Core are village in Simlipal |
The work we did was not restricted in Odisha; we used our pen to let the whole world know about the issue. The message indeed
reaches the Survival International, an international organization working on
protecting the rights of indigenous people around the world. The issue did made
them to visit Simlipal to raise the campaign against the issue. I am glad they
have started a campaign now under the banner 'Park Needs People' http://www.survivalinternational.org/parks .
It further gives me utter satisfaction to receive email from them reacting upon
the issue of evicting people from the sanctuary and brining further campaign to
refrain the eviction in other sanctuary.
Dear Madhulika,
Thanks for writing. It is very good to
hear from you. I hope all is well with you.
We are closely following the situation
in Similipal still and are very concerned about what is going on there. As you
say, there is a claim that consent has been given by the villagers of
Jamunagarh, but we have strong interviews to the contrary: some people felt
harassed and pressured and did not understand the document that they were told
to sign. We will endeavour to make it known to the authorities that this is NOT
consent. We are lobbying the MOEF and the Human Rights Commission.
On your advice, Madhulika, we’ve been
working with Sankar Pani, who seems very committed and capable and maintain
strong contact with BijayLal ji - thank you so much for putting us in touch
with him.
We have launched our ‘Parks
Need Peoples’ campaign and will be launching a
further focus on evictions from Similipal and Kanha tiger reserves
shortly.
I’d welcome any thoughts you have on
how we can best stop this wave of further evictions from tiger reserves
nationally, which seem mostly to be illegal as per the Wildlife Protection Act
and the FRA.
I would be very interested connect up
with you on this issue, Sudhansu. Please get in touch and let us know about
your work on this.
I’m copying my college Sophie Grig, who
is working closely on this issue.
With best wishes to you
Jo, Survival International.
I will be continuing to be
the support system on whatever capacity to help my fellow tribals.
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