District Level Committee in Odisha’s Keonjhar district approves habitat right of Juanga tribe

Keonjhar District Committee in Odisha approves habitat rights for Juanga tribe, marking significant progress under Forest Rights Act.

The District Level Committee of Keonjhar in Odisha cleared the hurdle for according habitats right under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) to the Juanga, a particularly vulnerable tribal group, by approving the claim on Wednesday.

The Juanga tribe under Juanga Development Agency, Bansapal will have habitat rights over an area of 64951.4 hectare (ha) of forestland. The approval came a day after another group of Juanga in Sukinda block of Jajpur district got habitat right cleared in District Level Committee over an area of 17123.85 ha.

In March this year, habitat right of Paudi Bhuyan, a PVTG, was approved over an area of 21310.17 ha in Deogarh district, marking Odisha’s first habiat right.

With three different habitat rights, Odisha left behind Madhya Pradesh and Chhattsigarh where two habitat rights each were approved. At present, 11 additional habitat right claims are being processed at different stages.

As per Section 2 (h) of the FRA, habitat includes the area comprising the customary habitat and such other habitats in reserved forests and protected forests of primitive tribal groups and pre-agricultural communities and other forest dwelling scheduled tribes.

Once the habitat rights of PVTGs are settled, they will have no hindrance in performing all customary religious or cultural ceremonies in the landscape related to their clans.

“As the forests were protected and reserved, PVTGs were prevented from performing their traditional religious activities. Now, they can protect and preserve natural entities, sacred sites and places important for religious and spiritual purposes located within habitat right area,” said Y Giri Rao, an expert on FRA implementation.