IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/soudev/v16y2021i3p342-366.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Uphill Battle: Forest Rights and Restoration on Podu Landscapes in Keonjhar, Odisha

Author

Listed:
  • Laura M. Valencia

Abstract

In response to the global climate emergency and biodiversity loss, environmental advocates promote ecological restoration of millions of hectares of the world’s degraded forest lands. Lands of high value to restoration are home to nearly 300 million people, including 12% of low- and middle-income country populations. In this article, I respond to calls for greater empirical investigation into the social impacts of forest landscape restoration. Through spatial and ethnographic analysis of forest restoration in Keonjhar, Odisha (India), I show that state-led afforestation efforts contradict a decade of forest tenure reform which sought to decentralize and decolonize forest governance. I explore how state-led efforts ignore (and inhibit) the continued protagonism of forest-dwelling communities in forest regeneration on their customary lands. Weaving accounts from 1992 onwards across six villages and 22 plantations, I characterize state strategies as an ‘uphill battle’: by systematically selecting shifting cultivation (podu) uplands for enclosure and tree plantation, forest agencies contribute to a lose-lose situation where neither forest restoration nor forest rights are realized. Investigating this process from colonial forest policy to the present, I leverage a critical political ecology perspective that supports calls for rights-based restoration.

Suggested Citation

  • Laura M. Valencia, 2021. "Uphill Battle: Forest Rights and Restoration on Podu Landscapes in Keonjhar, Odisha," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 16(3), pages 342-366, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:16:y:2021:i:3:p:342-366
    DOI: 10.1177/09731741211057333
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09731741211057333
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09731741211057333?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon L. Lewis & Charlotte E. Wheeler & Edward T. A. Mitchard & Alexander Koch, 2019. "Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon," Nature, Nature, vol. 568(7750), pages 25-28, April.
    2. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, 2015. "The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10581.
    3. Rana, Pushpendra & Miller, Daniel C., 2021. "Predicting the long-term social and ecological impacts of tree-planting programs: Evidence from northern India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    4. Stephen T. Garnett & Neil D. Burgess & Julia E. Fa & Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares & Zsolt Molnár & Cathy J. Robinson & James E. M. Watson & Kerstin K. Zander & Beau Austin & Eduardo S. Brondizio & Neil, 2018. "A spatial overview of the global importance of Indigenous lands for conservation," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 1(7), pages 369-374, July.
    5. Franco, Jennifer C. & Borras, Saturnino M., 2019. "Grey areas in green grabbing: subtle and indirect interconnections between climate change politics and land grabs and their implications for research," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 192-199.
    6. Johan A. Oldekop & Katharine R. E. Sims & Birendra K. Karna & Mark J. Whittingham & Arun Agrawal, 2019. "Reductions in deforestation and poverty from decentralized forest management in Nepal," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 2(5), pages 421-428, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yuge Wang & Apurbo Sarkar & Min Li & Zehui Chen & Ahmed Khairul Hasan & Quanxing Meng & Md. Shakhawat Hossain & Md. Ashfikur Rahman, 2022. "Evaluating the Impact of Forest Tenure Reform on Farmers’ Investment in Public Welfare Forest Areas: A Case Study of Gansu Province, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-17, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rana, Pushpendra & Fleischman, Forrest & Ramprasad, Vijay & Lee, Kangjae, 2022. "Predicting wasteful spending in tree planting programs in Indian Himalaya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    2. Benzeev, Rayna & Wiens, Ashton & Piotto, Daniel & Newton, Peter, 2023. "Property size and forest cover were key determinants of forest restoration in Southern Bahia in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    3. Bhubaneswor Dhakal & Narendra Chand & Him Lal Shrestha & Anita Shrestha & Nischal Dhakal & Bikash Adhikari & Shyam Krishna Shrestha & Krishna Bahadur Karki & Padam Bhandari, 2022. "Paradoxes of Aggravated Vulnerability, Marginalization, and Peril of Forest-Based Communities after Increasing Conservative Forest and Protected Areas in Nepal: A Policy Lesson on Land-Based Climate C," World, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-31, August.
