegals/community mobilizers when meeting with the community to create a direct information-sharing channel and strengthen the relationship with the community. Also, starting research on the legal aspect of industries will be highly relevant in Kutch and can be used to assist communities secure their rights over their lands.

Natural Justice Showcases the Heroes Project

L-R: Delme Cupido, Lesle Jansen, Abhishek Choudhury,
& Kabir Bavikatte

Natural Justice, in collaboration with LEDLAB and Srishti School for Arts, Design and Technology (India) participated in the Open Book Festival at the Fugard Theatre on Saturday, 20 September 2013.  The Open Book Festival is an annual literary festival that features top international and South African writers of today. It aims to showcase the best of South African writing.  It also aims to make a contribution to ensuring the youth of Cape Town has a love of reading and books.

The Hoerikwaggo Chronicles: The Return to the Kalahari, along with some other items, based on the novel, was featured at this festival’s market stalls.  Many South Africans had the opportunity to engage this novel.  It is a 5-part series being developed by the illustrator Abhishek Choudhury and Kabir Bavikatte as the script writer. The Chronicles are based on Joseph Campbell's idea of the Hero's Journey and Carl Jung's archetypes of the king, warrior, trickster and lover. It seeks to tell the story of four young people growing up in the Cape Flats. The Chronicles unfold as a conversation between the material reality of their everyday lives and the mythical world of Khoi-San myths and legends.  While the Chronicles began as a way for the Heroes Project to assist youth in the Cape Flats and townships in the Northern Cape to engage with their Khoi-San heritage, the anticipated audience for the Chronicles are young adults in both South Africa and beyond.

The day ended with participation in a panel discussion featuring this graphic novel. The panel consisted of Delme Cupido from the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa as the discussant; Lesle Jansen, Kabir Bavikatte and Abhishek Choudhury.  The name of the panel discussion was: The Khoisan experience: Healing historical trauma through Storytelling and Creative Action.

Beluran District

cc Harry Jonas

Harry Jonas joined a delegation that visited communities in the Beluran District of Sabah (Malaysia) to discuss the linkages between community-based tourism and conservation. 

While each community was different in terms of ethnicity, and social and ecological characteristics, all spoke about common themes, which included their sense that fish catches were falling, that greater controls on fish catch and upstream activities were required, and that community-based tourism could be one means to incentivise such approaches while also delivering financial support. The next steps will be supported by Forever Sabah, among other groups and agencies.

Legal Remedies for Resources Equity – BCPs as a community-driven and consensus building process

On 15 September Natural Justice participated in a day-long workshop on Legal Remedies for Resources Equity co-organized by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, UfU and eLaw in Berlin, Germany. The workshop brought together more than 200 lawyers from 38 countries involved in public interest litigation and support around equitable and sustainable natural resources management.

The second session of the day focused on “Public participation: Challenges and opportunities for local populations” and involved short presentations from practitioners on different national campaigns and cases on enforcing the right to information, public participation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).

Associate Marie Wilke reported on Natural Justice’s work with communities who face adverse effects caused by the mining industry and large-scale infrastructure projects. Over the past year Natural Justice has worked to support communities from Argentina, India, Kenya and Zimbabwe in mobilising and formulating their interests and strategies using community protocols (CPs). Session participants were particularly interested in CPs as a means of internal community empowerment. Reporting about numerous instances where individuals had sold out their communities’ resources to government and industry stakeholders against the will of the larger communities, participants felt that the bottom-up process of CPs can be critical in avoiding such issues.

On the basis of a number of litigation cases in Southern countries and experiences with EU public participation laws participants also engaged in a discussion on the need for national, regional or international registries for CPs to be able to more easily use them in formal cases. At the same time there was recognition that overregulation can easily lead to a narrowing of spaces for community voices. After a presentation on the Ecuadorian Yasuni National Park experience workshop participants assessed how a CP could have avoided some of the problems that characterize the initiative.

Participants found that one of the main challenges associated with BCPs in the context of extractive industries are the long timeframes needed for developing a BCP and the unpredictable outcome. For that reason the practitioners suggested that BCPs might be most useful in the early stages of foreign investment, i.e. before or the latest during the environmental testing and exploration stages, as this would ensure that communities are not under external pressure to conclude the process, while investors will be under increased pressure to consider BCPs where they already exist.

Other sessions looked at strategies to keep resources in the ground, due diligence of mining companies, transparency in the resources sector and the financialization of nature.

Indigenous Peoples on the frontline of biggest ever People's Climate March

More than 400,000 people marched peacefully on Sunday 21st September in New York City in anticipation of the upcoming Climate Summit, taking place on 23rd September 2014 during this year's UN General Assembly. Indigenous Peoples jointly with other affected communities were at the forefront of the march that stretched across Manhattan. It was the biggest ever climate march in history and a celebration of different cultures and communities joining forcing in calling governments to action in addressing global climate change. 

Indigenous peoples were particularly well-represented due to the first-ever World Conference on Indigenous Peoples  (WCIP) at the UN, taking place on 22nd and 23rd of September. The conference, which saw the adoption of the Outcome Document by country delegations attending the UN General Assembly, constitutes the highest level commitment to indigenous peoples' rights since the adoption of the United Nations Declarationon Indigenous Peoples. 

