The hum of native Brazilian folk instruments and chants fill the air once you tune into 'Amazonia', a single by the French metal band Gojira. What shortly follows is a burst of guitar riffs, drums, and a pneumatic bass line. It all paves way to a shattering yet aching cry, "The greatest miracle is burning to the ground!" In an effort to drive not just awareness but conservation efforts against Amazonian genocide and ecocide with the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Brazil's Indigenous People Articulation or APIB), Gojira wrote Amazonia.

They are one of the many metal bands that urge through an evidently rageful form of music, one to act against the unheeding end of environment by the abject failure of governing bodies across the globe. Intricate ecosystems like the Amazon rainforests, at their current rate of depletion and exploitation, will perish in the next 15 years. Such deeply introspective and driven music had to spark some curiosity, and so it did.

Delicate reserved and protected areas with their indigenous lives exist across India, all with their own practices, folk artistry, and conservation practices. When it comes to partnerships for accelerating sustainable development and climate solutions, seldom are our indigenous forces given the voice they so deserve, let alone the means to drive sizeable change. What follows is a brief look into some of the indigenous tribes within India driving sustainability we have long contemplated.

The Ritual

Indigenous rituals and folklore, as well as the festivals they often lay roots for, can seem primitive and orthodox to some. After all, venerating mere stones and artefacts in hopes of a successful harvest or disease-free cattle hardly makes a case for conservation from an informed and pragmatic lens. However, the same lens lacks the depth and the thought of the humility placed here in front of nature's forces.

Santals, Jharkhand

For the Santal community in Jharkhand, the harvest festival of Baha demarcates collection of any portion of the trees, plants or grasses left standing or grown in the sacred grove or Jahera of a village. The Jahera is where they believe their deity or Marangburu resides. The refrain is also placed on any harm one can inflict on the wildlife in the grove the people swear their allegiance to. The Santals also have a very intricate understanding of their agricultural calendar.

Throughout the first half of the year up until the first monsoon arrives, they avoid any major cultivation. For them, it is only after they partake in the ero sim ritual will they be graced with a healthy monsoon. The ritual aligns with the month of Asar (June–July) and what this patient wait for monsoon entails for the crops is noteworthy. The moisture the soil would have otherwise lost owing to premature overturning is avoided. The paddy doesn't suffer from lack of water.

Jenu Kuruba, Betta Kuruba, Kuruba and Yerava, Karnataka, and Kerala

Travel south enough to Kodagu, Karnataka and a tale of Lord Ayappan and Goddess Bhadra Kali is told. The tribes of South Kodagu, Hunsur, and Hanagodu that surround Nagarahole Tiger Reserve believe Ayappan betrayed them and in an act of rebellion, they gather cross-dressed on the occasion of Kunde Habba. Profanities, abuses, and slurs against Ayappan are rife in the air as a sign of discontentment with the god over abandoning his people for the goddess.

Lately, a newer rebellion brews. The tribes—displaced and bound as labourers at the growing number of exploitative plantations in Coorg—have found a new direction for the rage of Kunde Habba. Sidelined and failed by the authorities to assure them of a respectable life, fair compensation and just working conditions, they hurl abuses at the capitalist forces that exploit them and thwart their environment.

Worship, as it turns out, is part veneration and part denigration. And though uprisings have been urged to be civil in nature throughout history, certain messages are just better screamed.

Soliga, Karnataka

A bellow of  "There's fire in the sky!" pierces through the chorus of Amazonia. One could wish it were a hyperbole but it isn't. Wildfires continue to ravage acres of land globally. There are those whose livelihood stems from these intricate forest ecosystems and they assert that fire must be fought with fire. Practices of controlled and informed burning called cultural burning—intentful burning of land to revitalize it and propagate the needful species of flora—had a sizeable impact in minimizing wildfires but were curbed by regulatory bodies.

In Karnataka, the prohibition placed on intentful burning practices of the Soliga tribe by the Karnataka government proved to be the antithesis of conservation. Curbing this practice meant that the invasive and flammable species of lantana plant could grow unchecked. Where we stand now is a 350% increase in forest fires in Karnataka. Not only are the Soliga better equipped with the knowledge of local flora, it is laughable to see the apathy shown towards wisdom the state possesses but the government forsakes for tech-driven solutions.

