Mutual Loss: The grave consequences of forests without Van Gujjars, and Van Gujjars without forests in Uttarakhand
“We have been part of these forests for centuries,” said 26-year-old Meer Hamja, a member of the Van Gujjar community in Uttarakhand, India. “We coexist with the forest and in a way are part of the biodiversity here.” Deep in the forests of the northern Himalayan state, the Van Gujjars are enduring a struggle that underlines a broader conflict in forest conservation, where traditional forest-dwelling communities face eviction despite centuries of sustainable coexistence with nature.
With the loss of biodiversity and rising impact of climate change in recent decades, forest fires have increased in the hills of Uttarakhand. According to Hamja, the displacement of Van Gujjars from the forests and the disruption in their migration routes have added further fuel to the fire.
The Van Gujjars are a Muslim, semi-nomadic, pastoralist community of Gujjars (also spelled Gurjars) spread across the forests of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir. Their primary occupation is rearing a breed of mountain buffalo commonly known as Gojri buffaloes. As a semi-nomadic community, they migrate to the alpine forests of the upper Himalayas in summer and return to the hilly terrain of the Shivalik forest in the winter, selling milk products to towns and villages on their route.
More crucially in the context of Uttarakhand’s climate crisis, during this seasonal migration, the Van Gujjars play a crucial role in the conservation of the forest ecology, including in the prevention of forest fires and human-animal conflicts. While courts and officials view them as intruders, mounting evidence suggests their traditional practices, from creating natural firebreaks to maintaining water sources, may actually help prevent forest fires and preserve biodiversity in the increasingly vulnerable Himalayan ecosystem.
Forest fires in Uttarakhand
Wherever the Van Gujjars settle, they build a small cluster of huts called ‘deras,’ using mud and tree branches. Each dera belongs to a single family, and several families travel together when they migrate.
On the hot afternoon of 11 June this year, a fire broke out in the Dasowala Van Gujjar dera near the Shyampur range of Haridwar. The Van Gujjars tried to put out the fire but failed to contain it. Police and fire respondents were informed and they arrived in half an hour. As per local media reports, firefighters needed about three hours to control the fire, and five fire units had to be stationed as precautionary measures. The fire consumed over 80 huts and around 100 livestock.
While the police claim that the fire broke out from a hut in the dera, Van Gujjars contest this account. A witness of the incident, whom I met in Haridwar earlier in October, said that the blaze was caused by fire scraps from a nearby forest fire flying in and falling onto one of the huts in the dera, which soon spread through the dwelling area.
Hamja echoed the account. “It was afternoon and everyone was resting,” he said. “The fire was caused by fire scraps from the jungle.” He added that the pastoralists usually rest along with their cattle in the afternoon. Earlier this year, a Van Gujjar boy died due to forest fire near the Mussoorie town in the Garhwal part of Uttarakhand.
In another notable incident in April, a fire started in the forests near the tourist town Nainital and spread over 800 hectares according to official estimates. The fire was so huge that it was reportedly visible from space. According to a news report, satellite images captured by European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite shows large fires raging with plumes of smoke covering the skies in many areas of the state. The fire spread to the forests of Ladiyakata and The Pines area on the Nainital-Bhowali road, before it was extinguished with the help of an Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter. A Mi-17 IAF helicopter was deployed a day before that to douse the fire after it reached dangerously close to the Nainital High Court Colony and the Air Force base containing sensitive equipment.
Dr GCS Negi, a scientist at the Govindh Ballabh Pant Institute of the Himalayan Environment and Development (GBIHED) stated that environmental factors, such as a decline in rain and a rise in temperatures, contribute to the sudden increase in wildfires. This year, temperatures soared past 40 degrees Celsius across various regions, from the capital city of Dehradun to other plain and hilly areas. Meteorologists and scholars suggest that the active El Niño phenomenon is one of the key reasons behind the irregular patterns of rain and snowfall in the region. El Niño, a marine phenomenon, is responsible for significant changes in ocean temperature and atmospheric conditions in the equatorial region of the tropical Pacific. This alteration leads to much higher-than-normal sea surface temperatures.
