Paper long abstract:

Around the world, it has become a common practice for the state to acquire land rights from local communities and convert it from communal to state owned, in the name of conservation. Proposed Omkareshwar National Park Complex in Central India, is one such upcoming protected area that is inhabited by largely different indigenous communities. It is being designed as a compensatory conservation project which will recompense the loss of wildlife and forest resulting from the construction of and submergence from the nearby Indira-Sagar and Omkareshwar dams, part of the notorious multi-purpose Narmada dam project. Since 1980s due to the infamous Narmada Dam Development project, this region has witnessed a volatile history of displacement, resettlement and inadequate compensation of largely millions of indigenous people.

Due to the transformation in the land use and ownership, from communal to state, there has been increasing number of new rules-in-use implemented, thus altering the socio-economic lifestyles of the local people. As a result, for the local communities, this has become a site for struggle of access, control and mobilization of forest resources, a struggle to maintain their own autonomy. Through creation of this new conservation enclosure, local livelihoods are being threatened and hence, compel the forest communities to commute outside their villages for jobs. This paper examines the impacts of compensatory conservation and highlights what it means for the indigenous communities.