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Bastar, Chhattisgarh: A team of five men, aged between 18 and 50 years, dress in blue uniforms, wield axes and patrol the dense forests of Tiriya village in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district daily. Moving stealthily under the shade of towering sal and teak trees, they keep a “360-degree vigil” to protect their common forests from “intruders and smugglers”.
These men from the village are willingly participating in its grassroots governance system to protect the forests from what they say is the “plundering” of sal, bamboo, sheesham and bija trees by alleged “smugglers.”
“The forest was under constant threat of illegal logging, and we had to protect it,” says Lukkur Ram Nag from Tiriya village.
The rich trees are part of the common forests that the tribal and other forest-dwelling communities, such as Dhurwa, Raj Gond, and Lohar, depend on for survival and identity.
Tiriya stands out by first successfully securing forest rights on its inhabited land of over 3,000 hectares and then transforming this recognition into an exemplary governance model.
Forest Rights is a legal right under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 given to forest-dwelling communities over forest land and resources that they have traditionally used. Commonly known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA), the Act grants both individual and community rights. The individual rights include the right to live on and cultivate forest land that families were occupying before 2005. Community rights include access to minor forest produce, and access to grazing lands and water bodies inside the forests. The Act also empowers the Gram Sabha to protect, manage, and conserve forest resources.
The Tiriya village collectively revived its Gram Sabhas, formed working committees and set in motion a system of patrols, fines, and resource planning. The combined efforts not only led to a decline in timber smuggling but also created new income avenues for the youth.
Reclaiming the Commons
Tiriya’s governance of forest resources is an example of a much larger trend across India where communities are successfully self-governing their environmental commons – land, water, forests and shared spaces.
Commons cover 205 million acres, or one fourth of the land in India, which can be in the form of forests, pastures, water bodies and mangroves. These lands form the lifeline for over 350 million people, including marginalised groups like Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women.
Communities across India have traditionally protected, restored and managed these commons through customary self-governance practices. These customary rights and practices however haven’t been formally recognised or recorded in many parts of the country. Besides, contesting demands over resources, caste and class hierarchies and environmental degradation has curtailed communities’ access to commons, leading to over-exploitation, climate vulnerabilities and rural distress of the common lands.
Marginalised groups such as Tribals have been disproportionately affected due to long-standing social exclusion.
Despite these challenges, communities across India are showcasing that reclaiming, restoring and managing commons through customary self-governance practices is crucial in their ecological, social and economic upliftment.
Land Conflict Watch, a Delhi-based research group, in collaboration with Common Ground Initiative, a collaborative working on the commons, is documenting such case studies from across the country where collective action of communities around commons has led to a successful revival of the resource.
In Tiriya, the grassroots-led governance has not only protected the commons but also made the community economically resilient.
Their Forests, Their Rules
“It’s not simply about the forest rights, it is about our right to decide over our [common] land,” said Lukku Ram, member of Community Forest Resource Management Committee (CFRMC), a village-level body to manage forest resources that a community is mandated to form under the FRA after it secures rights over its resources.
Lukku Ram’s comment aligns with what the FRA mandates: people-centric forest governance, where tribes and forest-dwellers are granted legal rights over land and forest resources, enabling them to live with dignity, participate in forest management, and ensure conservation through community stewardship. But to bring governance under their ambit, the villagers of Tiriya fought a tough battle.
With a population of over 400, the village, which has been inhabited for six generations, sustains itself on farming and forest resources. The forests have been a vital source of their necessities. Villagers rely on fruits and vegetables like jamun, mahua, tendu, and tamarind, as well as medicinal plants, tubers, and edible leaves, which they consume and sell.
However, the villagers claim that over the years, the dense forests have become prey to illegal logging and smuggling, encroachments, population pressure and unsustainable harvesting. Tiriya shares a border with Odisha. Villagers allege that people from across the state border plunder their forest. However, there is no documented evidence of these crimes.
Protecting the forests, therefore, was the only way to secure their survival, they say.
“We had a vague idea of forest rights, but (we) understood that without community efforts it would be difficult to save the forest,” says Lukku Ram.
In 2023, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), a non-profit working on conservation, helped the village with a proposal to apply for community forest resource rights (CFR).
CFR are given to forest-dwelling communities under the FRA. Under this, the Gram Sabhas are given the legal authority to manage, regenerate, conserve the resource, and regulate access and use as per the local customs and sustainable practices. With CFR, the communities can continue their traditional practices of collecting minor forest produce, grazing livestock, and accessing water bodies inside the forest.
It was only then that the villagers discovered that they had already been granted CFR, but only on 800 hectares of common forest land. However, it was far less than what they historically inhabited.
“We could not accept this. Our traditional area is much larger,” said Jairam Nag, member of the CFRMC’s core team.
ATREE’s coordinator for Bastar district, Anubhav Shori, explains that the previous allocation of 800 hectares of CFR for Tiriya village was done arbitrarily by the forest department to increase its allocation numbers without involving the gram sabha or the villagers.
“The allocation was part of the rush by the state’s forest department to increase its numbers and show progress in assigning forest rights to communities,” said Shori.
After six months of navigating bureaucracy, documentation, and engagement with government bodies, in October 2023, the village secured recognition of 3,057.76 hectares of common forest land, including forest, water bodies, and grazing lands.
Back to Basics
As soon as Tiriya received its CFR, the villagers got to work on a plan to manage and govern its resources.
