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Diversity of Earth's life has survived better where indigenous communities live than where other people live. Ca. 1/4 of world's indigenous people, more than 100 million indigenous people live in India, called mostly Adivasis, who still widely live in forests. More than 10 times the Finnish population lives in Adivasi forest villages per an area size of Finland and still India's forests have survived best in Adivasi areas. Adivasi forest life is thus effective to sustain both people's lives and biodiverse forests.

World can thus learn from Adivasis how hundreds of millions of people can live with the forests without displacing their biodiversity like our modern life has displaced.

By living in the forests for millenniums Adivasi life has adapted to sense, understand, use and save the diversity of earth's and forest's life to live with them so that the earth and biodiverse non-planted forests regenerate.

Adivasi forest life is sustained by gathering diversity of nutritional wild plants, leaves, roots, tubers, mushrooms, nuts, fruits, flowers, herbs, honey etc. and by cultivating the forest areas in ways which allow the local biodiversity to regenerate.

While our modern homes, cultivations, cultural civilisations and ordered means of production are opposites to wild forest and displace it, for Adivasis however the non-planted biodiverse forests are their homes, cultivations, cultures and heritages of their life and their own means of subsistence and survival.

Our modern life tends to displace both the biodiverse forests and the Adivasi forest life's rights and possibilities to continue to live by sustaining the regeneration of non-planted trees of biodiverse forests as their homes and wild jungle gardens.

Adiwasi Samta Manch (ASM) is Adivasi women led NGO working for indigenous rights of sustainable Adivasi forest life-heritages in Chhattisgarh, Central India.

 

Photo on the right shows ASM president Indu Netam with other speakers of ASM event in an eviction threatened village.
ASM focuses to work for the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) and especially for their Adivasi women, who are main carriers of sustainable biocultural Adivasi forestlife-heritages.

The photos show some of the healthy wild plants, roots, fruits, flowers and herbs gathered from the forests by the PVTGs and other Adivasis for their food, health and livelihood.

PVTGs, Adivasi women and their sustainable life-practices are however most exposed to become displaced by mines, monoculture plantations, dams, conservation tourism or by other industries.

When vulnerable tribes' ancestral forests are taken away by mines, dams and plantations they lose their sources of life and food sovereignty. Aamong PVTGs deprived of their lands malnutrition level is high.

When PVTGs get displaced by mines and industries from gathering their healthy foods and herbs from forests, lands degrade and can not grow food on stones dug up into Earth's surface.

Left without forests the PVTG youth is also threatened to get alienated from its sustainable forest life. Adivasis must thus start to search money to buy food and medicines.

Schools do not teach tribal heritage and PVTG youth cannot thus learn its own sustainable biocultural life - no matter how hard it studies.

ASM supports the PVTG communities' chances to continue their forestlife adapted cultures and to get their legal forest rights implemented.

ASM builds awareness and capacity of PVTG women, youth and disabled on their rights, livelihoods and autonomy.