India: Empowered communities natural res In India in Adivasis, approximately 8.6 percent of the Indian population, are among the most marginalized groups. Central and Eastern parts of India, predominantly inhabited by Adivasis, are rich in minerals, forest cover and other natural resources but are also amongst the poorest in terms of human development indicators. Forests provides supplemental incomes to about 300 million rural people in India.

Tenurial Rights over land as guaranteed by The Forest Rights Act, 2006, and targeted interventions to augment forest based livelihoods with special focus on women and girls are extremely important to reduce Socio-Economic <(>&<)> Climate Change associated vulnerabilities of Adivasis. Equally important is to ensure participatory conservation and management ofForests along with the state forest departments and to safeguard communities# rights to FPIC in view of forest diversions and displacements. Accordingly, the project works on three primary aspects -

# Ensuring Tenurial Security - by strengthening the implementation of The Forest RightsAct, 2006
# Land Diversion <(>&<)> Mitigation - Safeguard against land alienation, collecting evidences against non-compliance of laws and violation of land and environmental rights
# Livelihoods <(>&<)> Resilience - Sustainable forest based livelihoods <(>&<)> climate change adapted practices

Based on past experiences of working with partner organisations and networks, following strategies need to be adopted:
# The process of seeking consent cannot be a one-time activity. Capacities of local communities need to be strengthened to monitor the social impacts, environment and land compliances on a regular basis.
# Transparent access to information is very important and critical for community decision making.
# Engagement with multiple and overlapping laws through different stakeholders and engagement with enforcement authorities through ground evidence
# The polluters pay model does not correct the environmental degradation and other non-compliances such as irregularities in publichearing or consent of village assemblies. Financial penalties are just one part of the solution, long-term solution should focus on future operation of the projects
# Engagement with media, legal professionals, academia and multi stakeholder groups to strengthen advocacy strategies that is reflective of multiple dimensionsof conflicts and regulatory processes.

Project Outcome:
This project aims to strengthen safeguards against land alienation, land and environmental rights violations. It strives toempower communities (especially women and youth) that are challenging inequalities and discrimination in access and control over natural resources.

Activities:
1. Capacity building of selected community youth and volunteers as paralegals through understanding of relevant legal provisions and its compliance/ violation on the ground-
2. Document and ground-truthing of two mining projects by the community volunteers on the violation of land and environment provisions
3. Capacity building of local partner and community volunteers on advocacy with enforcement authorities based on generation of ground evidence,
4. Consultation at state level to present community based reports on evidences of violation
5. Training for journalists on evidence collection,laws and violation and humane aspects of reporting land and environmental conflicts
6. Research and publication of 3 in-depth stories in media related to land and forest conflicts
7. Marketing and promotion of the online course on #Community Rights andForest Governance#, a collaborative effort of Oxfam India, Centre for Policy Research and Nagrik Learning (https://bit.ly/ForestRights)
8. State level advocacy to upscale recognition of community forest rights as a safeguard against land alienation