Vandana Menon, Vivek Singh Sangwan, Debashish Nandi | India | 9 mins | 2020

The Forest Rights Act (FRA), for the first time in 2006, granted tribal communities the right of settlement in forest areas. Till then, they were “encroachers”. Sixteen years after a historic law was formulated to give forest dwellers legal ownership of their traditional land, their fate still hangs in the balance. The forests of India are home to 8 per cent of the country's population and they are the keepers of traditional knowledge and forest conservation practices. This film explores the power of community conservation and decentralised governance in Gunduribari, a tribal village in the Nayagarh district of Orissa, India.

This film was an official selection for ALT EFF 2022.