Forest fires are a growing concern in Uttarakhand, with their numbers soaring from 922 in 2002 to 41,600 in 2019. They lead to the destruction of flora and fauna and result in the loss of biodiversity. Forest fires also contribute to soil erosion. “Birds, who are vital for the distribution of seeds, lose their habitat due to forest fires, which affects the regeneration of grass in the region,” said Hamja, “Further, since our buffaloes migrate from lower Himalayas to the Bugyals”—the high-altitude grassland—“they too act as carriers and disperse seeds on their way and back, which helps in maintaining the biodiversity of the forest.”
As the community closely dependent on the forest ecosystem, the increasing incidents of fires have had grave consequences for the Van Gujjars. Forest fires is more likely to endanger the lives of Van Gujjars more than anyone as they live deep in the forest. “Forest fires significantly affect our communities by destroying vast grasslands that our cattle depend on for grazing,” said Hamja, who founded the Van Gujjar Tribal Yuva Sangathan (VGTYS) to spread awareness about conservation and land rights among his community’s youth.
Van Gujjars: Encroachers or protectors?
Despite facing devastating forest fires themselves, the Van Gujjar community has found their struggles compounded by court interventions meant to protect forests. In a suo moto case taken up by the bench of justices Rajiv Sharma and Alok Singh in 2016, the Nainital High Court addressed the growing issue of forest fires in Uttarakhand. In its order, the high court called Van Gujjars encroachers. Based on an amicus curiae report claiming they had encroached upon 16,000 hectares of forest land, the court issued a stark ruling: “Gujjars who have encroached upon the forest land be evicted within a period of one year from today.” In doing so, the court overlooked a crucial reality: the Van Gujjars are also forest-dwellers and they suffer alongside the environment they have traditionally lived with.
The court called for the development of firefighting tools and enhanced monitoring capacities. It recommended extensive firefighting measures, including early warning systems, specialised response teams, and harsh penalties for both forest officers and offenders in cases of severe and prolonged fires. It also suggested involvement of indigenous and forest-dwelling communities in creating forest policies and recognised their right on forest wealth, which did not extend to the Van Gujjars.
Hamja’s organisation, the VGTYS, works with the Van Gujjars to help them claim forest rights under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwelling Communities (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, commonly known as the FRA. According to him, the long-established narrative amongst the Uttarakhand bureaucracy is that Van Gujjars are encroachers on forest lands. They are not listed in the state’s tribal list and have been subjected to multiple eviction drives in the past several decades. Even though colonial era records prove the presence of Van Gujjars in the region, the space for the community within the jungle and outside has been shrinking rapidly.
“The negative impact of the Nainital High Court’s order was that it blamed the Van Gujjars for encroaching on forests.,” said Pranav Menon, a scholar researching Van Gujjars, in an article published in The Bastion. “It attributed the responsibility of certain fires to the community’s existence within these forests and ordered for their eviction from the Protected Areas.”
Two years later, the high court was hearing a case for eviction of Van Gujjars from the Corbett Tiger Reserve and the Uttarakhand government’s formulation of a policy to rehabilitate 57 families from there. While the court once again deemed Van Gujjars as encroachers on forest land, it also slammed the government, the respondent in the case, for trying to rehabilitate and compensate the “encroaching” families who were to be evicted. In its order, the bench of justices Rajiv Sharma and Lok Pal Singh said:
The Van Gujjars are a constant threat to the wildlife. The State Government, however, has taken a prompt decision to protect the persons who have encroached upon the river banks and river beds. The Court can take judicial notice of the fact that the State Government has brought an ordinance to protect the persons who have encroached upon the land on the bank of river Rispana and its riverbed. The rule of law must prevail and not anarchy. Prima facie, the proposal taken to rehabilitate the Van Gujjars is against the public policy.
In effect, the judicial interventions to contain forest fires further marginalised the Van Gujjars. Meanwhile, the forest fire issue only worsened due to severe understaffing in forest management. As of 2021, a staggering 82% of Assistant Conservator of Forest positions and 65% of Forest Guard posts remained vacant, as per the state’s submissions before the high court.
