Most Indian farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture, with about half of all farmed land dependent on downpours. As the monsoons become more unpredictable, livelihoods are affected.India’s Indigenous people feel those impacts the most as their traditions depend greatly on forests and natural produce, said Bidyut Bidyut Mohanty of the Odisha-based nonprofit Society for Promotion of Rural Education and Development. The organization helped the Odisha villages with the dream mapping process.Climate change is affecting “their very existence,” Mohanty said, asserting that they have not contributed to the problem but are paying the price.The forest commons are “not only considered the lungs but are also a hidden kitchen for Indigenous communities,” he said.The women’s survey found that resources available a decade earlier had either dwindled or disappeared. In Muduli’s village, the number of fruits such as mango, guava, java plum and Indian gooseberry had dropped drastically. Resources used to make traditional instruments and other items had become more rare.Climate experts said the Odisha project can be a model to be replicated across India and other nations. United Nations reports have said 80% of the world’s biodiversity lies in regions controlled by Indigenous peoples.Women from marginalized and vulnerable communities are affected the most by climate change, and the Indigenous women of Odisha are an inspiration, said Neha Saigal, a gender and climate expert at Bengaluru-based Asar Social Impact Advisors who is familiar with the mapping project.”They are actually leading from the front,” she said.Their work could be critical in deciding where India’s efforts on climate change should be focused, Saigal added, noting that the country is working on a national adaptation plan.It is not clear whether the dream maps will become part of that plan. The women behind them say their project has given them formal understanding of what they and their communities have long known intuitively. They want to pass that on for generations to come.”Forest is our life,” said Purnima Sisa of Badakichab village. “We have taken birth in this forest, and one day we will die in the forest. It is our life and livelihood.”
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