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Impact of conservation-induced displacement on host community livelihoods: Complicating the DIDR narratives
Abstract
Studies of development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR) and conservation-induced displacement argue that when displaced people are resettled at a new location, their ‘hosts’ suffer impoverishment risks due to loss of common property resources to resettlers. Compensation for host communities, though acknowledged increasingly in policy, is rare in practice. This paper unpackages ‘host community impacts’ by investigating intra-household variations in livelihood impacts in a central Indian host village in a case of conservation-induced displacement. The ability of host households to cope with risks and gain from new opportunities is distributed unevenly along lines of power encoded in caste, class and gender. However, we show that site-specific historical and ecological factors can create contingent and multi-directional livelihood outcomes. Moreover, the overall human development impact on host households varies depending on how old vulnerabilities like low cash income give way to new vulnerabilities related to stronger integration with the market and the developmental state.
... In recent decades, migrant wage labour has become an important source of income due to increasingly fragmented landholdings and the closing of the resource frontier by the state for biodiversity conservation. During 1999-2001, twenty four villages were displaced from Kuno and resettled around village Agara (Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014). Harvesting chir gum from Salai trees is one of the few remaining sources of forest-based livelihood for the Sahariya residents of Agara. ...
... As Table 1 shows, members of Generation 1 were able to expand their tree-holdings through claiming new trees in the Salai forest. In this phase of TE, they also continued to use the surrounding forests for agricultural expansion, hunting, grazing livestock and collecting a variety of other forest produce for consumption and sale (Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014). ...
... The Sahariya of Agara viewed this unequivocally as acts of theft and transgression, but given the informal nature of their rights over the Salai trees, recourse to formal dispute resolution mechanisms was neither available nor considered effective. Notably, emerging challenges to the ITTS evoked response strategies within the indigenous realm, since the Sahariya of Agara were sympathetic to the visible livelihood distress of their counterparts in resettled villages (Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014). The affected Adivasi families (usually those with Salai patches abutting the resettled villages) coped by entering into marriage-based alliances with transgressing families, giving annual lease of their Salai patches to the Mogia, or giving up chir collection altogether. ...
In the forested landscapes of central India, elite anxieties around extinction threats to charismatic carnivores has brought about a deeply exclusionary conservationist turn in state territoriality. This article draws a conceptual distinction between territoriality for extraction (TE) and territoriality for conservation (TC) in forested landscapes, since they have different implications for space, nature and society. Through a case study from the Kuno forests of central India, it examines the impact of the shift from TE to TC on indigenous ways of knowing and using the forest. It shows that the Sahariya Adivasi community had evolved a dynamic, site-specific and resilient indigenous system of tree tenure (ITTS) to use and manage the Boswellia serrata (Salai) forest, from which they harvested chir gum for sale. Based on participatory mapping and in-depth interviews, it contends that the ontology of property-as-relations rather than as property-as-possession is more productive for theorizing indigenous use and access of valuable tree species in forest landscapes of the global South. The ITTS is defined in terms of tree tenure, property-as-relations, and indigenous claim-making over resources, and is borne out of people’s
everyday use, harvest and labour practices around specific plant species. It shows how the ITTS, which withstood more than a century of colonial and postcolonial impulses of TE, is crumbling under the onslaught of a more pernicious form of TC driven by the material and discursive practices associated with cheetah conservation.
... The central argument of this thesis is that resettlement for conservation is biopolitical because it alters human habitation, migration and other biological flows in ways that generate injustices for local and indigenous peoples. Communities inhabiting spaces demarcated for conservation are exposed to risks including landlessness, impoverishment, loss of access to common property resources and community disarticulation (Agrawal and Redford, 2009;Cernea and Schmidt-Soltau, 2006;Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014). Despite promises of welfare and rural development, resettlement exercises are seldom beneficial to local communities. ...
... As revealed in the above statement, resettlement for conservation has been subject to much scholarly debate because it leads to the displacement of local and indigenous communities (Himmelfarb, 2005;Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014;Pelican and Maruyama, 2015). Many countries have adopted the establishment of protected areas as a conservation strategy to reduce the loss of biological species. ...
... Such communities have faced risks of impoverishment through landlessness, joblessness, marginalisation, food insecurity, loss of access to common property resources and community disarticulation (Cernea and Schmidt-Soltau, 2006;Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014 Instead of improving local livelihoods, resettlement exercises have tended to serve elite interests of governments and conservationists. The analysis of resettlement for conservation from a biopolitical standpoint reveals the negative impacts of the ontological separation of nature from local people (Biermann and Anderson, 2017;Biermann and Mansfield, 2014). ...
The establishment of protected areas (PAs) is often promoted as an effective way to address environmental degradation and the loss of certain endangered species. PAs are typically predicated on the fortress conservation philosophy that perceives human habitation as a contributory factor to biodiversity loss. Thus, to offset the rate of biodiversity loss and minimise anthropogenic impacts, there has been a resurgence of the creation of strictly protected conservation areas. Nation-states have renewed their PA creation strategies and set aside portions of land to protect unique species and habitats. However, the strict protectionist paradigm that underpins PAs is unjust and unethical, as is more clearly the case when it is associated with the resettlement of human populations from conservation spaces. Strict conservation strategies also have adverse impacts on the livelihoods of the rural poor and may lead to their impoverishment, social disarticulation and political disempowerment. This research examines the resettlement of the indigenous Basarwa peoples from their traditional homelands for the establishment of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in Botswana. The research uses a case study approach to scrutinise the implementation of the resettlement policy and to understand its impacts on the displaced Basarwa communities. To inform this evaluation, the study explores Michel Foucault's biopolitical theory and reveals the extent to which nation-states assert power over human mobility and the populations affected by the creation of PAs. Although the CKGR resettlement was intended for biodiversity conservation and rural development, the government justified the intervention on the basis of certain benefit flows in favour of the Basarwa. Yet, the Basarwa were disenfranchised by their loss of resource territories, the disruption of their traditional activities, social exclusion and political disempowerment. Their life changes have also been transformed through greater exposure to disease, impoverishment and alcoholism.
... Human population densities range between 182-195/ km 2 , and livestock densities range between 65-79/km 2 in the districts adjoining park boundaries [39]. The central Indian region's human population includes a high density (>25%) of historically disadvantaged indigenous "scheduled tribes" or adivasis [41]. Villages across the KNP landscape, within the park buffer and outside, reflect the high proportions of tribal populations found in central and north-eastern India [42]. ...
... Researchers have extensively explored the impacts of other conservation actions on local human-communities as well as landscape level trade-offs to manage wildlife and development goals [36,69]. Quantitative studies on the impacts of resettlement are now possible, in part due to documentation of resettlement [16,41,65]. Researchers can begin to explore how resettlement as a particular conservation practice affects people and future management of landscapes. ...
... Longer studies or studies after a decade of resettlement might provide further insight into how compensations under the current guidelines allow resettled households to integrate into their new locations. Furthermore, studies that include metrics of well-being that are difficult to quantify are important to understand social impacts on people living around protected areas [41,65]. Studies have found that understanding local contexts aids researchers in a more nuanced exploration of the impacts of conservation practice even when hard to quantify [18,19]. ...
Globally, conservation efforts have moved millions of people out of protected areas since the 1970s, yet quantitative studies on post-resettlement well-being remain a challenge due to poor documentation. Since 2008, the Indian forest department records demographic and financial details at the household level under standardized guidelines for resettlement. Here, we examine the food security of approximately 600 households’ post-resettlement from Kanha National Park (KNP) in central India between 2009 and 2014. We compare food security of resettled households with host community households with a total of 3519 household surveys, conducted over three seasons within one year. We measure food security using food consumption scores (FCSs), coping strategies index (CSI) and household hunger scale (HHS). Food insecurity is widespread in the landscape, with over 80% of households reporting poor or borderline FCSs year-round. Additionally, we recorded food insecurity increases in monsoon for all households regardless of resettlement status. Results indicate that resettled households are comparable to their host community neighbors in FCS and all households use mild coping strategies to combat food insecurity. While widespread, food insecurity in the KNP landscape is not acute with very few (<10) reports of severe hunger (as measured by the HHS). Almost all foods are market bought (>90%) and sometimes supplemented by gathering locally prevalent greens or from kitchen gardens (forest dependency for food was negligible). Accruing assets and diversifying incomes from non-labor avenues would alleviate food insecurity for all households. The patterns of market dependence and food security associated with diversified stable incomes around protected areas is in contrast with many studies but is likely to occur in similar human-dominated landscapes.
... In addition, every few years villagers are threatened with impending relocation and advised not to invest in agriculture. Such challenges and uncertainties adversely impact the community's well-being (Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014). ...
... However, access to this part of the forest was seriously disrupted after 2004, with intensification of fortress conservation in the Kuno forests. The Asiatic Lion reintroduction project led to the displacement of 24 villages from the then Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary (Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014), including the villages located close to present-day Bagcha. Initially, the people of Bagcha expanded their chir harvesting activities to the highly productive but now unclaimed salai patches belonging to these relocated villages. ...
