Description

In the upper reaches of Kondingamali in the Eastern Ghats of Odisha, Adivasi (or indigenous communities) are protesting with the demand for an aluminium refinery close to their villages to stop work as their hills are being mined out. On the other side of this vast range is Niyamgiri where Adivasi communities prevented Vedanta Resources Pvt Limited from mining the area through a referendum held in 2013 through a land mark Supreme Court judgement.

Prior informed consent became a part of India’s forest laws through a notification by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate change in 2009 with subsequent amendments to these laws. In this seminar I explore how forest-dwelling communities in Odisha use this provision to negotiate with the state actors and companies for their development needs. While this provision does provide an opening, I argue that the bureaucratic trap that surrounds it and the limited perceptions of development options for Adivasi communities in an extractive economy does not allow for deliberation over development needs and choices of forest-dwelling communities. I conclude by calling for a more expansive understanding of prior, informed consent that can accommodate emerging development aspirations of forest-dwelling communities and not be silo-ed into the binary nature of this provision of being able to accept or reject the entrance of extractive industries.

About The Speaker

Arpitha is a legal researcher focusing on environmental justice issues. She is a doctoral researcher at the European University Institute where her work studies the intersection of free, prior and informed consent, business and human rights in India. She was previously a senior research associate at the Ashoka Trust of Research in Ecology and the Environment where her work focuses on understanding the conflict of laws in forest areas.

Prior to ATREE, she worked as an environmental lawyer with Natural Justice supporting Adivasi communities in their struggle for rights over resources in Rajasthan and Odisha. She has a masters with a focus in Environmental Law from UC Berkeley School of Law as a Fulbright Scholar and a bachelors in law from ILS law college in Pune.