THIS WILL BE A CONTINUATION OF THE 17 FEB SESSION 

Concept Note

Natural Resource based Communities Alliance

Building the collective resistance against Capital’s onslaught of appropriation and dispossession

Capitalism grew and expanded by appropriating resources, which in its first phase of expansion relied on what had been identified as “primitive accumulation” through direct colonization and now in its current neo-liberal phase still relies on appropriation of natural resources through appropriation by dispossession and thereby continues to be in direct conflict with natural resource based communities. This conflict is not just a struggle of adivasis, forest dwellers, fishing communities- natural fresh water lakes, riverine or sea/ocean based, pastoralists, small/marginal peasants etc. against big corporations, but a struggle between two historical forces over control of forces/means of production. While traditional natural resource based communities have been primary producers, they are being taken out of the very production process by being dispossessed from their traditional resource base – land, water or forests which are being appropriated by capital’s new surge to extract further or newer resources, and are being forced into joining the millions of informal precariat. It is an intensifying struggle between the might of capital, its political power and social control on one side and on the other, socio-political assertion based on traditional and sovereign right over resources of natural resource based communities. The locus of resistance against capital is now critically centered on this struggle. While communities are resisting valiantly on their own, but the political situation now calls for building up a collective resistance of all natural resource based communities in struggle.

Three decades into the neo-liberal agenda, what we see today is a communal, authoritarian, majoritarian, brahminical and patriarchal state that has comfortably blended into the neo-liberal framework to decimate any pro people, democratic, progressive model of development. By attempting to decimate their identity and rights over resources and making them mute beneficiaries from empowered primary producing citizens the aggression of global capital, its crony representatives and majoritarian government in India needs collective resistance.

Today, though global capital uses the language of sustainable growth, safeguarding environment and mitigating climate crisis, the UN, World Bank, other International Financial agencies and COP are talking about ‘Green Growth’ etc. but essentially the discourse being set by global capital, is still located in its need of profits over people, whereby communities directly impacted are being left out as non-actors instead of playing lead roles; they continue to be seen just as victims of climate change.

This discourse is set precisely to render the natural resource based communities powerless to resist the corporate plundering in the name of ‘green investments’, ‘eco tourisms’ and ‘conservation projects’ that would forcefully displace the communities to loot the resources.

The political role of nation building for re-establishing welfare/pro-people state falls more on the natural resource based communities. An alliance of all traditional natural resource based communities can not only expose this false narrative, but collectively assert that it is the communities’ relation of co-existence with nature that has protected these natural resources for centuries and thus it falls on them to extract humanity from the civilizational crisis which the logic of capital has landed us into.

It is the lived experience and history of the historically marginalized/oppressed communities that stands in the way of the new ‘green plunder’.  It is time, we realize that it is not just a fight against the corporates and their profiteering, but a fight for our lives, our history, culture, icons, identity.

Natural resource based community organisations and other progressive working class forces need to unite and form an alliance to lead the country and the world towards a truly democratic, people centric society.

This consultation will take forward the March 2023 discussions around  colonial legacy in model of development, growth of capital in post-colonial India and displacement of rural labour to urban areas, erosion of welfare state to establish neo-liberal model, accumulation of profit through appropriation of natural resources, change of the political role of natural resource based communities, concrete alliance between industrial workers (formal and informal) with natural resource based communities and plans for a new political intervention with a Declaration of Collective Resistance.

Kathmandu Declaration of South Asian Natural Resource Based Communities Alliance

On the 17th and 18th of February 2024 (4 countries, 9 organizations) working on forests, coasts, rivers, minerals, and land held parallel sessions, “Sovereign Commons:  Way to Sustainable Futures of the Natural Resource Based Communities” as part of the World Social Forum, Nepal. Building from the spirit of the conclusions of the Mumbai - Porto Alegre Forest Initiative, 2005, the Dehradun Declaration 2009, the National Conference of Natural Resources based Communities 2012, the consultation of Natural Resource Based Communities, 2023, and the Patna Declaration, 2023, the essence of our deliberations and conclusions are summarized as the “Kathmandu Declaration, 2024.”

Kathmandu Declaration 

We recognize that our communities as Custodians and Guardians have been resisting the State facilitated corporate grab and  plunder of our Commons in the disguise of Sustainable Development . We recognize the need to come together as Natural Based Communities under that one identity as indigenous and other traditional peoples of the land, forests, oceans, mountains and rivers.

We declare self-determination and sovereignty, and our right to resources are inherent and inalienable to us. Our homeland, culture, and values are not for plundering by corporate and state apparatuses. 

As communities that have been experiencing historical and structural injustice for decades, we will resist and fight back against all forms of structural violence and stand in solidarity with all economic, social, political, and environmental movements. 

We join the resistance movements across the Global South in affirming our collective identity, struggles and principles while recognizing that collective action will be localized to communities affected. 

To fight against Brahminical (Elitist), patriarchal and communal violence against women and recognize that women have been at the forefront of the movement for more than two centuries. 

We demand the  States to affirm to the principles of food sovereignty, recognizing diversity of the food systems of our communities, while insisting Food for People, not for Profit

We demand a structural overhaul of the so called sustainable coloured Green and Blue economy policies, 30 x 30 conservation false solutions in the name of climate mitigation. 

We resolve to fight against and reverse the financial policies of the government that allow the big corporations to use public money to destroy our habitats, natural resources and livelihoods through mega infrastructure and polluting industries.

We express our solidarity with the people of Palestine, Kurdistan,Kashmir, Manipur and in their resistance and resilience and stand with people’s aspirations against all forms of occupation, dictatorship and authoritarianism.

We , as communities of natural-based communities, give out a call to the world that we, as legacy carriers of our martyrs Birsa, Phule, Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh, will resist the Brahminical(elitist) feudal capitalist plunder of natural resources and re-build another egalitarian, just world.

We reassert that our coming together is based on :

 Recognition of  the  role of women in the fight against capital, its cronies and agents

Recognition of the inalienable and sovereign  right of traditional communities over all Natural Resources or Commons - land, water,forests

Recognition that our fight to build another world in our consistent militant fight against Capital- Corporate-Feudal- Bureaucratic nexus

And most importantly, through the alliance of struggles/movements of river, lake,sea,ocean, forest based communities.

Build the Alliance of Natural Resource based Communities to rebuild another humane world