The creation of inviolate Protected Areas for the conservation of charismatic carnivores displaces forest-dwelling communities and reduces their access to vital forest-based livelihood resources like timber, wild food, commercial gums-resins, fuel, and fodder for livestock. We illustrate how exclusionary projects to conserve the Asiatic Lion and the African cheetah in Kuno National Park have adversely affected forest-based livelihoods and the indigenous tree tenure system of the Sahariya, a particularly vulnerable indigenous group in central India. This article traces the social justice implications of long-term restrictions on forest access and how these shape people's response to government attempts to relocate them. The empirical analysis is drawn on long-term livelihood data from two phases of household surveys conducted in 2005 and 2017. In addition, qualitative fieldwork (con-ducted in 2017 and 2023) and geospatial analysis were used to analyse the spatial dynamics of the increasingly restrictive forest access. The study highlights quantum of chir collection (the gum-resin of the salai or Boswellia serrata tree) declined by 46 % during the study period. Systematic state restrictions on collecting non-timber forest produce (NTFP) unleashed a process of 'slow violence' on the Sahariya, steadily eroding their ability to survive in the forest. This has forced the Sahariya of village Bagcha to acquiesce to 'voluntary' relocation. Socially just biodiversity conservation policy should critically examine the inherently political processes underlying 'vol-untary' relocation and strive to look for more inclusive coexistence alternatives.
... Al Atahar, 2019;Perera, 2014). The findings therefore further contribute to a growing research showing that resettlement due to development projects also negatively affect host communities where project affected households are being resettled (Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014;Liu, 2018). Host community households are also affected and made more vulnerable than before (Ibrahim, 2019). ...
... Host community households are also affected and made more vulnerable than before (Ibrahim, 2019). This is usually because the host community suffers impoverishment risks due to loss of common property resources to the resettled community, and yet compensation for host communities is rare in most countries (Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014). ...
There are many risks for local people related to resettlement schemes and compensation measures caused by different development projects. In Buseruka sub-county, Hoima district in Western Uganda, land was expropriated for an oil refinery project. A vulnerability assessment was conducted for this scheme. Households could choose between cash compensation as a resettlement measure, or a relocation to an established site with a house and some agricultural land and other inputs. A household survey was carried out involving 187 household heads and various key person interviews. An analysis of overall vulnerability among the resettled households was based on indices constructed from carefully selected indicators for exposure, sensitivity and the adaptive capacity. A principal Component Analysis was used in assigning weights to indicators of the vulnerability of resettled households. Affected households could choose between cash compensation or land /house. In addition we looked at effects of the measures on the host population receiving the relocated households. Cash compensated households were most vulnerable in relocation areas compared to both host community households and to formally resettled households with a house or land respectively. Cash compensation was found to be surrounded by much controversy which challenges the commonly held notion that cash can easily facilitate or restore the livelihoods of displaced people. There is thus a need to critically analyse how or to what extent different resettlement mechanisms restore livelihoods of project affected people and prevent household vulnerability. The findings in this study indicate that cash compensation may not reduce socio-economic vulnerability of affected persons in areas where land is the most important livelihood asset.
... It is, therefore, imperative to have a nuanced approach to the study of resettlement outcomes, by properly accounting for the heterogeneity of displaced persons and communities (Quetulio-Navarra et al., 2014), their varied entitlements (Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014), subjective perceptions (Dwivedi, 2006), and factors enabling them to confront risks and restore their livelihoods (Bui et al., 2013). Most of the risks are interconnected and have different intensities, which mean that risks vary according to the affected population and the spatial site circumstances (WCD, 2000). ...
... Households with land and human capital (bigger family size) seem to mitigate risks of social and living environment in the new location successfully. Bigger family size was found to be a key positive factor in improving livelihood outcomes in other studies (Bui et al., 2013;Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014;Paul and Sharma, 2016;Webber and McDonald, 2004). Though the female-headed households seem to handle the social and environmentrelated risks better, their situation in regard to economic and health risks are concomitant with their male headed counterparts in the displaced population, making their situation vulnerable. ...
The scale of development-related displacement has been growing rapidly over the past few decades in most developing countries. This paper tries to examine the household and other characteristics that make displaced households vulnerable to different types of risks and help them in confronting these risks successfully. This study harnesses a large primary dataset from 1,070 affected households in four irrigation projects along the Godavari River Basin in Andhra Pradesh. The analysis shows the loss of land, casualisation of labour, and loss of livestock assets in the resettlement process. The households perceive economic followed by health-related risks as major risks. Econometric analysis shows that land ownership, education, social category, gender of the head of household, dependence on forests and family size are significant variables in explaining household's exposure to risk. Further, a sense of satisfaction with housing and the time taken for resettlement has a positive effect on households' ability to confront displacement risks, whereas episodes of illness have a negative influence. Resettlement and rehabilitation programmes tailored to include vocational training, assistance for self-employment, and strengthening of SHGs and other community-based organisations (CBOs) can have a significant impact on households that have lower adaptation capacity to confront and overcome displacement-related risks. The difficulty in overcoming displacement risks calls for providing full compensation, investment on post-settlement welfare and benefit-sharing measures by not only recognising resettlement as a dynamic process, but also by understanding the heterogeneous impacts of this process on seemingly homogeneous households and communities.
... Immediate consequences of involuntary resettlements have an effect on both displaced community and host community. Host community is defined herein as the community in whose neighbourhood the displaced people are relocated (Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014). For example, social disintegration and severe impoverishment are some of the immediate consequences of involuntary displacements, which affect the economy of the region (Cernea, 1995). ...
... Involuntary relocations make a community to displace involuntarily and another community to host involuntarily (Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014). Operational equilibrium of these communities would make a shift immediately after relocation, because introduction of a new community will alter the context of all the influencing factors of a community's resilience. ...
Improving resilience through empowerment of communities is becoming a much sought after
strategy for community level disaster preparedness. Community resilience is the ability of a
community to bounce back to its operational equilibrium after a hazardous stress. This ability
builds up over time based on many underlying factors such as community’s age distribution,
food supply, livelihood, population stability, indigenous knowledge, and communication
capacity. Often, these factors make communities different from one another and define their
level of resilience to disasters and other hazardous stresses.
Involuntary relocations alter the equilibrium position and stress absorbing ability of a
community by merging two (or more) communities with different resilience equilibrium
positions. In this case, resilience of these communities towards potential disasters could be
disturbed. Therefore, when involuntary relocations are to be exercised, maximising the potential
and collaboration of the communities is essential to enhance the overall resilience of the
communities involved. Accordingly, this paper aims to develop a conceptual model to integrate
possible mechanisms to build community resilience within involuntary settlements by
enhancing collaboration between host community and displaced community.
This study was conducted through a comprehensive literature review to investigate the research
question: ‘How involuntary settlements alter the resilience of the communities in Sri Lanka?’ It
has been found that the operational equilibrium of host and displaced communities would make
a shift immediately after relocation, because introduction of a new community will alter the
context of all the influencing factors of a community’s resilience. That shift would also be
higher for the displaced community compared to the host community.
Consequently, the prospects for the people who have been expelled from their habitual
residence are often uncertain as they are forced to live in a place among people with different
culture and behaviour. Furthermore, economic status, social settings and psychological aspects
could also act as stress factors that affect the resilience of the community. It is challenging to
build community resilience between two communities, which are different from one another.
Besides, time and financial constraints often act as barriers for resettlement planners to consider
such aspects during relocation planning. Therefore, an integrated approach to build community
resilience needs to be incorporated in the policy design and decision-making of relocations by
drawing possible linking mechanisms that facilitate collaboration between communities
... The most significant improvement in community assets occurred in electricity, roads and communication facilities. (Kabra 2009;Kabra & Mahalwal 2014). In terms of financial assets too, similar results were found, and displacement resulted in disruption in creditworthiness and reduced access to credit from formal as well as informal sources. ...
... The LRO framework can be combined with simple participatory research methods like wealth ranking and livelihood asset status tracking to allow researchers to capture differential impacts across different categories of displaced persons, and to account for trade-offs that are generated through changed access to different types of livelihood resources. This can help in a better understanding of the varied trajectories of post-displacement livelihoods for different groups of resettlers, and to understand the processes of economic differentiation triggered by displacement and resettlement(Zoomers 2010;Rantala et al. 2013;Kabra & Mahalwal 2014). Examples of these approaches are highlighted in the next section.Using the LRO framework: Some useful case studies In this section, I illustrate the use of the LRO framework through case studies of the economic impact of displacement on local livelihoods using some variants of the IRR and Livelihoods frameworks. ...
This paper sets out a qualitative rapid research framework for designing and conducting field-based studies of the livelihood risks and opportunities (LRO) arising from involuntary displacement and resettlement. The ‘livelihood risks and opportunities’ framework combines insights from the ‘impoverishment risks and returns’ framework and the ‘sustainable livelihoods’ approach. This paper discusses the advantages of the LRO framework over other currently used qualitative and rapid research methods, and demonstrates its application through case studies of conservation-induced displacement in India.
... The literature fails to consider the implementation processes associated with such programmes and how they affect the socio-cultural dimensions of the life of the hosts. It neglects such narratives for policy formulation (Roquet et al., 2017;Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014;Verme & Schuettler, 2021). This is worth exploring because different rules and regulations govern the implementation of DIDR programmme, with the potential of creating winners and losers due to shortcomings in the application, especially in Global South countries like Ghana (Obour et al., 2016). ...