    4. Jan van Duppen, 2021. "Book review: The Botanical City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(8), pages 1746-1750, June.
    5. Olegas Beriozovas & Dalia Perkumienė & Mindaugas Škėma & Abdellah Saoualih & Larbi Safaa & Marius Aleinikovas, 2024. "Research Advancement in Forest Property Rights: A Thematic Review over Half a Decade Using Natural Language Processing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-28, September.
    6. Jung, Suhyun & Hajjar, Reem, 2023. "The livelihood impacts of transnational aid for climate change mitigation: Evidence from Ghana," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    7. Katherine Farley, 2022. "“We ain't never stolen a plant”: Livelihoods, property, and illegal ginseng harvesting in the Appalachian forest commons," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 309-321, June.
    8. Bhattacharjee, Arnab & Aravena, Claudia & Castillo, Natalia & Ehrlich, Marco & Taou, Nadia & Wagner, Thomas, 2022. "Agroforestry Programs in the Colombian Amazon: Selection, Treatment and Exposure Effects on Deforestation," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 537, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    9. Masuda, Yuta J. & Waterfield, Gina & Castilla, Carolina & Kang, Shiteng & Zhang, Wei, 2022. "Does balancing gender composition lead to more prosocial outcomes? Experimental evidence of equality in public goods and extraction games from rural Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    10. Yahya, Farzan & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2023. "Disentangling the asymmetric effect of financialization on the green output gap," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    11. Sony Baral & Bijendra Basnyat & Kalyan Gauli & Ambika Paudel & Rachana Upadhyaya & Yajna Prasad Timilsina & Harald Vacik, 2019. "Factors Affecting Fuelwood Consumption and CO 2 Emissions: An Example from a Community-Managed Forest of Nepal," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-12, November.
    12. Dominic Piacentini, 2021. "Beside the berm: The convenience of roadside picking," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 208-218, June.
    13. Hartmann, Johanna Zoe & Pearson, Jasmine, 2024. "Indigenous and local values of nature through a gender lens: A literature review," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    14. Letizia Bindi & Angelo Belliggiano, 2023. "A Highly Condensed Social Fact: Food Citizenship, Individual Responsibility, and Social Commitment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-22, April.
    15. Janet McIntyre‐Mills, 2020. "The COVID‐19 era: No longer business as usual," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(5), pages 827-838, September.
    16. François Libois & Jean-Marie Baland & Nicolas Delbart & Subhrendu Pattanayak, 2021. "Community Forest Management: The story behind a success story in Nepal," DeFiPP Working Papers 2106, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    17. The Re‐Arrangements Collective & Fabien Cante & Ajmal Hussain & Timo Makori & Surer Qassim Mohamed & Alana Osbourne & Francesca Pilo’ & Kavita Ramakrishnan & AbdouMaliq Simone & Rike Sitas & Adeem Suh, 2023. "MOVEMENT 2. FORMALIZING ARRANGEMENTS: Re‐signification and the Making of Governable Spaces," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 471-482, May.
    18. Tiphaine Chevallier & Maud Loireau & Romain Courault & lydie chapuis-lardy & Thierry Desjardins & Cécile Gomez & Alexandre Grondin & Frédéric Guérin & Didier Orange & Raphaël Pélissier & Georges Serpa, 2020. "Paris climate agreement: Promoting interdisciplinary science and stakeholders' approaches for multi-scale implementation of continental carbon sequestration," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/312984, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    19. Popan, Cosmin & Anaya-Boig, Esther, 2021. "The intersectional precarity of platform cycle delivery workers," SocArXiv tk6v8, Center for Open Science.
    20. Lisa Alvarado, 2019. "Institutional Change on a Conservationist Frontier: Local Responses to a Grabbing Process in the Name of Environmental Protection," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-17, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:16:y:2021:i:3:p:342-366. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.