“The villagers understood that without a management plan, recognition alone meant little. Community-led governance is what does justice to the rights,” said Anubhav Shori, Bastar district coordinator of ATREE who worked closely with Tiriya.
Tiriya adopted a two-tier system: the Gram Sabha as the supreme body, setting rules and approving plans, and the CFRMC as the executive arm, handling daily operations and finances.
The village started reviving its Gram Sabha by holding its meetings monthly. It made the presence of at least 50 per cent members, including one-third women, mandatory for approving forest-conservation-related plans. Drum beats and announcements inform about the gram sabha five days in advance, and absentees without a genuine reason are fined Rs 50.
For forest conservation, the village appointed 35 members. Eleven members form the main committee with a chairman, secretary, vice-chairman, and others and 24 members in the core team manage the work and resolve conflicts.
“Women always take part in the meetings. Although busy with chores, we join the gram sabha. The forest needs to be saved,” said Devli Nag, sarpanch, Tiriya village.
Over the next year, the Gram Sabha held multiple meetings and drafted a three-year plan for 2024-2027.
The biggest challenge facing the villagers was encroachment and timber theft from the common forest. Chemical fishing was contaminating the lakes and the ponds. The forests were suffering from recurring fires in the dry season.
“People from outside the village who fish in the pond put chemicals in it to catch fish. It's easier, but environmentally damaging,” said Fulsingh Nag, ATREE's village coordinator for Tiriya. The illegal fishing practices stopped after the village imposed fines, he added.
Tiriya has a traditional method of fighting forest fires. If smoke is spotted, word quickly spreads to the rest of the village and putting out the fire becomes a shared responsibility. Villagers whack the flames with fresh green leafy branches to stop them from spreading.
Guarding the Forest Commons
To protect the forest from illegal logging, the village formed a patrolling team with at least one member from each household, assigned on a rotational basis.
“We exist because of the forest. It is our lifeline. That’s why I volunteer to save it at any cost,” said Baliram Nag, secretary, CFRMC.
The team patrols the dense forests daily from 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM with axes and lights to keep the intruders away. They also record sightings of new wildlife, livestock, and whether the eroded patches in the forests are recovering. If the villagers catch smugglers, they impose a fine on them. If they sense danger, the patrolling team cycles back to the village to inform the core team. In extreme cases, they reach out to the forest department as well.
“Ever since we started patrolling, there's been a fall in the instances of timber cutting. Before this, the smugglers once attacked forest police,” said Baliram.
The village has set clear rules. For the poaching of wild animals or birds, the offenders are fined Rs 5,000 and the forest department is informed in case of emergencies or disputes. The village has also prohibited cutting any type of wood, though the collection of dry wood is permitted for domestic use. The forest management committee also fines its members Rs 100 per day if they are absent from duty without notice.
After one year of efforts, the strict systems Tiriya applied showed results.
Since 2024, the patrol team has caught a case each of illegal logging and stealing forest produce, fining Rs 2,000 from each.
“Last year, at night we caught a group of illegal logging of sal trees and handed them to the CFRMC,” said Baliram.
“The fine system is helping us to reduce the cases of theft. And we are using the money for any developmental or operational cost within the village,” said Fulsingh.
Villagers Find Livelihood Alternative
The village’s three-year plan did not stop at only keeping the forests free of smugglers. The village is blessed with a stream and a river, Ganesh Bahar and Shabri, respectively. The confluence of these is a popular tourist spot.
In the absence of oversight, it was littered and unkempt. The villagers cleaned the area, installed eco-friendly garbage baskets and converted this into an eco-tourism zone. They erected a bamboo boundary and fixed a nominal entry fee of Rs. 20 to the rivers. The youth built boats and began bamboo rafting for Rs. 100 along a 250-meter stretch of the Ganesh Bahar stream, creating an alternative livelihood in the village where income from farming and forest products was declining.
In a year, Tiriya earned over Rs 17 lakh from the eco-tourism initiative, which was used by the Gram Sabha on building the village’s and eco-tourism area’s infrastructure. The gram sabha holds monthly audits and the remaining money is distributed among villagers who work at the eco-tourism spot.
For villagers like Jairam, eco-tourism has been transformative. Alongside farming, he rows a boat and helps in cleaning the tourist site. In winters, when the footfall of tourists is highest, Jairam earns over Rs 3,000 a month.
“Earlier, my father used to attend all the Gram Sabha meetings while I ignored the forest and its discussions,” says Jairam. “But after joining these meetings myself, I realised the importance of our resources, not only for our future but also for the livelihood of the community,” he adds.
For him and many others in Tiriya, eco-tourism is not just a new source of income but also a reason to reconnect with the forest, this time as stewards.
The eco-tourism spot has something to offer to everyone. The village women have also carved out their role in the new economy by selling freshly made snacks to visitors.
“The women of the village proposed the idea of selling snacks in the Gram Sabha, and it was approved," said Devli Nag. “This has become an important addition to the revenue stream,” she adds.
The community is already looking ahead. Plans are underway to expand the tourism project with homestays, giving visitors an immersive experience of village life. The village is also planning a long-term commercialised plantation project where they will plant bamboo and kino trees in the forest. Deepening of village ponds to make them suitable for fish farming is also on the cards. The villagers believe this would not only generate income but also strengthen food security.
For Tiriya’s families, the forest is where a day’s wage, a meal, and the village’s future are tied together.
“We have shaped the village again. Everything changed. Not just in the forest, but in the confidence of the people who now see themselves as its stewards,” said Devli Nag, sarpanch, proudly.