A bridge across forever

For two decades, a Chhattisgarh village remains stuck in a loop of building temporary river crossings to access markets and sell forest produce

- ANIL ASHWANI SHARMA, JABARRA VILLAGE, DHAMTARI

LIFE IN Jabarra is inseparable from the forest that surrounds it. All 102 households of this village in Chhattisgarh's Dhamtari district, who belong to the Kamar tribal community, have long depended on the woods for their livelihood. In 2019, this bond received a formal recognition when Jabarra was granted community forest resource (CFR) rights under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. The rights now allow residents to manage 5,352 hectares of forest and to collect and sell non-timber forest produce, such as leaves of maloo (Phanera vahlii), flowers and seeds of mahua (Madhuca longifolia) and safed musli herb (Chlorophytum borivilianum). “Since obtaining these rights our earnings have risen,” says Madhav Singh Makram, a resident.

Yet each year, as soon as the monsoon withdraws, the people of Jabarra volunteer to forego this stream of income for a few days. They walk instead to the Kajal river, which flows along the edge of the village, carrying headloads of wild grass. “We throw bundles of wild grass, sand, cement and other material into the river to build a causeway, a low-raised makeshift crossing across the river,” says Birjha Sori, a 60-year-old resident of Jabarra. They mount this exercise because, although they hold rights over forest resources, access to markets remains difficult.