Hydro-dams in the Global South have become pivotal to accelerating socioeconomic development and promoting the industrialisation drive through the supply of energy. The implementation of hydro-dam projects usually comes with involuntary resettlements. Such involuntary resettlements have consequences for those displaced and people in the host communities receiving the displaced for their integration. While existing studies focus on the planning phase of resettlement programmes, particularly, how to identify the hosts in the resettlement planning frameworks, little attention is given to the hosts during resettlement implementation. This study seeks to investigate the implementation processes, rules and regulations of dam-induced involuntary resettlement (DIIR) programmes and how they affect the socio-cultural dimensions of the life of the hosts, using the case of the Bui Dam in Ghana. The study used the impoverishment risk and reconstruction theory to do so. The study found that the implementation processes of the DIIR programme are fraught with shortcomings in terms of non-compliance with local planning laws, inadequate compensation and the Resettlement Planning Framework's failure to capture the hosts during its implementation. It shows contrasting findings in the literature , with only Ghanaian laws applied to regulate the implementation of the Bui Dam resettlement programme without international laws despite the hybrid financing sources. It furthers the argument in the literature that a successful implementation of a DIIR programme is not only limited to international and national legal frameworks but should consider socio-cultural conditions and values of a community and country. We, therefore, recommend that people-based and place-based policies are adopted during the implementation of the DIIR programme.
... Hal ini tidak hanya terkait dengan mencari tanah pengganti untuk pemukiman kembali, tetapi juga berubahnya struktur ekonomi, sosial dan lingkungan masyarakat yang terjadi pasca pemukiman kembali. Permasalahan tidak hanya terjadi pada masyarakat yang dipindahkan, tetapi juga bagi penduduk asal (hosting community) [56]. Perubahan struktur sosial masyarakat ini, baik bagi masyarakat pendatang maupun penduduk asal, dapat memicu pergesekan yang pada akhirnya dapat berujung pada konflik antar masyarakat. ...
Puji syukur ke hadirat Allah SWT, karena atas limpahan rahmat dan karunia-Nya, tim penulis dapat menyelesaikan buku yang berjudul Pembangunan Berkelanjutan, Pengadaan Tanah, dan Masyarakat: Perspektif dan Praktik Global. Buku ini hadir sebagai bentuk kepedulian atas perjuangan para pihak yang terus menerus mengembangkan gagasan dan pemikiran kritis demi terwujudnya penyelenggaraan pembangunan infrastruktur dan pengadaan tanah yang selaras dengan prinsip-prinsip pembangunan berkelanjutan.
Bekerja sama dalam tim yang terdiri dari berbagai latar belakang, profesi dan kesibukan berbeda merupakan tantangan tersendiri bagi penyelesaian buku ini. Meskipun demikian, akhirnya buku ini dapat hadir ke hadapan para pembaca. Melalui buku ini, tim penulis ingin mengajak pembaca mengunjungi beberapa negara untuk mengenal praktik penyelenggaraan pengadaan tanah yang sarat dengan gagasan dan pelajaran berharga. Perspektif dan praktik pengadaan tanah disajikan secara sistematis dalam bagian-bagian yang runtut, mulai dari pemaparan sejarah, isu-isu besar, dan persoalan-persoalan pokok yang kerap muncul dalam penyelenggaraan pengadaan tanah. Dengan menghadirkan cerita dan pengalaman dari berbagai belahan dunia, tim penulis berharap agar para pembaca dapat melihat bagaimana pembangunan infrastruktur dan pengadaan tanah dilakukan, dan bagaimana hal tersebut berimplikasi pada lingkungan sosial, ekonomi dan budaya. Dengan perspektif dan pengalaman yang beragam tersebut, diharapkan dapat memperkaya khasanah dan pengetahuan kita bersama mengenai apa yang sedang dihadapi dunia saat ini.
Dampak pembangunan akan selalu menghadirkan dua sisi yang mungkin saling berlawanan. Pembangunan merupakan kunci kemajuan, tapi tidak dapat dipungkiri hal tersebut pastinya akan memberi dampak negatif kepada pihak-pihak tertentu. Seperti halnya dengan pengadaan tanah, sudah menjadi keniscayaan bahwa penyelenggaraannya akan selalu dilekati dengan adanya konflik dan ketidakpuasan yang muncul pihak-pihak tertentu. Namun demikian, semangat untuk menghadirkan bentuk penyelenggaraan pengadaan tanah yang lebih baik dan berkelanjutan akan selalu ada dalam rangka mewujudkan keadilan dan kesejahteraan bersama, dan untuk mencapai tujuan bersama menuju pembangunan berkelanjutan. Jalan menuju penyelenggaraan pengadaan
iv
tanah yang berkelanjutan tidaklah mudah, tetapi bukan berarti merupakan hal yang tidak mungkin untuk dicapai.
Dengan menyadari keterbatasan pengetahuan dan sudut pandang tim penulis, buku ini diharapkan dapat memberi warna baru dalam memahami perspektif dan praktik penyelenggaraan pengadaan tanah di berbagai negara. Bagi para pembaca, terutama pemerhati, pelaksana, dan penentu kebijakan di bidang penyelenggaraan pengadaan tanah, buku ini diharapkan dapat menjadi alat introspeksi sekaligus sumber inspirasi bagi perbaikan penyelenggaraan pengadaan tanah berkelanjutan di masa yang akan datang, untuk menuju masa depan yang lebih baik – sebagaimana prinsip pembangunan berkelanjutan “Leave no one behind”.
... Host communities who have to share their resources with displaced communities also experience economic displacement (Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014;Cernea & Maldonado, 2018). In addition, the successful integration of displaced people depends on the acceptance of the host community. ...
... Despite the fact that development in the developing world is frequently seen as a necessary step towards modernization and economic growth, it more often results in a social problem that affects various levels of human organization, ranging from the individual to the household, tribal to village communities, and rural to urban areas (Sikka, 2020). Development initiatives are causing a significant exodus of people from their homes, outpacing other factors like conflict and climate change (Braun, 2005;Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014;Otsuki, 2019). Every year, nearly 15 million people are forced to leave their previous residence because of development projects (Terminski, 2012). ...
... Despite the fact that development in the developing world is frequently seen as a necessary step towards modernization and economic growth, it more often results in a social problem that affects various levels of human organization, ranging from the individual to the household, tribal to village communities, and rural to urban areas (Sikka, 2020). Development initiatives are causing a significant exodus of people from their homes, outpacing other factors like conflict and climate change (Braun, 2005;Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014;Otsuki, 2019). Every year, nearly 15 million people are forced to leave their previous residence because of development projects (Terminski, 2012). ...
This comprehensive study on gender and development-induced relocation examines 98 papers from the Scopus.com collection. Between June and July 2022, a search of the academic literature was conducted using a set of preliminary key words. Mendeley Desktop 1.19 has been used to expedite this electronic search. In order to minimize bias in the identification, selection, synthesis, and summary of literature, the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis for protocols 2015 checklist is utilized in this study. Comparative case studies at the local project level, qualitative cross-sectional surveys, reviews, and mixed technique research are the most effective among a variety of studies carried out in various nations, even though there is no overt methodological bias. The main deprivations that displaced women suffer from more frequently than their male counterparts are a lack of access to land, housing, and employment; loss of access to public property; marginalization; a lack of capacity for making decisions; a lack of social cohesion; and unequal labor division. Because of internalized discrimination, women may find it more difficult to overcome these barriers. The authors of this study produce policy recommendations by carefully analyzing the empirical literature.
... The Sahariya form the majority of the forest-dwellers in the upland semi-arid forests in and around Kuno National Park 4 in the Chambal division of northern Madhya Pradesh. Previous research has shown that the Sahariya are highly dependent on resource extraction for their own use and the sale of a wide variety of NTFPs from the forests in and around Kuno National Park (Kabra 2003;Kabra 2007; Kabra and Mahalwal 2014). In recent years, Sahariya livelihoods in the upland forests of Kuno are being increasingly threatened by the impacts of climate change and a rapidly closing resource frontier due to the wildlife conservation policies of the state, which has increased the vulnerability of this already marginalized community (Kabra 2018 (Orwa et al. 2009). ...
Boswellia serrata, or salai is a prominent NTFP species of the Kuno forests in Central India. The Sahariya tribe primarily uses it for its gum-resin (chir). A major share of household income comes from the sale of chir. Long-term association with the Kuno forests, in particular with the salai trees, has allowed the Sahariya to build a repository of indigenous knowledge, which plays a pivotal role in their livelihoods. Indigenous knowledge systems are gaining increasing attention globally, and the wisdom of indigenous communities is getting acknowledged. Using qualitative tools and long-term ethnographic engagement with the Sahariya, this study aims to document their holistic process management of salai forests and collection of chir. It documents their management practices and belief systems regarding salai. It also highlights sustainability concerns of the community and their perception of how climate change affects salai. The study emphasizes the relevance of situated knowledge systems for a better understanding of sustainability concerns about the forest resources, and the associated impacts on local communities. Recognizing indigenous knowledge of forests and trees can facilitate and improve sustainable forest management and climate change mitigation policies.
