Forest habitat and tribal subsistence economy rights in Scheduled tribal-domain state of Orissa

Orissa is one of tribal domain state inhabiting 62 Scheduled tribes (ST) and 12 primitive tribal groups (PTG). About one-fourth of the total population is tribals and about one-third of the geographical area is forest cover in the state. The state possesses rich natural resources of 38% of state's forests land harbour the many tribal groups. The association of tribal environment and forest is immense for forest-dependant subsistence economy. The impact of forest ecology on tribal life is no doubt an age-old factor which has been playing a tremendous role in the shaping of the cultural tradition. Despite, various social and economic developmental programs, the tribal communities continue to be the backward and vulnerable sections of population. The paper tries to evaluate the diversified situations in relation to the problems facing the tribals in the background of the policies and programmes launched by the government. In fine, the study pin-points the fact that the protection of the surrounding ecology is regarded as the sacred duty of the tribals. The existing tribal developmental programmes need to be integrated with local forest policy management resources to adopt constructive forest-dependence of tribals in protecting their own survival subsistence economy and traditional practices.