A Rs 56,000-cr afforestation fund threatens India's indigenous communities

The compensatory afforestation is to sweep across more than 4,000 acres in 16 villages, impacting hundreds of residents--predominantly Adivasis, or indigenous communities, also called scheduled tribes

Korea (Chhattisgarh), Keonjhar (Odisha): One day in the summer of 2016—Babulal Salaam does not recall the exact date—workers arrived at this Gond tribal’s farm in Thaggaon village of northwestern Chhattisgarh’s Korea district. They began marking boundaries in limestone around his land and pounding in roughly hewn, lemon-yellow cement pillars. “I asked them what were they doing on my land, but they spoke in a language not from here,” Salaam recalled to IndiaSpend. The labourers marked the farmlands of 35-40 households in all, without explanation, according to the village sarpanch, Ashok Kumar.

In the adjoining village of Chhote Salhi, villagers narrated similar