... These consequences include: physical and socio-economic displacement of the marginalized (Agrawal and Redford 2009;Kabra 2013), undemocratic management of natural resources (Bixler et al. 2015), unequal knowledge production (Escobar 1998), the costs of living close to wildlife (Barua et al. 2013;Ogra 2008), and formation of socio-ecological identity (Großmann 2017). In India, political ecological analysis of protected conservation areas has shown that massive physical displacement results forest dependent communities, mainly Scheduled Tribes (Shahabuddin and Bhamidipati 2014), loss of livelihood and access to resources (Kabra and Mahalwal 2014), capitalist expansion of plantations and accumulation by dispossession (Rai et al. 2019), negative ecosystem changes (Soumya and Sajeev 2020), local resistance to these oppressions (Mukherjee 2009), and an increase in negative human-wildlife interactions in forest villages (Margulies and Karanth 2018). ...
This article applies a feminist political ecology framework to analyze a particular case of human-wildlife interaction from northeastern India, linking it to the emerging paradigm of 'decolonized conservation.' Through the oral testimonies of local community members with regard to living close to wild Asian elephants in a forest-agriculture landscape matrix of rural Assam, this article argues that place-based conceptualizations of 'wildlife', 'forest dependency' and 'living with wildlife' are affected by gendered roles and responsibilities, gendered access to spaces and gendered interaction with wildlife. By doing so, this article argues for (i) extending the discourse on 'decolonized conservation' towards the role of gender in rethinking these place-based conceptualizations and (ii) bringing forward such 'en-gendering' into redesigning wildlife policies, as that will have the potential of ensuring feminist environmental justice as well as positive conservation outcomes.
... The M&E of involuntary resettlement, as an essential means for the governance of resettlement risk, still requires a conceptual change to develop more opportunities for APs during resettlement implementation. APs' development entails the APs gaining a more stable and productive life [60], including sustainable livelihoods based on their individual capabilities [10,19,61,62], orderly social integration based on social support [63][64][65], and stable social security based on government support [48,66,67]. In fact, the APs are increasingly concerned about their individual development during project construction and resettlement implementation. ...
The monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of involuntary resettlement has been implemented for over 30 years since being introduced, achieving significant results in preventing resettlement risks and safeguarding the rights and interests of the persons affected (APs). However, the situation surrounding resettlement has changed significantly over these decades, as the interests of the APs have become more diverse and their social class differentiation has become more pronounced, implying that approaches regarding the governance of resettlement risks must be adjusted. Based on the experience of China, we intend to update the original model for M&E of involuntary resettlement, proposing that the two monitoring systems for risk-susceptible groups and the APs’ development should be set up separately in the monitoring model, and specific monitoring indicators defined within each system. In terms of the evaluation model, we introduce the meta-model of evaluation to strengthen the organic relationship among various evaluation units and enhance the overall capacity of the evaluation. Furthermore, the evaluation should be implemented in general resettlement, risk-susceptible groups resettlement and APs’ development.
... The schema, adapted from Li et al. (2017), was originally referred to as the sustainable livelihood framework (DFID, 1999). The sustainable livelihood framework explores the links connecting the variations in livelihood assets, the appearance of new livelihood opportunities, and the resultant variations in livelihood outcomes (Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014). The main notions used are assets, activities, and outcomes. ...
Although the social-ecological impacts of resettlement have been widely assessed, the concrete mechanisms by which ecological resettlement influences the livelihoods of resettled households have rarely been examined. Using data collected from a large household survey in southern Shaanxi, China and a propensity score matching method, this study explores the potential impact of resettlement on livelihood strategies. Our results indicate that participation has generally increased the income of relocated households through governmental subsidies and other income, reduced the poverty rate, and improved their living conditions and facilities. Nonetheless, a more nuanced analysis reveals that some of the direct vs. indirect, and short-term vs. long-term effects are not as positive or strong as what would have been hoped for. Multiple policy challenges must be addressed to make the program more effective and sustainable.
... This article attempts to respond to the pressing need for more quantitative analysis. The sustainable livelihood framework provides crucial methodological benefits over a comprehensive perspective for the quick assessment of dynamic livelihoods of PAR on relocated households (Kabra and Mahalwal 2014;. Following previous studies (Speranza et al. 2014;Thulstrup 2015;, this paper introduces the PAR as an external shock on household livelihoods into the dynamic livelihood framework to achieve an effective linkage between the sustainable livelihood framework and livelihood resilience. ...
In an effort to mitigate ecological environments and improve human well-being, the Chinese government’s largest-ever relocation and settlement programme is underway. Measuring livelihood resilience and further assessing its impact hold the key to strengthening adaptive capacity and well-being in poverty resettlements. Using a household survey of contiguous poor areas in Southern Shaanxi, China, this research proposes a framework to examine livelihood resilience and its impact on livelihood strategies in the context of poverty alleviation resettlement. To provide more comprehensive empirical evidence, we drew on three dimensions of the previously proposed livelihood resilience framework: buffer capacity, self-organizing capacity, and learning capacity. The results show that capital endowments, social cooperation networks, transportation convenience, and skills acquired from education and rural–urban migration can significantly affect the construction of livelihood resilience. The resilience of households that were relocated because of ecological restoration is the highest, followed by households relocated because of disasters; households relocated because of poverty reduction attempts have the lowest resilience. As for indicators of livelihood resilience, physical capital assets and previous work experience play a major role in household livelihood strategies for pursuing non-farming activities, while household size, stable income, social capital, and information sharing result in diversified livelihood strategies. These findings provide policy implications for enhancing livelihood resilience capacities and improving the scope of available livelihood strategies to emerge from the poverty trap and to adapt to the new environment.
... Human livelihoods around the protected area also rely on seasonal goods, including a heavy year-round reliance on forests for fuelwood (nearly 100% in this area compared to the 77% national average) and cattle grazing (WWF-India 2014). Additionally, the central Indian region's human population includes a high density (> 25%) of historically disadvantaged indigenous "scheduled tribes" or adivasis (Kabra 2009;Mohindra and Labonté 2010;Kabra and Mahalwal 2014;Shahabuddin and Bhamidipati 2014). The "scheduled tribes" are formally recognized by the Indian government and predominantly reside in central and north-eastern India (Revankar 1971). ...
The well-being of people living around protected areas is critical in its own right as well as for effective conservation, particularly in human-dominated landscapes. We examine the contributions of financial, social, and natural capital to household food access of 883 households around Kanha National Park (KNP) in central India over three seasons. We use regression trees and mixed effects models to identify associations between natural, social, and financial capital indicators and household food access (an indicator of well-being). We find that food access is low in the KNP landscape with over 80% of households indicating lower than acceptable food consumption scores, with a further worsening in monsoon season. Financial capital (e.g., salaried jobs and proximity to towns for all seasons) is most prominently associated with higher food consumption scores. Moreover, households supplement incomes by converting social capital (e.g., 28% of surveyed households access “food in lieu of work or credit” in monsoon) and natural capital (e.g., 14% of surveyed households sold forest products in summer) to financial capital seasonally. Financial capital dwarfs contributions of social and natural capital around KNP, in contrast to other studies, which suggest that gains from natural capital are essential for well-being of people around protected areas. Management interventions, such as kitchen gardens (borne from human capital) to supplement market-bought produce, could contribute to food security without high financial inputs. However, food insecurity in the KNP landscape primarily relates to the lack of financial capital. Food security of people around protected areas in other human-dominated landscapes is likely to be context-specific and counter to frequent assumptions particularly as livelihood strategies change with increasing economic opportunities.
... 205 This article argues that land acquisition and displacement generate a specific kind of gatekeeping economy of resettlement and rehabilitation which involves not just the national, regional and local state, but also non-state actors like NGOs, civil society groups and social movements. The specific ways in which caste and class interactions play out during and after conservation displacement cast a long shadow on future livelihood 210 outcomes (Kabra and Mahalwal 2014). It is important to understand the caste and class contours of the gatekeeping economy of resettlement and rehabilitation and the variable prospects of accumulation and decline that it generates for different social groups. ...
This article explores the caste and class dimensions of the local resource politics of conservation displacement. Through long-term study of a conservation displacement site in central India, it interrogates how alliances and rivalries contoured along historical class-caste contestations result in differential patterns of recovery from “green grabbing” and exclusionary conservation. It is argued that contestations within and between subaltern social groups, traditional dominant castes and newly upwardly mobile peasant castes are geared towards cornering resource flows associated with the local welfare/developmental state. Given severely limited avenues of gainful employment for the rural poor in the neo-liberal era, access to the local gatekeeping economy shapes trajectories of accumulation and decline in the context of India’s new land wars.
... In the decision-making process of the resettlement, the informal conversations from the government to the community and vice versa are the most influential besides formal communication (Iuchi, 2014). The community here is not only the IDPs but also the host community in the new settlement location (Mathur, 2015;Kabra & Mahalwal, 2014;Oliver-Smith, 1991;Chambers, 1986). ...
