In our 20th episode (in our 20th year!), Founder-Publisher Arpita Das is in conversation with environmental lawyer and legal scholar, Arpitha Kodiveri. Arpitha Kodiveri is the author of 'Governing Forests: State, Law and Citizenship in Indian Forests'. Among other topics, the two discuss the centring of forest-dwelling communities in environmental law, how Dalit and Adivasi communities tackle judicial and State oppression, and the extraction of consent from these communities.

Arpitha Kodiveri is an environmental and justice scholar and assistant professor of political science at Vassar College. Her work focuses on the role of law in redressing climate harms faced by South Asian indigenous communities. She has previously worked as an environmental lawyer to support Adivasi and forest-dwelling communities in India.

In Governing Forests, she describes how these communities bear the cost of both rapacious mining development and increasing pressure for forest land to be set aside for environmental conservation. Despite these challenges, Kodiveri shows how the traditional owners and inhabitants of forest areas are driving creative solutions in forest law. Hope can be found here, in each community’s unique vision of co-governance, expressed in the language of care and repair.

Buy the South Asian edition here: https://www.amazon.in/dp/9382579958

Internationally available here: https://www.mup.com.au/books/governing-forests-paperback-softback

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Arpita Das' Twitter/X: https://x.com/arpitayodapress

The opening song is 'Typewriter' by Eric Taboel via Epidemic Sound.

This podcast has been produced and edited by Tara Mathur.