- India’s exploration of graphite, a critical mineral for a clean energy transition, is fuelling conflict in the forests of Odisha.
- Tribal communities in the Lamer village, have the legal right to manage and preserve their forests and are resisting graphite prospecting that could threaten forest produce and in turn, their livelihood.
- Given the importance of mining critical minerals for energy transition, there is an urgent need to develop a framework for community benefit agreements, say experts.
India’s focus on critical minerals for its clean energy transition has come in conflict with the rights of forest dwellers in Odisha, highlighting policy gaps in forest land acquisition and the need for community benefits in the country’s journey towards clean energy.
A graphite prospecting effort in a community forest in the state last year, was contested by the local people, eventually leading to the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes initiating an inquiry against the district administration and mineral exploration agency for violating the Forest Rights Act and threatening tribal people. Graphite is a critical mineral in India’s clean energy transition.
In July 2023, residents of Lamer village in the state’s Kalahandi district opposed graphite prospecting, by the district administration and the Odisha Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited (OMEL), in the forest that is legally recognised as the community’s forest rights area, under the Schedule Tribe and Other Forest Dweller (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (FRA). As the village residents stopped JCBs from felling trees, they were told that permission had been given by the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), says Binod Majhi, Lamer Gram Sabha secretary, who claimed that the community was not informed about the tree felling. The residents managed to stop the prospecting at that time.
However, the conflict escalated in November when the district administration forcefully entered the village along with a police force to complete the prospecting work. Protesting residents from the village were detained. “Three of us were kept in police custody. They said that we were inciting people against the prospecting activity. They told us that we must make the people understand and agree to let OMECL continue their work, or things will get difficult. While we were in custody, on November 30, OMECL officials, along with district administration officials and police force, came to the village to resume prospecting,” said Karuna Harijan, resident of Lamer and a member of the Kalahandi Gram Sabha Mahasangh, a federation of CFR villages in the district, who was also taken into custody.
The Lamer Gram Sabha moved the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes against the district administration and the OMECL for violation of FRA and threatening tribals. Based on the complaint filed by locals, the commission has initiated an inquiry against the district administration. “…the commission has decided to investigate/inquire into the matter in pursuance of the powers conferred upon it… You are hereby requested to submit the facts and information on the action taken on the allegations/matters to the undersigned within 15 days,” the commission wrote to the Kalahandi District Collector on December 26. However, so far, no action has been taken by the commission.
Mongabay India approached the Divisional Forest Officer Kalahandi North and the District Collector Kalahandi for comments but is yet to hear back.
Under Forest Rights Act (FRA), the village’s Community Forest Resource (CFR) right was recognised in 2010. The act recognises the community’s ownership over the forest they have been traditionally dependent on and gives them the right to manage the forest.
The people of Lamer village, predominantly tribal, are dependent on seasonal forest produce such as bamboo and tendu leaves for their livelihood. Prospecting for graphite and the possibility of a mine in the forest signals a threat to this. “Every year, the money generated from the sale of tendu and bamboo is distributed among the villagers who participate in the collection. Additionally, it is used by the Gram Sabha for village development work and providing assistance to those in need. We have also improved the forest cover; now you cannot see the ground underneath; it’s all covered with trees,” Prafulla Kumar Majhi, the president of the Lamer Community Forest Resource Management Committee, a village-level body created under FRA, said.
Critical mineral mining and community benefits
The conflict in Lamer raises concerns about India’s transition to a low-carbon economy and the minerals required to undertake that transition.
In June 2023, the Ministry of Mines (MoM) identified 30 “critical minerals” crucial for India’s clean energy transition. These minerals are essential in manufacturing solar panels, semiconductors, wind turbines and advanced batteries for storage and transportation. Graphite is one of them. Of these 30, only 16 minerals are available in India.
“Critical minerals are important because there will be no energy transition without them. The scale we need to move at to transition to clean energy sources requires rapid scaling up of mining of these critical minerals, anywhere between 6 to 72 times the current global production year-on-year. Every country will mine more, and it’s a matter of national importance, but the question is how do you do it responsibly?” Sandeep Pai, research director at Swaniti Global Initiative, a climate policy think tank working on energy transition, told Mongabay India.
Given the importance of these minerals, global investments in them have picked up momentum. According to the International Energy Agency’s Critical Minerals Market Review 2023, the market size of these minerals doubled between 2018 and 2022, reaching $320 billion.
Most of them are being mined in a few countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia and China. Since 2015, with the creation of the National Mineral Exploration Trust, the Indian government has increased efforts to explore critical minerals. Between 2015-16 and 2022-23, the Geological Survey of India (GSI) has taken up 616 exploration projects for critical minerals and has initiated 127 mineral exploration projects in 2023-24. The mining ministry auctioned 20 critical mineral blocks as part of Phase 1, with results expected in mid-April and another 18 mines were put on auction on February 29.
“One of the things required at the national level in India is the framework of community benefit agreements. We should come up with that framework soon as India is already prospecting for new mines and auctions are happening. It cannot be an afterthought. And this is the direction that every country is moving in; some are more advanced in their thinking, and others are not,” Pai said.
Models of community benefit agreements from Peru, Canada, and South Africa were discussed at the 19th Annual General Meeting of the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals, and Sustainable Development in November last year. The forum is a voluntary partnership involving 80 countries to achieve sustainable development goals through effective laws, policies, and regulations for the mining sector. India joined the forum in June 2023.
Community Forest Rights and land acquisition
The conflict in Lamer also points to policy gaps in facilitating forest land acquisition. The FRA recognises the community’s ownership over their traditionally used forest and their right to manage it. The central legislation dealing with land acquisition in the country, Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, in its sections 41 and 42, has forest land recognised under FRA, under its ambit, but there are no specific guidelines to operationalise it. The Act, for example, does not have specifics about the compensation amount – there is ambiguity on whether factors such as land value, seasonal forest produce value, cultural significance and ecosystem services value are considered in the compensation amount and if considered, there is ambiguity on how they should be quantified.
“Because there are no central guidelines, the state authorities are acquiring these lands as they see fit. They are mostly focused on Individual Forest Rights lands and there have been a few cases of acquisition of CFR land, but it wasn’t done in any comprehensive manner without any basis for arriving at the compensation amount. For instance, there is a comprehensive method to derive the Net Present Value of forest land for diversion, but there is no such thing when it comes to CFR lands,” said Tushar Dash, an independent researcher working on issues related to the Forest Rights Act.
CFR lands have been acquired in a few villages in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district for a transmission line from Wardha to Raipur and in Lippa village in Himachal Pradesh’s Kinnaur district for a hydropower plant.
“In both cases, the amount was arbitrarily decided. In the case of Gadchiroli, the compensation was set at 20 times the income based on seasonal forest produce from the CFR land, whereas in the case of Lippa, the compensation was determined by valuing the income from the apple orchards. There’s an urgent need to evolve a framework to assess the value of CFR areas when community members volunteer to give consent for non-forest purposes,” Geetanjoy Sahu, a faculty member at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, told Mongabay India.
Banner image: A local points towards tree felling in the forested area of Kalahandi in Odisha. The Odisha Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited is conducting graphite exploration in the forest, which falls under the jurisdiction of Lamer gram sabha. Photo by Ishan Kukreti/Mongabay.