Many studies address the participation of a community in planning, the decision-making process, and control over resources for their lives would play the successes or failures of any development project including resettlement. Although there are several approaches in participatory method, this thesis would address participation in development, specifically in the context resettlement that used Community-Driven Development model. Participation in development is a process for democratization, empowerment, and mobilization where groups take control of their social and economic conditions over their communities through negotiation, discussion, and consultation discourse along with the performance of mode of actions. By using a Case Study method, this thesis explored the deliberative and performative participation of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Gamber community in Relokasi Mandiri (a Community-Driven Resettlement) that limited to the decision-making of housing and farming provisions.
Results show that in the past, the community used the traditional forms of community organization combined deliberation (decision-making) with concrete activities. The traditional (self-created) forms of deliberation are closely connected with taking action (performative) collectively as a community.
Keywords: relokasi mandiri, community-driven resettlement, participation, the forms of participation, deliberative, performative, decision-making, community, IDPs.
... Displacement due to development activities commonly result into loss of livelihood resources like acquisition of non-private resources including forest land (Kabra and Mahalwal 2014). Access to natural resources such as land and common property resources from which they previously derived their livelihood sources like food and income could be affected (Oruonye 2012). ...
... Studies have begun considering the impacts of resettlement at landscape scales with more thorough documentation that address possible interactions in whole landscape management for people and wildlife (Harihar et al., 2014;Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014). ...
Since the origin of the protected area network, authorities have resettled people in the interest of wildlife conservation. However, the impacts of resettlement on wildlife corridors connecting increasingly insular protected areas and the interaction of resettlement with existing human-wildlife conflict (HWC) outside of protected areas remain unclear. Using Kanha National Park (KNP) in central India as a case study, we quantified impacts of 450 households (that were resettled from 2009 to 2013, surveyed in 2016) on non-protected forests at their new settlement locations. We measured forest use for cattle grazing, tendu leaf extraction (a commercial non-timber forest product) and consumption of forest foods. We also quantified HWC risks that resettled households face at their new settlement locations. We use published spatial analyses on designation of the corridor and risks of human wildlife conflict in conjunction with our data to assess post-resettlement impacts at the new settlement locations. Overall, most resettled households (330) have moved to existing villages that lie outside of wildlife corridors around KNP. They comprise <10% of existing populations at most of their new settlement villages. Many resettled households and their non-resettled neighbors face high HWC risks due to the spatial patterns of HWC around KNP. Controlling for assets and proximity to forest, resettled households own more cattle, are less involved in tendu trade, and consume fewer forests foods than non-resettled neighbors. Model results suggest that increasing off-farm economic opportunities would reduce pressures on forest resources for both resettled and non-resettled households. Our findings, while limited to the KNP landscape, provide approaches applicable in other human-dominated places to design resettlement strategies towards landscape-level conservation goals.
... This became even more difficult after the 1980s, when state forest departments began to actively discourage extension of cultivation on forest land by classifying it as encroachment. This new conservation discourse is currently a major source of vulnerability for the Sahariya (Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014). 15 The panchayat is the lowest unit of local self-governance in India and a key site of contestations over rural development resources. ...
This article presents a study of the micropolitics of dispossession for a proposed medium‐sized irrigation project in an Adivasi region of Central India. The article explores the complex micropolitics of dispossession and collective action in the project planning stage, long before the formal processes of land acquisition actually begin. It highlights the importance of training the researchers’ gaze on the functioning of the local state in the pre‐acquisition phase. It shows how the local state uses various powers of exclusion to fracture emerging cross‐class, multi‐caste alliances, while maintaining formal compliance with a range of social safeguard policies aimed at protecting vulnerable groups and fragile landscapes. The ‘everyday’ decisions of local state actors during the project planning stage produce site‐specific, differentiated and shifting matrices of risks and opportunities for the local people, who are already divided along class and caste lines. This, in turn, is likely to inform their political responses at the actual moment of enclosure. Thus the durability and success of anti‐dispossession collective action is likely to vary depending on the dynamic interactions of local state and non‐state actors, mediated by regional electoral politics and the overall safeguard policy regime governing land acquisition.
... These large-scale resettlement schemes have often been developed among a host environment. Host community is defined herein as the community in whose neighbourhood the new community is resettled [5]. Compared to new developments, problems and predicaments are more in a condition where the new resettled community and their host community co-exist and share resources of the location [6]. ...
The rate of internal displacements and consequent resettlements are increasing rapidly and drawing the attention of the world. More often than not, the consequences of resettlement will have an impact on two different communities; the community which is being relocated (displaced community) and the community receiving the newly relocated community (host community). For example, social disintegration and severe impoverishment are some of the immediate consequences of resettlements, which affect not only the displaced community but also the host community. As these negative consequences are more than likely to demand resource sharing, it is not unusual that the host community often blames the displaced communities for creating economic losses and social unease. Therefore, receiving community’s acceptance to host the new community is essential to ensure integration and to sustain the resettlement, if the repatriation is not possible for the new community. Accordingly, this paper aims to identify the influences of acceptance between the displaced and the host communities.
A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify acceptance factors and to draw conclusions. Results show that segregation and labelling, differences in land use pattern, inadequate resources to share, the growth of an informal economy, lack of improvement in public services to the population increase, and cultural barriers are some of the factors influencing the acceptance of the host community. However, the significance of these factors is highly depended on several background factors such as the wealth of the host community, nature of government policies, livelihood of the host community, and alike. Understandably, the difficulty in establishing an empirically verifiable list of factors affecting the acceptance / rejection between the host and the displaced communities may be attributed to the fact that these factors may stem from latent variables. Therefore, an empirical study based on the identified factors is recommended for future research to determine the latent variables.
... However, the most overlooked aspect of understanding and determining the success of the resettlement is the role of host community. Herein, the host community is defined as the community amid which or in whose neighbourhood the displaced people are resettled [10]. Commonly in resettlement studies, satisfaction of built environment and resettlement is largely perceived from the standpoint of the resettled community. ...
Growing trend of disaster-induced displacements and resettlements is alarming the world to address the consequences to retain
the stability of the concerned countries. In order to reduce the causes and consequences of displacements, governments and other
concerned entities involve in the process of resettlement in different scales. However, settlers complain of the large-scale
resettlement schemes for their inability to meet long-term expectations. Adaptability of the built environment is viewed as one of
the principle reasons for this criticism. Accordingly, this paper aims to explore the long-term adaptability issues face by the
communities who live in resettlements.
Resettlement is a process that introduces new built environment for the displaced community. This new built environment
potentially redefines the social system as one interlinked with other subsystems of the community. However, following a
fundamental change in the system, restoring the earlier equilibrium of a community requires certain basic conditions.
Resettlement fails if the built environment does not provide these basic conditions. Failure in terms of built environment has been
recorded in studies based on the inappropriate house design, insufficient infrastructure, inappropriate new environment, and alike.
Based on several case studies, it is assumed that the process of resettlement in developing countries follows almost the same
pattern as the results of similar resettlement cases that are shown in various pieces of literature reflect same issues. Therefore, in
order to understand the process of resettlement in detail, selecting a particular developing country will give more focus to draw
conclusions. Accordingly, Sri Lanka is selected as the study focus. The data collection technique that is used for this study is
semi-structured interviews. These interviews were conducted among settlers in 3 different resettlement schemes in Sri Lanka.
The interview results are analysed using content analysis. The outcome of this study shows the enablers and barriers in adapting a
post-disaster resettlement which is necessary to identify in order to provide durable solutions.
... A POTENTIAL STRAT-EGY TO SUSTAIN POST-DISASTER RESETTLEMENTS IN SRI LANKA 3 In addition to this, the most overlooked aspect of understanding and determining the success of the resettlement is the role of the host community. Herein, the host community is defined as the community amid which or in whose neighbourhood the displaced people are resettled (Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014). The host community comprising a different social system shares the built-environment of the displaced community. ...
In the recent decades, internal displacements occur in greater number
across the world each year without drawing much attention. To minimise the causes
and attenuate the consequences of displacement, governments and other concerned
entities involve themselves in the process of resettlement to different degrees. However,
the large-scale resettlements are often criticised for offering only temporary
relief without meeting the long-term expectations of the affected communities. Thus,
the purpose of this paper is to explore the potentials of an adaptable builtenvironment
to provide durable solutions to sustain post-disaster resettlements.
Based on previous case studies 14 long-term struggles in adapting to a new builtenvironment
are identified. A Likert scale questionnaire survey was conducted in 4
resettlement schemes in Sri Lanka, to scale the level of severity of the identified factors.
Collected questionnaires were analysed using factor analysis technique to identify
the underlying concepts of the adaptability issues. The findings of this study
show that the underlying structure of the identified factors that affect the adaptability
of the built-environment of the displaced community includes less availability of social
infrastructure, the unfamiliarity of the houses, difference in the location, nonflexibility
of the houses, comfort of the houses, and less availability of utilities. Similarly,
the underlying structure of the host community includes less availability of
social infrastructure, different usage of the land, community relationship, and less
availability of the utilities.
... When entire communities resettle, they tend to re-create their social geography in the post-resettlement site (Lestrelin 2011); however, this is impossible when some of the community has been relocated to a different site, as in the case investigated by this paper. Resettled peoples have a difficult time accessing services post-resettlement (Egauvoen and Tesfai 2012), but the relocation also impacts the social character of communities the resettled population joins (Kabra and Mahalwal 2014). Changing social composition, then, impacts the ways that individuals relate to the postresettlement site, and has implications for the development of place attachment. ...
