At 6 am on a cloudy Sunday, 10 women of Gunduribadi village in Odisha venture into a thick forest in the Saata Bhai (Seven Brothers) Hill range, armed with bamboo sticks and an axe. After climbing a steep slope, they split up into groups and fan out in different directions. Treading through narrow tracks, they ensure that not even a twig from the forest is stolen by the timber mafia or people of nearby villages.
After forest patrolling—called ‘thengapalli’ in local parlance—for eight hours, they return home at 2 pm. An hour later, another group of women goes into the forest to repeat the exercise till dusk sets in. If required, men of the village take over at night.
These women have been protecting the forest for 12 years. Their efforts have regenerated the forest in 500 acres of land on a hill, which stood barren in the late 90s. The Saata Bhai forest, they say, is precious to them as it meets all their needs.
Gunduribadi village in the foothills of Saata Bhai Hill under Ranpur block of Nayagarh district is home to 27 Dalit and Scheduled Tribes families who are mostly engaged in agriculture and cattle rearing. The villagers grow everything—including paddy—for their requirement, and sell a small portion of it. The village got an approach road under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana just two years ago.
Community forest protection by men folk of Gunduribadi was in place since 1988, but women had to take up the cudgels after the men failed to do the job properly, says 65-year-old Ramaa Pradhan, who brought together women to guard the forest in 2000. Age is no deterrent for Ramaa; she accompanies the women for ‘thengapalli’ every day.
“In the 80s, people of other villages used to enter our forest to collect firewood but over the time, they chopped down trees. Gunduribadi men were kind enough to allow them, but the situation became such that we did not even get firewood for our kitchen. This was when I decided that women should step in to give a new lease of life to the degraded forest,” she says.
A 12-member Forest Protection Committee (FPC) comprising eight women and four men was formed. “There has been no break in the ‘thengapalli’ tradition even for a day in the last 15 years. Earlier, we used to allow people from other villages to collect firewood only on Sundays because it is a basic necessity here. However, it was stopped recently because they felled trees,” says 51-year-old Sarojini Pradhan.
The women also punish those who are caught stealing wood or non-timber forest produce (NTFP). “The offenders are brought to our village temple where they have to deposit whatever they have collected from the forest and pay a fine of `100. They also have to give the FPC in writing that they will never enter the forest without permission,” says 34-year-old Janha Pradhan. On some occasions, wood thieves have been detained for a day in Gunduribadi.
While women patrol, their daughters-in-law or mothers-in-law take care of children and cook while men go for farming. None of the families have ever ventured out of the village. “We have never felt the need to. We depend on the forest for everything and it has never let us down even during drought,” says 47-year-old Nibasini Pradhan.
Pradhan and another woman, Sarojini, went to Delhi earlier this year to speak on their model of community forest patrolling at a workshop on International Day of Forests on March 21. The Gunduribadi model of community forest patrolling is followed in other villages nearby, but women do not participate. The Forest Department has approached Gunduribadi women often to form Vana Surakhya Samiti, “but we have not allowed them to enter Saata Bhai because then it would become free for all,” says Ujala Pradhan.
The women have applied to the Ministry of Environment and Forests for securing their right on Saata Bhai under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. “This forest is like our child; we will never allow any outsider to harm it,” says Ramaa.