Caught between destructive forest fires and a system that fails to recognise their role as forest dwellers, Van Gujjars continue to live a vulnerable and precarious life. Since the formation of virtual boundaries in the jungle for national parks and reserves, the access of Van Gujjars to the forests has progressively shrunk and their migration routes have also been made inaccessible to them, forcing them to migrate with their cattle on road during night when the traffic is less.
The Van Gujjars’ insistence on migrating to conserve the forest has worked against them, with the forest department using it to deny them protections under the Forest Rights Act (2006). Since the implementation of the FRA, many Van Gujjars and civil-society groups representing them have filed claims before the forest authorities to be recognised as “other traditional forest dwelling community” under the law. A 2019 study supported by the Rights and Resources Institute revealed that out of over 6,500 FRA claims filed in Uttarakhand, the state government has not issued a single individual forest right or communal forest right title.
Life outside the forest is also increasingly unsafe for the community. In recent years, villagers affiliated with Hindutva groups have begun to target Van Gujjars because of their Muslim identity. The Van Gujjars are usually easily recognisable due to their attire. Most elders in the community wear a kurta, a kamarbandh—similar to a wrapped skirt—and a turban.
A Van Gujjar youth said on the condition of anonymity, “Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in the state, the Van Gujjars are seen as only Muslims, and not as tribals. Although we file each claim carefully with all required papers, it always gets stuck in the bureaucracy and at times gets out rightly rejected.”
Van Gujjars’ relationship with forests
All Van Gujjars who spoke with the reporter strongly refuted the claims attributing forest fires to their presence in the region. “We are the ones who prevent forest fires,” asserted Shamshad, a 31-year-old leader of the Van Gujjar community. A group of scholars studied the role of grazing by pastoralist communities in forest lands against high fire risks. The study suggested “that nomadic livestock contributes to sustainable management of peri-urban land, stimulating grazing that may prevent fuel accumulation in fringe woodlands.” The findings, in turn, point to the advantages of “nature-based solution for wildfires, including grazing by nomadic livestock.”
Shamshad further elaborated on the practices of the Van Gujjars that he said contributed to fire prevention. He noted that their buffaloes graze in straight lines, which creates clear paths free from grass and wild plants. “We also remove dried leaves from these paths,” he added, emphasising that this has been a traditional practice within the community. “In times of fire, our efforts create natural barriers that can limit the damage,” Shamshad concluded, highlighting the community’s long-standing relationship with the forest and their role in its preservation.
These clearings made by Van Gujjars and their cattle herds essentially constitute a fire line that is an effective fire inhibitor. Fire lines, also known as firebreaks, are strips of land cleared of vegetation to create barriers that prevent wildfires from spreading. It deprives the advancing fire of fuel to stop its progress. Fire lines are widely used along with other fire-fighting methods in wildfire management. This is also a strategy used by the government, as mentioned by Rajiv Bhartari, the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in Uttarakhand’s forest department to the Nainital High Court.
A recent economic survey revealed that nearly 30 percent of Uttarakhand’s forests are covered with pine trees, which, despite their prevalence, are not native to the region. The British introduced pine during the 19th century to meet the growing demand for timber for railways and urban development, viewing forests as economic resources. While pine trees were favoured for their rapid growth and pest resistance, they have also negatively affected local biodiversity. RF Rawat from the Forest Research Institute noted that pine trees encroach on surrounding forests and inhibit the growth of other plant species due to the chemicals in their leaves.
Furthermore, pine trees are extremely inflammable and contribute to forest fires. “Pine trees are not suited to the Himalayan weather. Not only they prevent other plants from growing, as the summer gets hotter everywhere, these trees risk and contribute to more fires in the forest,” Hamja said, who has been engaging with local courts and law offices on forest conservation.