Resettlement associated with development projects results in a variety of negative impacts. This dissertation uses the resettlement context to frame the dynamic relationships formed between peoples and places experiencing development. Two case studies contribute: (a) the border zone of Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park where residents contend with changes to land access and use; and (b) Bairro Chipanga in Moatize, Mozambique where a resettled population struggles to form place attachment and transform the post-resettlement site into a “good” place. Through analysis of data collected at these sites between 2009 and 2015, this dissertation investigates how changing environments impact person-place relationships before and after resettlement occurs. Changing environments create conditions leading to disemplacement—feeling like one no longer belongs—that reduces the environment’s ability to foster place attachment. Research findings indicate that responses taken by individuals living in the changing environment depend heavily upon whether resettlement has already occurred. In a pre-resettlement context, residents adjust their daily lives to diminish the effects of a changing environment and re-create the conditions to which they initially formed an attachment. They accept impoverishing conditions, including a narrowing of the spaces in which they live their daily lives, because it is preferred to the anxiety that accompanies being forced to resettle. In a post-resettlement context, resettlement disrupts the formation of place attachment and resettled peoples become a placeless population. When the resettlement has not resulted in anticipated outcomes, the aspiration for social justice—seeking conditions residents had reason to expect—negatively influences residents’ perspectives about the place. The post-resettlement site becomes a bad place with a future unchanged from the present. At best, this results in a population in which more members are willing to move away from the post-resettlement site, and, at worse, complete disengagement of other members from trying to improve the community. Resettlement thus has the potential to launch a cycle of movement- displacement-movement that prevents an entire generation from establishing place attachment and realizing its benefits. At the very least, resettlement impedes the formation of place attachment to new places. Thus, this dissertation draws attention to the unseen and uncompensated losses of resettlement.
... Previous literature, especially the literature on developmentinduced forced displacement and resettlement (DFDR), identified two major problems with past resettlement policies. First, compensation alone does not work to restore people's livelihoods as it ignores the social and cultural consequences of displacement (Kabra and Mahalwal, 2014;Bui et al., 2013;Maldonado, 2012;Wilmsen et al., 2011a,b;Cernea and Mathur, 2007;Webber and McDonald, 2004). Second, the majority of negative consequences following involuntary resettlement could have been prevented if projects had given room for greater community participation and consultation throughout the resettlement project design and implementation (Claudianos, 2014;Diduck et al., 2013;Brand, 2001). ...
Landslides significantly affect rural income-generating activities in the East African highlands. In addition, the livelihoods of the poorest are most likely to be adversely affected. Traditionally, landslide risk is reduced by means of effective planning and management. In many regions, these measures are insufficient to offer a long-term solution because of high population density and land shortage. We use a choice experiment to investigate whether preventive resettlement could be a feasible disaster risk reduction strategy for the population at risk in agricultural areas in Bududa district, East Uganda. Our study provides the first analysis of resettlement-related preferences of people that are affected by environmental degradation. Our results enable us to assess community support for resettlement strategies ex-ante and provide valuable policy advice for future resettlement plans in a very cost-effective manner.
This study focuses on the impact of Urban Development-Induced Rural Displacement and Resettlement (UDIRDR) projects on the livelihood of the affected people through a literature review. Identifying various focus/objectives of previous studies on UDIRDR and eight dimensions of livelihood assets, it tries to build a link with the sustainable livelihood framework proposed by the Department for International Development (DFID), especially for rural communities. Finally, it proposes a conceptual framework for evaluating the livelihood scenario at the individual, household, and community levels affected by the UDIRDR projects and helping to achieve sustainable livelihood in the future.
The concept of environmental violence (EV) explains the harm that humanity is inflicting upon itself through our pollution emissions. This book argues that EV is present, active, and expanding at alarming rates in the contemporary human niche and in the Earth system. It explains how EV is produced and facilitated by the same inequalities that it creates and reinforces, and suggests that the causes can be attributed to a relatively small portion of the human population and to a fairly circumscribed set of behaviours. While the causes of EV are complex, the author makes this complexity manageable to ensure interventions are more readily discernible. The EV-model developed is both a theoretical concept and an analytical tool, substantiated with rigorous social and environmental scientific evidence, and designed with the intention to help disrupt the cycle of violence with effective policies and real change.
Disasters and climate‐related risks displace millions of people each year. Planned relocation is one strategy used to address displacement and is increasingly being analyzed for the potential opportunities and challenges it creates for relocated people. However, little attention has been paid to the secondary impacts of planned relocations, and how they influence the risk, vulnerability and well‐being of other groups, particularly people who live on the land that is selected for relocation sites, or in neighboring areas. This paper explores how current and potential future planned relocations in Fiji and the Philippines redistribute vulnerabilities to non‐target communities who previously lived on, or alongside, relocation site land. The notion of cascading displacement is introduced to illustrate a serious consequence of planned relocations in which insecurity and displacement are re‐created and perpetuated due to a failure to consider the needs of non‐target groups who are directly disadvantaged by relocation processes. Insights from this paper may be used to inform future relocation policy and practice for more equitable and sustainable outcomes for all involved.
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Green initiatives — for example, biodiversity offsets, carbon schemes, protected areas, nature reserves, payments for environmental services, and UN-REDD/REDD+ — have caused negative social impacts to local communities, especially Indigenous peoples. The typical impacts include economic displacement, physical displacement, livelihood impacts, impoverishment, disruption to everyday life and to ecosystem services, and human rights impacts. Community resistance is reflected in various labels: green-washing, green grabbing, green greed, green colonialism, greenshit, carbon cowboys and paper parks. Rather than the protection paradigm of fortress conservation, a different approach is needed in the parks and people discourse. Social impact assessment — the processes of managing the social issues associated with projects — can help green initiatives gain a social license to operate. By effectively managing the social issues, green initiatives will gain acceptability, legitimacy and trust.
China’s largest-ever resettlement program is underway, aiming to restore ecosystems and lift ecosystem service providers out of the poverty trap and into sustainable livelihoods. We examine the impact of the relocation and settlement program (RSP) to date, reporting on an ecosystem services (ES) assessment and a 1400-household survey. The RSP generally achieves the goals of ES increase and livelihood restore. In biophysical terms, the RSP improves water quality, sediment retention, and carbon sequestration. In social terms, resettled households so far report transformation of livelihoods activities from traditional inefficient agricultural and forest production to non-farm activities. Increased income contributes to decrease the poverty rate and improve resettled households’ living condition and standard. Meanwhile, the RSP decreases households’ dependence on ES in terms of provisioning services. Difficulty and challenge also showed up subsequently after relocation. A major current challenge is to enable poorer households to move, while providing greater follow-up support to relocated households. While the program is unique to China, it illuminates widespread opportunities for addressing environmental and poverty-related concerns in a rapidly changing world.
Conservation inherently involves place-based resource governance which places restrictions on resource use by local people living around biodiversity-rich areas. Conservation displacement (CD) is the most extreme form of such restriction, causing physical eviction of erstwhile residents from land designated as Protected Areas (PAs). Conservation-livelihood dilemma arise from the fact that benefits of PA based conservation are mostly regional, national and global, while costs are borne disproportionately by local people, especially poor and marginal sections of rural society in the global South. This chapter traces the history of conservation displacement across the world, highlighting its extent, social, economic and cultural impacts, the reasons for poor post-displacement rehabilitation outcomes and the methodological and moral dilemmas involved in CD research and policy-making. The chapter also explores the track record of participatory conservation, which has succeeded strict protection as a popular global conservation strategy which promises to combine social justice with sustainable development. It examines the reasons for poor on-ground performance of participatory conservation, and complicates the binary of participatory versus exclusionary conservation through social science insights about power, politics and the nature of knowledge at multiple scales. These insights are brought to bear upon the design of conservation policy for the future, including the global governance of conservation by international institutions like the World Bank, the UN and the IUCN.
Hydro Nepal: Journal of Water, Energy and Environment Issue No. 3, January, 2008 Page 55-56
Designating national parks and sanctuaries as "protected areas" involves the elaborate relocation and resettlement of communities once resident within these areas. However, as an instance of community relocation from the Kuno sanctuary bears out, resettlement has not led to improved living standards for the affected community; neither has it afforded a measure of protection for the threatened animals.
Redressing the inequities caused by displacement and enabling affected people to share in the benefits of growth is not just possible but imperative, on both economic and moral grounds. Socially responsible resettlement - that is, resettlement genuinely guided by an equity compass - can counteract lasting impoverishment and generate benefits for both the national and local economy. Yet, much too often, those who approve and design projects causing displacement are deprived of an 'equity compass' that can guide them in allocating project resources and preventing (or mitigating) the risks of impoverishment. In an attempt to help develop such an equity compass, this paper proposes a risks-and-reconstruction-oriented framework for resettlement operations. It argues against some chronic flaws in the policies and methodologies for planning and financing resettlement and recommends necessary improvements in policy and in mainstream resettlement practices.
How have national and state governments the world over come to “own” huge expanses of territory under the rubric of “national forest,” “national parks,” or “wastelands”? The two contradictory statements in the above epigraph illustrate that not all colonial administrators agreed that forests should be taken away from local people and “protected” by the state. The assumption of state authority over forests is based on a relatively recent convergence of historical circumstances. These circumstances have enabled certain state authorities to supersede the rights, claims, and practices of people resident in what the world now calls “forests.”
