Hasrat Arjjumend

Being a Founder President, I am acting as Resident Director of The Grassroots Institute, Montreal (Canada), and associated (in honorary capacities) as Senior Fellow at Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), McGill University Faculty of Law, Montreal (Canada), and as Visiting Fellow at Land Law & Environmental Law Departments of Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (Ukraine).

I have completed Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Fellow work (Faculty of Law, Universite de Montreal, Canada), PhD in International Studies (International Biodiversity Governance), PG Diploma in Environmental Law, MPhil in Natural Resource Management, MSc in Environmental Science, MA in Public Administration, and BSc Hons in Bioscience. Additionally, I received advanced practical training from UK, Sweden, Thailand, Russia, India, Netherlands and USA. My current areas of academic interests include: Mountain Ecosystems; Rangeland Ecosystems and Pastoral Livelihoods; Governance of Grazing Commons; Community Conserved Areas and Policies; Governance of Natural Resources; Nagoya Protocol and National ABS Laws; Resource Rights of Indigenous People; Agrarian Laws; Agroecology; Water Policies and Management.

During the past two decades, I completed multiple landmark studies and significant fieldwork focused on Indigenous people and their issues in India, as well as comparative studies on a global basis, culminating in my PhD work, which encompassed the evaluation of the extent of space, recognition, participation and involvement for/of Indigenous people not only in international law (Nagoya Protocol) making, but also in domestic ABS (access and benefit sharing) law making & implementation processes. As the biocultural rights of Indigenous people are key to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, the domestic ABS laws require reorientation to be sufficiently effective in translating the spirit of international ABS laws. As a result, benefit-sharing processes (as per 3rd objective of CBD) and biopiracy of traditional knowledge and bioresources of Indigenous people cannot be checked effectively. I discerned and amplified that adequate participation and involvement of Indigenous peoples and local communities during the crafting of both the Nagoya Protocol and its corresponding domestic ABS laws, had been lacking across the processes. My work brought this serious issue to the fore and debates have started within and outside CBD forums. Such a success adds to progressive career directions towards advocating and asserting for Indigenous rights, dignity and self-determination. My current and future research direction incorporate the interface of customary law and institutions, indigenous rights and biocultural resources. National policies and legislation must give more prominence to the customary laws and traditional institutions of Indigenous peoples or local communities managing conservation areas, as well as acknowledging their rights to self-governance and self-determination.

Along with the professional work, I have carried out a significant amount of trainings and teaching and writing/publishing. I have developed grounded expertise of modular trainings and cascade model of training with grip over A2Z steps of goal-oriented training cycle. Be it the training or teaching, my capacity building approach is guided by ‘Teach A Man To Fish’ principles. I have trained and taught on over 30 courses and modules, which I developed myself and delivered in both modular and cascade modes. These courses and modules constitute required milestones in the syllabi groups of ‘natural resource management’, ‘participatory rural development’, ‘people-centred advocacy and communication’, ‘project planning and management’. As an engaged scholar using interdisciplinary approaches, I seek to provide experiential learning opportunities that not only encourage personal development, but also the intercultural thinking that best informs global perspectives. To this end, being a trainer is the ultimate opportunity to inspire, empower, and provide transformative experiences for students. My training and teaching philosophy is grounded in my life experiences; I am a self-made person with diverse life experiences that I integrate into classroom content. As a teacher, I emphasize the mutual benefits of engaged scholarship and the development of an individual’s social, emotional, intellectual, and creative well-being. This includes taking risk, thinking outside-the-box, and providing a passionate and fulfilling learning experience. Additionally, as an educator and researcher, my career has been centered on being a change-agent, advocating for solutions. Through training and teaching, I consider that I am transferring to youths and students not only knowledge, but also an energy that they may retain (partially) to transform their lives. Be it a science subject, policy topic or societal reality there is a lot to share with the students/participants. Using participatory learning methods, I consider training and teaching as a source of empowerment, transformation and leadership. Over the past 15 years, more than 900 youths (who were taught by me) chose to implement their education/knowledge for the empowerment of poor and marginalized societies.

Though I possess above 17 years experience of planning, implementing and executing field projects and managing organizations encompassing rural development, natural resources and governing livelihood resources, as a change agent, I set in a few exceptional model accomplishments. During 2008-11, in the capacity of Project Director of EU-supported IEUPC Education Project, I created unique procedures, processes, systems, institutions and leaderships that resulted empowerment of urban poor families in 3 cities for educating girl children and female youths. The exemplary work received UNESCO Asia-Pacific recognition in 2011. Later during 2013-16, I organized pastoralist communities by using Pasture Land Policies and Legal Provisions provided in Agrarian & Local Governance Laws. In the capacity of Dean/Sr. Manager at Foundation for Ecological Security, I nurtured 1017 community collectives (institutions) in 987 villages to liberate about 30,000 hectares of pasturelands (commons) from clutches of powerful elites, and institutional ownership of pastoral communities had been ensured. That work brought meaningful change in governance patterns of natural resources impacting livelihoods of poor mass in India’s arid zone. I enabled thousands of youths who honed their leading capabilities with distinct vision and high-energy convictions.

I possess 28 years’ experience of field action, research, training, teaching, programs implementation and advocacy leadership, dealing with multidisciplinary areas of Environment, Natural Resources, Governance, Development, Human Rights and Indigenous Studies. In the past I served, inter alia, as Postdoctoral Fellow at Universite de Montreal, Assistant Professor (Natural Resources & Environmental Management) at Ethiopian Civil Service University, Dean/Senior Program Manager at FES Prakriti Karyashala Rural College (Rajasthan Campus), Executive Director of Grassroots India Trust, Project Director of EU-supported IEUPC Project, Acting Director at the Grassroots Institute, Senior Program Officer at Society for Participatory Research in Asia, Research Officer at NCHSE, Biologist at Wildlife Institute of India, CCV Fellow at WWF-India. During last over 15 years, I contributed as Visiting/Guest Faculty to several institutions in India, apart from being a Consultant to leading NGOs. Having inherent capacities of evolving, building and developing the institutions, I acted as a leader of several people-centred advocacy initiatives & forums, and later devolved the systems after completion of institutionalization process.  Moreover, I was Commonwealth Professional Fellow 2007 in England and Social-Impact Fellow 2008-10 in Mumbai, apart from being the recipient of UNESCO-Wenhui Award for Educational Innovation 2010 (Asia-Pacific), Chairman's Gold Medal (1997-98) in MPhil Natural Resource Management (MRM) from IIFM (Govt. of India), Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Scholarship (USA) 2007, and S.J. Jindal Trust Scholarship 1990-91. I have directly worked in 13 states of India, and in Ethiopia, Canada, Ukraine. I have research experience of the countries like India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Ethiopia, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, China, Mongolia, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Thailand, Brunei, Timor, Philippines, and Iran. Additionally, I have either visited or got training in Sweden, UK, Norway, Finland, Poland, USA, Qatar, UAE. In my credit are about 187 publications of varied types.