Forest fires are not the only threat to the forests of Uttarakhand either. According to a recent study, the lower Shivalik areas of Uttarakhand are facing a problem of becoming barren due to an invasive species of plant called “Red Sage” or “Latana Camara,” which colonises new burnt areas after its seeds are dispersed by birds. This toxic species has become an obstacle to natural regeneration that is important for native species to thrive. The Van Gujjars used to actively remove this toxic plant for the grazing purpose of their livestock.
“The forest rangers who are tasked with removing these wild weeds don’t do much. They know nobody is going to go to the forest and check if they removed these weeds fully. We however have to do it because forest is our home and we know what would happen if we don’t,” said Mohammad Safi, a Van Gujjar community leader.
A 2014 study by NK Kamboj, Pankaj Bahuguna, and OK Belwal attempted to analyse if Van Gujjars residing in Rajaji National Park would be good for the park’s ecosystem. The study by the three researchers concluded that “they have stabilised a relation with the park biodiversity. The local communities and Van Gujjars can be included in park programs to save the park values as well as wild animals.” The forests, which now fall within the Rajaji National Park, have for over a century served as the winter grazing grounds for the pastoralist community. The forest department’s own annual working plans, which date back to 1952, have documented grazing activities in the region.
However, ever since the park was announced in 1985, and a tiger reserve notified in 2015, the space for grazing within the forest has continued to shrink. According to various documented testimonies, the Van Gujjars in the parks have faced tremendous repression and harassment at the hands of the forest department. Almost 1,000 Van Gujjar families have had no choice but to accept relocation from the Rajaji Reserve. Today, almost 1600 Van Gujjar families still reside within the park.
The researchers concluded that “The absence of Van-Gujjars increases the probability of out-migration of local communities from the area. When the Van-Gujjars regularly live in the park with their domestic animals the wild animals avoid crossing their territory. Thus, the wild animal attacks on Van-Gujjar’s animals. They have to bear this loss but on the other side they are saving the life of nearer local communities and their domestic animals. They are behaving like a middle unit between the wild animals and local communities.”
Meer Hamja also echoed the conclusion of the study. “Just look at the cases of human-animal conflict. We lived in the forests, but despite that there are very few cases of us being attacked by wild animals. Now, since we have been forced to leave the forest, the human-wildlife conflict in the areas surrounding the forest have increased significantly. This proves we used to coexist without any issue,” Hamja said. The study, as well as several experts, have cited forest fires, habitat loss, lack of prey and water sources during hot months as reasons for leopard attacks around human habitat. Van Gujjar’s may have played a crucial role in preventing these wild animal attacks while dwelling in the forests.
Data from the state forest department reveals that 244 people lost their lives in Uttarakhand due to leopard attacks between 2000 and 2010, while 234 deaths occurred between 2011 and 2021. In 2022 alone, at least 20 people were killed. A report by Titli Trust, published in 2021-22, states, “There isn’t a single month in Uttarakhand without reports of attacks by leopards, tigers, elephants, or other wildlife. Leopard attacks are the most frequent and the most severe.”
In the jungle, we need a constant source of water for our cattle,” Hamja explained. “For this, we have an indigenous water harvesting system called Uggal (also called Suuta) close to our settlements. The water from Uggal is used by our cattle but also other wild animals in the forest that during the summer do not have any source of water. When we were forced to leave the forest, there was no one in the forest to dig the ponds. Wild animals come to the human settlement in search of water and the Uggal. Evicting us from the forest is also a loss to the forest.” Since past two decades, each Van Gujjar family leaves behind at least one member to look after their deras and uggals. Previously, when the entire family used to migrate, the forest officials and locals from around the jungle would destroy their deras and take away the woods and other things that were left behind.
Several scholars and climate activists have been calling for further involvement of indigenous communities in forest conservation efforts. However, in neglect of their history and contribution in enriching the biodiversity of the forest, Van Gujjars in Uttarakhand continue to be seen as illegal encroachers. “Indigenous populations have been the custodians of forests since time immemorial,” said Ashok Chaudhury, the acting president of the All India Union of Forest Working People. “Removing the indigenous population, not gaining from their rich knowledge and insights on forest and its conservation, in the name of conservation is intellectually flawed and a bad idea.”