Godda Adivasi Santhal Parganas Tribal Ecology

Godda district in the Santhal Parganas is predominantly inhabited by Santhal, Paharia, and Lohar tribal communities who depend on forest NTFP collection, subsistence rice farming, and artisan craft for livelihoods in a low-industrialised landscape. Godda's Paharia tribe, an especially vulnerable tribal group (PVTG), lives on the hilltops of the Rajmahal hills and practices shift cultivation and forest gathering of honey, mahua, and sal seeds in ways that have persisted for centuries. The proposed Adani coal power plant in Godda became a major tribal rights controversy when the district's forest and farmland was acquired for industrial use over gram sabha objections, highlighting the tension between industrial development and tribal forest rights in Jharkhand's PESA zone.