Art Within Tribes

When it comes to creative expression and artistry, Dhimsa dance from Andhra Pradesh or Kummi dance from Tamil Nadu mimic harvesting and agricultural cycles. Siddi Dhamal dance of the Siddi community in Gujarat and Karma dance from Central Indian tribes form a medium of expression for the local ecological and biodiversity harmony. Adim Sangeet (tribal music), a likewise accompaniment on days of celebration, gives another outlet to a tribe's preservation practices.

The assimilation of the local climate, agrarian understanding and even class struggle with festivities—some definitely having inexcusable patriarchal undertones—continue to take shape and form in whatever context they are put in. Not only do the practices of environment conservation traverse generations through these festivals and artforms, indigenous ideas also become more palatable for minds accustomed to a standardized model of conservation.

The Conservation

The World Bank states that "indigenous people comprise only around 6% of the global population but they protect 80% of biodiversity left in the world." As the climate crisis continues to deepen and soar, one can easily grasp the ineptitude of western ideas of conservation—"narrow, short-term perceived interests making truly effective international cooperation on climate change extraordinarily difficult," states Paul Harris in "What's Wrong with Climate Politics and How to Fix It."

A single template cannot work for every nation, especially those that are starkly different from the West. A nation as staunchly boastful of its culture, if looking within itself, can find ways to lead climate action.

For instance, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) took cognizance of the new practices Adivasi farmers in three districts of southern Rajasthan (Pratapgarh, Dungarpur, and Banswara) undertook to revitalize the health of the soil in their region. The nutrition-sensitive farming involved 'mixed cropping with legumes as natural fertilizers, crop rotation, agroforestry, mulching, plantation in homestead and growing hedgerows and grassy strips around agricultural fields'.

Ensuring food and crop safety can be learned from the Bonda tribe's women in Odisha. Growing a climate-resilient native strain of millets has aided them in mitigating the effects of erratic rainfall. Local tribal communities such as the Bugun, the Miji, and the Hrusso agreed to share their rich ethnobotanical traditions in order to conserve the orchids endemic to The Sessa Orchid Sanctuary, situated in Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh.

In Tamil Nadu, the Kadars pluck fruits and vegetables from the mature stems of the plant so as to replant them for future harvests and the Irulas, Muthuvans, and Malayalis adhere to a mixed cropping system. Such practices circumvent the overexertion of resources. Fortifying one's produce against erosion and degradation by planting fruit crops and trees on the peripheries of a field is a practice amongst the Gond, Pradhan, and Baiga communities of Madhya Pradesh.

It is definitely not the case that tribes and their practices left all on their own won't survive. Such forces have long survived and will continue to survive. The only thing threatening them is unending zeal of urbanization to not yield as it consumes another forest. With all our economic might and intellect, we are the ones that are in more of a need of wisdom for preservation, even more than tech.

"Burn the land, learn the end."

Bibliography

Adivasi Lives Matter. 2021. Five ways in which adivasis championed environmental causes in 2021.

Gojira Operation Amazonia

Indigenous Arts Foundation. 2024. Reflecting nature: exploring the connection between the environment and indigenous dance

Modak and Sarkar. 2022. Rituals and festivals of indigenous people of Chota Nagpur plateau of West Bengal: a positive correlation with the environment

Mondal and Pandey. 2024. Indigenous Festivals and Climate Sustainability in India: a case study of cultural practices and performances

R B. 2022. Three lessons from Indian tribes on ecosystem conservation.  Earth.Org

Schelenz. 2022. How the indigenous practice of 'good fire' can help our forests thrive. University of California

Star of Mysore. 2022, Where abusing Gods is the way of worship—star of Mysore

Survival International. 2018. 350% rise in Karnataka forest fires was preventable—say local tribespeople

Vaidya-Dublay. 2021. Tribal music of India: Dhaara

World Bank Group. 2023. Indigenous people's overview #