In Bichalghati, a Pando tribal village in Chhattisgarh, shrinking forest resources had pushed families towards low-paid work & migration.
Securing individual forest rights, building water infrastructure & reviving farming helped the village chart a different course.
Read the 🧵
Yet, an important gap remains. The gram sabha submitted its claim for Community Forest Rights (CFR) in 2018, seeking collective authority to access, manage and protect traditional forest resources. The titles are still pending.
Read the whole story by @sukriti_vats for 100 Stories of Commons: landconflictwatch.org/common…
And perhaps success lies not always in a definitive victory, but in the perseverance of communities that continue to assert their agency and protect the ecosystems they depend on, even when loss and uncertainty loom large.
Rather than defining the commons solely through ownership or geography, the project understands what peculiarities and relationships build their landscapes.
These stories complicate the familiar distinctions between conservation and destruction, victory and defeat, and communities as either protectors or antagonists.
The piece explores how the initiative challenged their own preconceived notions about what successful stories of custodianship looks, imploring them to unravel the contours of success altogether.

