Photo Credit : euronews.com
Clear Cut Climate Desk
New Delhi, UPDATED: Sep 08, 2025 03:19 IST
Written By: Antara Mrinal
A group of women in the Koraput district of southern Odisha, gathered beneath the boughs of a neem tree with pieces of paper, colored pencils, and decades of lived experience. What they produce are not abstract diagrams but rich “dream maps”: green patches for forests, blue trails for streams, and fields with fruit trees. These are the lands that they once knew and still wish to reclaim.
These maps are layered with emotion, history, and intention in contrast to bogus topographical maps. Purnima Sisa of Badakichab village puts it succinctly, “Forest is our life” and firmly explains how every tree and pond is attached to their people’s persistence. These maps were, for her and many others, part testimony and part demand, evidence of loss and plans for restoration.
The Shrinking Commons
The dream maps arose from the comparison of villagers’ memories of the government survey of the 1960s with more recent surveys. This analysis revealed a dramatic loss; some villages had lost up to 25% of their common lands. The grasslands for cattle grazing diminished, current mapped streams had vanished, and fewer dealing plants and wild fruits now existed.
Commons are shared ponds, forests and grazing lands. They are essential for food, fodder, fuel wood, and building material for Indigenous communities; the loss of those commons is not just about losing one’s land, it is about losing centuries of culture, of a certain security. “We take birth in this forest, and one day we will die in this forest,” says Purnima. This short sentence reveals how people in these communities see their lives tied to the environment they inhabit.
Mapping as Resistance
The initiative received assistance from NGOs including the Society for Promotion of Rural Education and Development (SPREAD) who helped in digitizing surveys and preparing petitions for officials. Advocate Bidyut Mohanty, who has worked on women’s impending climate rights issues in Odisha, states climate change has already started to erode “the very existence of women.”
The women’s act of mapping their losses can be seen as an act of resistance. In creating convincing measurable visual evidence, they have shifted the burden of proof from anecdotal complaints to documented claims. Their bright maps are now tools in meeting rooms that have been presented to panchayats and district officers to claim restoration funds they have calculated which is about 2 million dollars.
Why Women Lead
In many Indigenous homes, women gather the majority of forest products, water, and fodder. This everyday relationship brings with it acute ecological knowledge: they know which wild tubers are disappearing, which grazing routes are being eroded, and when streams change their course.
“Women are actually leading from the front,” says Neha Saigal, a gender and climate change expert with Asar Social Impact Advisors, based in Bengaluru. Their knowledge is pragmatic and place-specific, which counters the lacking in climate action planning developed from the top down. When these women lead a mapping exercise they signal both knowledge and authority, all while dismantling narratives of “victims” of climate change.
From paper to policy, Paroja women are turning dream maps into blueprints for survival and change. | Photo Credit : apnews.com
Koraput: A Region at the Crossroads
Koraput is uniquely tribally-dominated among Odisha’s districts: nearly half the population belongs to Scheduled Tribes, as per census data. Agriculture is rain-fed or forest-based subsistence, and livelihoods are directly linked to the health of the commons. But Koraput is climate-vulnerable, with increasing temperatures and erratic monsoons because of deforestation fueling food insecurity and poverty. Studies show that even minor disruptions to the water and forests can obliterate food security in Koraput. Women’s dream maps are more than social commentaries; they are survival strategies for one of India’s most vulnerable ecological zones.
Blueprints for Restoration
The dream maps do more than illustrate loss. They also propose strategies for restoration:
- planting native trees (sal, mahua, tamarind);
- creating ponds and water harvesting pits;
- re-establishing seed banks for little millets and pulses;
- securing grazing corridors with controlled access.
These interventions are inexpensive, and not novel. They build on India’s long history of community-controlled forestry and watershed management. But what makes them powerful is ownership: these women are not waiting for outsiders to impose solutions, they are making them, according to their own terms.
Global Resonance
Globally, Indigenous stewardship is gaining recognition for its centrality to climate interventions. While debated statistics such as “80% of biodiversity is on Indigenous lands” might be contested, numerous studies show that forests held by communities are more secure than forests held by the state or corporations.
Now, back to the story of change from India’s grassroots, with Odisha’s indigenous women and their maps. They signal a global movement to recognize that adaptation is not always high-tech solar grids and techno-fix billion-dollar projects; sometimes, adaptation starts with hand-drawn pictures, and the passing down of traditional knowledge, as well as the demand for recognition.
Voices from the Ground
Q: Why did you begin making these maps?
A: “Because the authorities would always say, ‘You have to show us proof.’ We wanted to show them what we lost with our own eyes and our own hands.” – Kamla Devi, Paroja woman from Koraput
Q: What does the forest mean to you?
A: “When our crops fail the forest feeds us, when we are sick it’s the forest that heals us; the forest provides us with wood to build things. Without the forest, there is no life here.” – Purnima Sisa
Q: What do you want from the government?
A: “Not handouts. We want our rights to care for our commons, and funding to restore what was ours.” – Women’s collective in Badakichab village
The Road Ahead
There are still some challenges to forward motion: obtaining rights to commons activities, establishing the $2 million needed for restoration; and sparking interest in traditional ways of being among youth that conflict with their contemporary dream. But, the act of mapping has shifted something simple yet essential.
Children have already referenced these maps in community halls; villagers have taken copies to official meetings; and women, who generally were decoratively excluded from decision-making, are touted as climate leaders now.
Upon first glance, the dream maps appear as child-like drawings. However, when examined, they are blueprints for resilience. They are documents of resistance, teaching tools, and reclamation resource materials. Within their colors rests a future that demands balance: wilderness and agriculture, remembering and modernizing, surviving and flourishing. As one elder women observed, “We cannot draw the future until we first redraw the past”.
There are still some challenges to forward motion: obtaining rights to commons activities, establishing the $2 million needed for restoration; and sparking interest in traditional ways of being among youth that conflict with their contemporary dream. But, the act of mapping has shifted something simple yet essential.
Children have already referenced these maps in community halls; villagers have taken copies to official meetings; and women, who generally were decoratively excluded from decision-making, are touted as climate leaders now.
Upon first glance, the dream maps appear as child-like drawings. However, when examined, they are blueprints for resilience. They are documents of resistance, teaching tools, and reclamation resource materials. Within their colors rests a future that demands balance: wilderness and agriculture, remembering and modernizing, surviving and flourishing. As one elder women observed, “We cannot draw the future until we first redraw the past”.
With inputs from:
- Euro News (Indigenous women in India make ‘dream maps’ to protect lands from climate change).
- Associated Press, Sibi Arasu (In India, Indigenous women and their ‘dream maps’ seek to protect lands from climate change).
- Environmental Health News / DailyClimate coverage of AP report.
- Census of India 2011; Odisha Tribal Atlas (context for Koraput’s tribal demographics).
- Saigal, Neha (Asar Social Impact Advisors), Expert interview on gender and climate.
- UN/World Bank research on Indigenous stewardship of biodiversity.
