India’s Tribe Losing Healing Traditions to Climate Change

“When we used to fall sick, we relied on the forest. Plants, trees, their roots – they healed us. We still try, but we can’t find them anymore,” Rukmini Saura (36) told FairPlanet, before listing the plants they once gathered with ease: “Amla, bahada, harada – that’s Triphala. Rangachera for stomach gas, Kundichali for fever.”

The Saura Adivasis, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), are one of the ancient tribes of Odisha. The community consisted of food gatherers who inhabited inaccessible interior forest areas of the Eastern Ghats. Their lives were deeply interwoven with the forest – their home and provider. 

Mahendragiri Hill in the Eastern Ghats was more than just a forest: generations grew up with the knowledge that if one had a fever, stomachache, or a difficult childbirth, the answer lay somewhere in the dense green surroundings. The healers — Kudan or Kudanboi and herbalists — carried this wisdom, preparing pastes from roots, powders from bark, and decoctions boiled in earthen pots. Their knowledge meant that families rarely needed to step outside their villages for care.

That continuity was broken in October 2018, when Cyclone Titli tore through parts of Odisha that were not previously vulnerable, affecting 7400 villages . The impacts on the villages of the Saura community living near Mahendragiri were catastrophic. Entire slopes were stripped bare. Mango, coconut, and broom grass trees were uprooted overnight. “We had lemons, mangoes, and broom grass in abundance before Titli. Now, they’ve all vanished,” another resident, Pradeep Bhuiyan, told FairPlanet, pointing to the stony ground where their old orchards once stood.

Climate-Induced hazard or state-Induced challenge?

In the cyclone’s aftermath, the government relocated many Saura families nearly 18 kilometres downhill, away from their ancestral hamlets. However, the geography and soil structure of the relocated settlement are different from that of Mahendragiri.

Mahendragiri hill offers a cooler climate throughout the year, surrounded by rich, thick forest cover. The community had small mud houses, protecting them from excessive temperatures. People used to practice agriculture, growing millets, local vegetables through kitchen gardening and medicinal plants. This offered them healing when health infrastructure was far away. They foraged and collected honey, gum, amla, bamboo, shrubs, fuel wood, dry leaves, nuts, sprouts, wax, medicinal plants, roots and tubes, consuming some and selling the surplus at local markets.

However, the relocated settlement is on the plains l and surrounded by stones, making it difficult to grow the plants or practice kitchen gardening they are accustomed to. This forced them to become dependent upon health institutions. Mud houses that once kept interiors cool are replaced by cement homes that trap heat.

Sitting outside her newly constructed cement house, 60-year-old tribal elder Kandei Saura recalled a time when illnesses were rare. “We had never seen things like heat stroke or malaria earlier. Tuberculosis was unknown to us. Now even children fall sick.”

This forced dependence on an unfamiliar health system has been jarring. The community was issued health cards, but most residents do not know how to use them. The nearest government clinic is 18 kilometres away, across difficult terrain. 

Ambulance services are scarce, and the one available often breaks down mid-journey. Because their settlement lies near the Andhra Pradesh border, the closest functional hospital is across the state line — but private care there is far too costly. One woman in the village described the worsening health of children, showing the red rashes on her son’s arms. “In an emergency, we just take whatever tablets we can find,” said Lachhmi, 32. “The rashes on children are more frequent now. One woman even died while menstruating during the peak summer heat. She bled for a month but could not access any healthcare.”

The rich ecosystem of Mahendragiri

Mahendragiri is the meeting point of flora and fauna of the Western Ghats and the Himalayas due to its exceptional species composition. Of 41 threatened medicinal plants in Odisha listed by the IUCN, 20 are found in Mahendragiri. According to government data, 32 species identified nationwide by the National Medicinal Plants Board for conservation and sustainable use are found to grow in this ecosystem, with at least 18 of these species identified. However, with a fragile mountainous ecosystem, the impacts of climate change have also been visible in Mahendragiri.  On top of that, punitive state policies — resettlement without undergoing significant assessments — are pushing the Saura further away from the traditional medicine that once sustained them.

Across the world, more than 80 per cent of the world’s population in over 170 of the WHO’s 194 member states use some form of traditional medicine for their primary healthcare, according to the organization. In India, many indigenous communities rely on traditional medicine for their health concerns.

People in the state tend to turn to herbal remedies not only because of their belief system but also because of the absence of quality healthcare services. According to the UNICEF report, the Saura healers have an amazing ability to cure pediatric as well as female patients with gynaecological problems. However, home to numerous medicinal plants and other species, Titli destroyed the medicinal plants on the Mahendragiri hill and with their relocation by the government , the Saura community has now lost access.

Relocation broke the Saura’s bond with Mahendragiri’s fragile ecology

Without them, the forest risks neglect, overextraction, and even extinction of species that once thrived under community stewardship. Sauras rely heavily on traditional medicine for addressing various ailments. Their healing practices are deeply rooted in nature, with an intricate understanding of local flora and fauna. The Kudan healers weren’t only medical figures; they were carriers of heritage, holding centuries of indigenous knowledge rooted in Mahendragiri’s ecosystems. By cutting the community off from these lands, what is being eroded isn’t just health resilience, but an entire way of knowing the natural world.

The hill itself is fragile, one of Odisha’s most important mountain ecosystems, officially recognised for its ecological and archaeological significance. Conservationists warn that protecting biodiversity cannot be separated from protecting indigenous knowledge. The two have always been intertwined.