This volume investigates the problem of displacement and resettlement in the Narmada valley in all its aspects. Based on wide-ranging empirical evidence, it presents a telling picture of the resettlement situation and its political antecedents.
This article reviews the recent literature on diversification as a livelihood strategy of rural households in developing countries, with particular reference to sub-Saharan Africa. Livelihood diversification is defined as the process by which rural families construct a diverse portfolio of activities and social support capabilities in order to survive and to improve their standards of living. The determinants and effects of diversification in the areas of poverty, income distribution, farm output and gender are examined. Some policy inferences are summarised. The conclusion is reached that removal of constraints to, and expansion of opportunities for, diversification are desirable policy objectives because they give individuals and households more capabilities to improve livelihood security and to raise living standards.
Attempts at ′preservation via displacement′ are an extreme manifestation of the ′fortress′ or an exclusionary conservation paradigm, support for which has increased lately due to escalating conservation threats. While the policies and processes emanating from this paradigm have produced positive conservation outcomes for some Protected Areas, livelihood outcomes for the displaced people have seldom been as positive. This article examines whether the impoverishment risks arising from conservation-induced displacement tend to vary with the degree of marginalisation of the displaced community. In this light, this article examines in detail the impact on livelihood of conservation-induced displacement in two Protected Areas (PAs) of India. The article posits that understanding the dynamic livelihood context of displaced communities, especially the ecological base of their livelihoods, is critical to any assessment of their pre- and post-displacement livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes (such as income, poverty, food security and health). A variety of livelihood parameters, including compensation received, consumption flows, agricultural production, monetary income, food security, headcount ratio of poverty and overall poverty indices have been studied, to understand the extent to which key livelihood risks arising out of displacement are addressed by the rehabilitation package and process in the two PAs. The Sahariya is a forest-dependent Adivasi community living in and around the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in the semi-arid tropical region of Madhya Pradesh. The Sahariya Adivasis of the Kuno Sanctuary were a socially, politically and economically marginalised community, whose lives and livelihoods were intricately linked to their ecological base. We found that inadequate attention was paid to this factor while designing and implementing a suitable rehabilitation package for the 1650 Sahariya households displaced from this PA. As a result, their material condition deteriorated after displacement, due to loss of livelihood diversification opportunities and alienation from their natural resource base. Displacement thus resulted in rapid proletarianisation and pauperisation of these households, and their ′integration′ into the national ′mainstream′ occurred at highly disadvantageous terms. The 430 odd households displaced from the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats (a biodiversity hotspot in the Southern Indian state of Karnataka) consisted of relatively less marginalised social groups like the Gowdas and the Shettys, both of whom occupy a prominent place in the local politics and economy of this state. The share of agriculture in the pre-displacement livelihood of these households was relatively higher, and dependence on forest-based livelihoods was relatively lower than in the case of the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary. I argue that this was an important factor that enabled these households to negotiate a better post-displacement deal for themselves. Consequently, the relocation package and process was far more effective in mitigating the potential impoverishment risks of these households. It appears, then, that the livelihood outcomes of conservation-induced displacement are generally biased against the poor. Further, the more marginalised a displaced community (or household) is, the less likely it is to obtain benign or positive livelihood outcomes after displacement. This has important implications for poverty and social justice, especially for Adivasi communities, which constitute a large proportion of those threatened with conservation-induced displacement, in India, in the coming years.
"This paper explores how institutions of property rights and collective action play a particularly important role in the application of technologies for agriculture and natural resource management. Those technologies with long time frames tend to require tenure security to provide sufficient incentives to adopt, while those that operate on a large spatial scale will require collective action to coordinate, either across individual private property or in common property regimes. In contrast to many crop technologies like high-yielding variety seeds or fertilizers, natural resource management technologies like agroforestry, watershed management, irrigation, or fisheries tend to embody greater and more varying temporal and spatial dimensions. Whereas the literature addressing constraints and enabling factors for rural technology adoption have largely focused on their direct effects on crop technologies, the conceptual framework presented here shows how property rights and collective action interact with many other constraints to technology development (such as wealth, information, risk, or labor availability). The paper further explores how the structure of property rights and collective action shape the efficiency, equity and environmental sustainability of technological outcomes, thereby enriching our understanding of different technologies contributions to poverty alleviation."
"Displacement resulting from the establishment and enforcement of protected areas has troubled relationships between conservationists and rural groups in many parts of the world. This paper examines one aspect of displacement: eviction from protected areas. We examine divergent opinions about the quality of information available in the literature. We then examine the literature itself, discussing the patterns visible in nearly 250 reports we compiled over the last two years. We argue that the quality of the literature is not great, but that there are signs that this problem is primarily concentrated in a few regions of the world. We show that there has been a remarkable surge of publications about relocation after 1990, yet most protected areas reported in these publications were established before 1980. This reflects two processes, first a move within research circles to recover and rediscover protected areas' murky past, and second stronger enforcement of existing legislation. We review the better analyses of the consequences of relocation from protected areas which are available and highlight areas of future research."
"The chasm between the biologists' and social scientists' perspectives on relocation issues is widened by the fact that neither group attempts to derive insights from the scholarship of the other. For instance, the biological evidence (to be examined in detail below) is rarely backed up with concomitant understanding of the social and economic conditions of those who have been displaced by executive action. Often evidence of the well-being of oustees is almost entirely anecdotal (e.g., Johnsingh 2005). Even first-rate natural history and wildlife biology is no substitute for serious social and economic analysis, leaving claims, that the lot of the displaced has improved, open to doubt (for instance, see Johnsingh 2006). The glaring lack of knowledge of social science scholarship, indefensible in itself, also inhibits the ability to critically learn from the past record (Panwar, unpublished 1973 and 2003). "Conversely, the wealth of sociological and historical materials on relocation focuses mainly on deprivation and loss of amenity. Conservation-induced displacement in India is relatively recent, dating back to the early 1960s, but there is a longer legacy of displacement for forest conservancy from the late nineteenth century onwards (Rangarajan in press, a). Yet, only rarely have sociological investigations drawn on the rich insights provided by biologists. Clearly, there is a need to combine the insights of the biological and sociological disciplines to examine issues at hand. "A critical look at the various strands of evidence from different disciplinary traditions can help delineate where the differences lie and what they are about. In this respect, it may be useful to begin with a brief look at an Indian wildlife reserve that one of us (Shahabuddin) has been working in."
This book explains the history and politics of dam building worldwide. It describes the many technical, safety and economic problems that afflict the technology, and explores the role played by international banks and aid agencies in promoting it. The author also examines the rapid growth of the international anti-dam movements, and stresses how replacing large dams with less destructive alternatives will depend upon opening up the dam industry's practices to public scrutiny.
For decades, policy-makers in government, development banks and foundations, NGOs, researchers and students have struggled with the problem of how to protect people who are displaced from their homes and livelihoods by development projects. This book addresses these concerns and explores how debates often become deadlocked between ‘managerial’ and ‘movementist’ perspectives. Using development ethics to determine the rights and responsibilities of various stakeholders, the authors find that displaced people must be empowered so as to share equitably in benefits rather than being victimized. They propose a governance model for development projects that would transform conflict over displacement into a more manageable collective bargaining process and would empower displaced people to achieve equitable results. Their book will be valuable for readers in a wide range of fields including ethics, development studies, politics and international relations as well as policy making, project management and community development.
Defining 'tribe' has conceptual as well as' empirical problems for the academician. But this term of administrative convenience has now been. adopted by the tribals themselves to mean the dispossessed, deprived people of a region. There is no claim to being the original inhabitants of that region, but a prior claim to the natural resources is asserted vis-a-vis the outsiders and the dominant caste. The tribal identity now gives the marginalised peoples self-esteem and pride.
If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country." -Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking to villagers who were to be displaced by the Hirakud Dam, 1948. I stood on a hill and laughed out loud. I had crossed the Narmada by boat from Jalsindhi and climbed the headland on the opposite bank from where I could see, ranged across the crowns of low, bald hills, the tribal hamlets of Sikka, Surung, Neemgavan and Domkhedi. I could see their airy, fragile, homes. I could see their fields and the forests behind them. I could see little children with littler goats scuttling across the landscape like motorised peanuts. I knew I was looking at a civilisation older than Hinduism, slated -sanctioned (by the highest court in the land) -to be drowned this monsoon when the waters of the Sardar Sarovar reservoir will rise to submerge it. Why did I laugh? Because I suddenly remembered the tender concern with which the Supreme Court judges in Delhi (before vacating the legal stay on further construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam) had enquired whether tribal children in the resettlement colonies would have children's parks to play in. The lawyers representing the Government had hastened to assure them that indeed they would, and, what's more, that there were seesaws and slides and swings in every park. I looked up at the endless sky and down at the river rushing past and for a brief, brief moment the absurdity of it all reversed my rage and I laughed. I meant no disrespect. Let me say at the outset that I'm not a city-basher. I've done my time in a village. I've had first-hand experience of the isolation, the inequity and the potential savagery of it. I'm not an anti-development junkie, nor a proselytiser for the eternal upholding of custom and tradition. What I am, however, is curious. Curiosity took me to the Narmada Valley. Instinct told me that this was the big one. The one in which the battle-lines were clearly drawn, the warring armies massed along them. The one in which it would be possible to wade through the congealed morass of hope, anger, information, disinformation, political artifice, engineering ambition, disingenuous socialism, radical activism, bureaucratic subterfuge, misinformed emotionalism and, of course, the pervasive, invariably dubious, politics of International Aid.