Natural Justice at the African Regional Forum on Business and Human Rights

From the 16th - 18th of September 2014, Natural Justice’s Shalom Ndiku attended the African Regional Forum on Business and Human Rights. The Conference was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and hosted by the United Nations Working Group on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises (the Working Group) at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

The Forum was held with the objective of promoting multi-stakeholder dialogue and cooperation on business and human rights (B&HR). Moreover, the Forum was an opportune moment for these diverse parties to discuss the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (the GPs) within Africa.  The Forum’s goals included advancing the B&HR agenda in Africa; identifying regional implementation practices, challenges and opportunities; and promoting capacity building initiatives on the GPs.

Natural Justice attended parallel sessions during the three days touching on integrating the corporate responsibility to respect human rights across African businesses; non-judicial remedies through operational-level grievance mechanisms; and investment in land by applying a human rights lens. We also participated in a number of side events at the forum, particularly a session hosted by the World Bank Group Compliance Advisor Ombudsman and Global Rights on Participatory Monitoring and Joint Fact Finding when Project impacts are in Dispute.

The majority of attendants were from the civil society side, with a some representation by governments and businesses at the Forum. The event proved to be successful in getting the voices of African persons, organizations, governments and businesses at the continental level within one venue. However, some challenges that arose from the Forum included a poor turnout from businesses and African governments together with a lack of clarity on the implementation of the GPs at the national level through action plans.

Natural Justice shall continue to engage and collaborate with CSOs and communities to keep the discussion on business and human rights alive within the African and Asian context, particularly for the communities based in the countries that we have a presence.

New RRI Report on Recognizing Community Land Rights

Rights and Resources Initiative has announced the release of their latest report Recognizing Indigenous and Community Land Rights: Priority Steps to Advance Development and Mitigate Climate Change. This report demonstrates how recognising community land rights is a cost-effective way to address a host of social, environmental, and development challenges.

Prepared with Tebtebba, the report reveals that US$1.64 billion -- the funds already pledged by three multilateral initiatives to developing the REDD+ carbon market -- would expand the recognition of land rights for local communities and Indigenous Peoples living on 450 million hectares, an area almost half the size of Europe. These cost estimates provide a benchmark for future climate change research and policy work as international negotiations to address greenhouse gas emissions heat up.

The report calculates the cost of mapping, demarcating, and titling Indigenous Peoples' and communities' rights to the tropical forests where they live, noting that secure land tenure is a prerequisite for the success of any climate, poverty reduction, and ecosystem conservation initiative.

This report was released in conjunction with the new Tebtebba report Indigenous Peoples & the Extractive Sector: Towards a rights-respecting engagement, which warns that an impending economic
recovery in the extractive industry -- particularly mining -- will amplify the issues and conflicts surrounding the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

Natural Justice Fellowship Program: Call for Applications - India

The Natural Justice Environmental Law Fellowship Program is designed for young lawyers and other committed individuals from different backgrounds to get a chance to engage in the exciting space of environmental law. The Program introduces Fellows to a broad spectrum of issues within environmental law in India through fieldwork and research in several different areas of work. The Fellowship offers an exciting opportunity to lawyers and others who are passionate about learning to use domestic and international environmental law to secure the rights of communities to their lands and resources. The Fellows will be exposed to a range of innovative ways of effectively using environmental law, ranging from community-based legal support and training to written submissions and advocacy. Over the year, the Fellows will also benefit from networks community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, legal practitioners, and others.

Duration of Fellowship: One year

Honorarium: Twenty thousand rupees per month, in addition to a modest travel budget.

Location: Bangalore

The selection process will involve two stages. At the first stage, applicants are required to send a letter of interest, a resume with two referees, and a writing sample. A Natural Justice panel will interview shortlisted applicants at the second stage before a final decision is made. Interested candidates are invited to send their applications to arpitha(at)naturaljustice.org and revati(at)naturaljustice.org with the subject line “fellowship application” by September 30, 2014.

What Skills and Qualities are We Looking for in the Fellows?

• Good research skills with the ability to critically analyse environmental law and policy issues;
• Willingness to innovate and experiment with the creative use of different disciplines and methodologies;
• A keen interest in advancing the rights of communities to their territories and natural resources;
• A passion for learning, networking with partners, initiating new work, and innovating on existing research and fieldwork;
• Good communication skills that can be used to effectively collaborate, share and exchange information with the extended Natural Justice team and its partners;
• A degree in law, humanities or other relevant disciplines with a keen interest in the law and a basic understanding of the Indian legal system;
• A willingness to travel on a regular basis and sometimes for extended periods;
• Fluency in Hindi and any other Indian language with an ability to engage in discussions with communities and run workshops where necessary, as well as a strong command of written and spoken English;
• Ability to engage in discussions and workshops with communities while being sensitive to the nuances of the local context; and
• Ability to engage in research, draft reports and legal documents;

What We Do and Where We Work

• Sariska Tiger Reserve: Working with the Gujjar community in securing their forest rights within the Reserve and investigating legal entitlements for relocated families.
• Kutch: Working with a pastoral community called the Camel Maldharis to secure rights over their grazing route which has been restricted by industries and forest department policies.
• Odisha: Working with the Paudi Bhuyan community with the aim of enabling them to assert their rights over the Khandadhar landscape.
• Guftagu: An initiative to encourage narratives from the field to be written in an accessible manner online.
• Environmental law education: Working with law colleges and students to expose and understand the complexity of enviro-legal contexts.

For more information on Natural Justice, see:

• www.naturaljustice.org
• http://natural-justice.blogspot.com
• www.community-protocols.org