CMS Vatavaran 2006- 2nd Environment & Wildlife Traveling Film Festival

Title: ….there is Fire in Your Forest
Language/ Duration/Year/ Format (DVD)/ Price: English/ 58 mins / 2000 /DVD Rs. 1000

Summary: One of the central issues here is who does the forest belong to? who should it be conserved for?

The film is located in Kanha in Madhya Pradesh. Kanha because it's probably the most famous Tiger park in the world and secondly it is also from where the first of the adivasis were relocated in the mid '70s.

The film's central character in a wildlife photojournalist Sanjay Sharma. He, is out on an assignment to Kanha and he meets Anita Pawar who works with the displaced adivasis of Kanha for years. Together with Anita he discovers a new world beyond his. Initially suspicious, Sanjay finally starts seeing the Adivasi perspective and broadens his understanding of conservation. He interacts with villagers of Mawala on the buffer of Kanha. They have clear felled 100 acres of prime forest for farming, unable to survive the choking off their Nistar (collection of MFP) rights. Sanjay comes back and finishes his report. But his understanding of 'conservation' is now much more inclusive and he tells us the story of Kanha in a flashback.