Environmental Justice Vs Livelihood Justice: A Case Study of Forest Land Grab Movement in Tribal Belts of Nashik District, Maharashtra

In India, the construction of environmentally good has been vastly based on the rules and regulations influenced by the colonial forest and nature related laws. However, the change has observed in the recent legislations like Forest Act of 2006, which grants recognition to the rights of traditional forest dwelling communities. But still, what the policy based environmental values consider may not be contestant to the idea of environment justice but it surely hampers the livelihood justice of the rural poor. The forest land grab movement started in the late 1970s by the Kisan Sabha, a leftist party, in the tribal belt of Nashik district has been considered as issue of encroachment of forest land and a matter of environmental harm. The movement on the other hand opened up livelihood securities to them. Present paper, based on field work and cases, analyses the paradox of justice on the lines of protection from environmental harm on one hand and securing livelihoods of the tribal poor. The ‘justice’ involved in environmental justice oscillates between the rights and needs of the local marginal sections and policy based conceptions of environmentally good. The paper also sees the possibilities of inclusionary participatory interventions.