The policy draft appears to be more concerned with protecting the interests of big business rather than the livelihood security of the displaced.
In the vast majority of situations, not 'everybody' can win when it comes to development projects involving resettlement of displaced people. This is in significant measure because of the complexities inherent in the resettlement process. Development-with-resettlement projects are about a power differential - outsiders intervene via an infrastructure project and put pressure on people to get out of the way. If we are to enable the less powerful to keep open their options, and hence their chances of benefitting, we need to acknowledge the political issue. The choice for an open-ended, more participatory approach for greater co-ownership of development projects is a political choice.
This article is about the politics of wildlife management in Botswana. The existing literature on the origins of wildlife conservation in Africa has portrayed the formation of protected areas as an imposition of colonial state authorities. Preservationist policies are usually cast as the product of European conservationist ideas, and related notions of the ‘wilderness’ value of African landscapes. Many recent studies have emphasized the negative effects of such ideas and policies in a colonial context: they have drawn attention to the way in which they devalued local African ideas, undermined local management strategies, and criminalized access to important economic and cultural resources. The case discussed here, however, suggests that this interpretation needs closer scrutiny: the meaning and impact of global ideas and policies of wildlife conservation depends on how they are localized in particular places. The key actors in the foundation of Botswana's Okavango/Moremi National Park in the 1960s were not state officials but local BaTawana chiefs and a network of hunters and adventurers turned conservationists. The initiative was conceived as a means of protecting wildlife from the depredations of illegal South African hunting parties and ensuring future local use, and was initially opposed by the colonial state. The article discusses why Okavango/Moremi was an exception, and why the initial coalition of African and local settler interests came to see preservationist policies as being in their interest.
Land acquisition for industry and infrastructure has become a source of major conflict in the last half decade in India. Sites like Singur, Nandigram, Niyamgiri, and Maha Mumbai, and phenomena like the Maoist insurgency are well-known. Some believe that land acquisition is the 'biggest problem' in India's growth path. It is a central political issue in several states. A massive new land acquisition bill with serious long-term consequences is making its way through parliament. Stories about acquisition are in newspapers and on television every day. Opinion, bombast, and misinformation are abundant. Thoughtfulness and clarity are rare. This book brings clarity, depth, and understanding to this contentious and chaotic issue. The explanations are organized around three core themes: the price of land, the role of the state, and changes in land and information markets. The book begins with a summary of the extent of land conflicts and prices nationwide and details of selected notorious conflicts with an emphasis on the role of civil society. The second section explains the origins of the conflicts and the role of the state, especially through the contradictions between the 'giving' state (which does land reforms) and the 'taking' state (which acquires land). The final section analyses the reality of the land market in India today and the emerging legal and policy approaches to resolving the crisis.
Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Landscapes of Nature, Terrains of Resistance 2. Political and Moral Economy on Mount Meru 3. Conservation versus Custom: State Seizure of Natural Resource Control 4. Protecting Fauna of the Empire: TheEvolution of National Parks in Tanzania 5. Patterns of Predation at Arusha National Park 6. Village Moral Economy and the New Colonialism Epilogue
This article looks at the problems of displacement and resettlement in the Sardar Sarovar, the reservoir of the Navagam dam on the river Narmada. In his analysis, the author considers three major variables—resettlement policies and their implementation, action-group mediation, and internal differentiation among people—to argue that people will have different perceptions and reactions to displacement: while some will risk resistance, others may risk resettlement. Given the importance of these variables, the article highlights the need to conceptualize displacement and resettlement as components in a dynamic environment, and argues that in the specific context of the Sardar Sarovar, a reworking of the displacement–resettlement problem is possible and perhaps desirable.
Some forms of displacement are subtle, despite their magnitude. This research examines one such case, those people evicted from parks and protected areas ("conservation refugees") as these facilities expand worldwide. The paper dispels several common misconceptions: that displacement from protected areas is unusual, that it causes little harm where it occurs, and that the impoverishment it brings to the evicted is "tolerable" given the larger stakes in the struggle against development. A counter-logic is proposed: protected area conservation often constitutes a development strategy in itself, a form of "mega-project" with impressive displacement potential. Such displacement contributes to impoverishment in multiple ways. Moreover, conservation refugees are often poor at the outset of their ordeal. They are victims of displacement in part because of their combined poverty and powerlessness, which is then compounded by forced removal. The paper ends probing the specific relationship between protected area policy and capitalist development.
Both livelihoods and diversity have become popular topics in development studies. The livelihood concept offers a more complete picture of the complexities of making a living in rural areas of low income countries than terms formerly considered adequate, such as subsistence, incomes, or employment. Diversity recognizes that people manage by doing many different things rather than just one or a few things. This book sets out the rural livelihoods approach within the larger context of past and current themes in rural development. It adopts diversity as its principal theme and explores the implications of diverse rural livelihoods for ideas about poverty, agriculture, environment, gender, and macroeconomic policy. It also considers appropriate methods for gaining quick and effective knowledge about the livelihoods of the rural poor for project and policy purposes.
The image of Africa in the modern world has come to be shaped by perceptions of the drylands and their problems of poverty, drought, degradation, and famine. Michael Mortimore offers an alternative and revisionist thesis, dismissing on theoretical and empirical grounds the conventional view of runaway desertification, driven by population growth and inappropriate land use. In its place he suggests a more optimistic model of sustainable land use, based on researched case studies from East and West Africa where indigenous technological adaptation has put population growth and market opportunities to advantage. He also proposes a more appropriate set of policy priorities to support dryland peoples in their efforts to sustain land and livelihoods. The result is a remarkably clear synthesis of much of the best work that has emerged over past years.
Despite widespread evidence of bribery and illegal exchange in natural resource management, corruption is largely unexplored and unincorporated in theorizations and descriptions of the political economy of environment/society interactions. This paper offers the outlines of a theory of natural resource corruption, defining it as a special case of extra-legal resource management institutions, exploring the challenge corruption poses for sustainable use of natural systems, and providing an example of corruption in the case of forest management in India. I argue here that corruption is an institutionalized system of nature/society interaction forged from state authority and molded around local social power through systems of social capital formation. I further suggest that corruption though unsustainable, is not environmentally destructive in a general sense, but that it instead puts selective pressure on some elements of a natural system while bypassing others. The argument addresses not only the character of corruption but also the role of institutions in mediating the relationships between the state and civil society, more generally.
On the basis of themes emerging in current debates on rural development in Latin America, this paper develops an analytical framework for analyzing rural livelihoods in terms of their sustainability and their implications for rural poverty. The framework argues that our analyses of rural livelihoods need to understand them in terms of: (a) people’s access to five types of capital asset; (b) the ways in which they combine and transform those assets in the building of livelihoods that as far as possible meet their material and their experiential needs; (c) the ways in which people are able to expand their asset bases through engaging with other actors through relationships governed by the logics of the state, market and civil society; and (d) the ways in which they are able to deploy and enhance their capabilities both to make living more meaningful and to change the dominant rules and relationships governing the ways in which resources are controlled, distributed and transformed in society. Particular attention is paid to the importance of social capital as an asset through which people are able to widen their access to resources and other actors.
Is the conflict between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction, which frequently arises in park creation programs, insoluble? The authors report empirical evidence from 12 case studies from six countries, which are analyzed through the conceptual lens of the Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction Model for Involuntary Resettlement. The research concludes conservatively that parks in the Congo basin have already displaced and impoverished about 120–150 000 people and that more will be displaced if this approach continues, despite its deleterious outcomes. The authors argue that the park-establishment strategy predicated upon compulsory population displacement has exhausted its credibility and compromised the cause of biodiversity conservation by inflicting aggravated impoverishment on very large numbers of people. They recommend that the concerned Governments should desist using the eviction approach. The alternative course, proposed by the authors, is to replace forced displacements with a pro-poor strategy that pursues “double sustainability,” to protect both the biodiversity and people’s livelihoods at the same time.
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The nature of resistance to resettlement is examined through a discussion of cognitive aspects as well as factors influencing or evoking resistance movements. Resettlement resistance movements vary according to strategies adopted either to resist resettlement implementation or to gain bargaining advantage for improving resettlement projects. The array of tactics which people have employed to resist resettlement is broad, including legal and illegal and non-violent and violent measures. One important consideration which emerges from this examination is the expansion of resistance to resettlement into more generalized forms of empowerment. Three cases of failed resistance, which nonetheless led to increased local empowerment, are briefly explored.
Conflict and collective action: The Sardar Sarovar project in India
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Scheme for Rehabilitation of Villages from the Palpur Kuno Sanctuary (MP)
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Powers of Exclusion: Land Dilemmas in Southeast Asia University of Hawai'i Press The New Imperialism
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