The end of coal and the future of land: Transformative mine closures for just and sustainable livelihoods in India

Smallholder land distribution for sustainable community development is back on the international agenda following the failure of many large-scale projects part of the global ‘land grab’ to deliver pro-poor benefits.

In India one major opportunity to distribute land to poor people comes from the millions of hectares at present occupied by coal mining and related infrastructure.

As coal inevitably starts to retreat new possibilities emerge to restore land for agricultural, forest or fishery livelihoods in support of coalfield communities.

Alternative uses of the land are being proposed, however, including keeping the land with industries or turning it into plantations, both resulting in continued privatisation of resources which only benefits a small elite.

Drawing on an inter-disciplinary theoretical framework grounded in political ecology we seek to understand the extent of, and contradictory claims over, coalfield lands that are being made at a unique moment in time when coal might finally be about to reduce its hold over both energy systems and indigenous territories.

We use GIS, ethnographic fieldwork and public documents across three major Indian coalfields.

The results seek to strengthen the possibilities not only to end coal, but to do so with justice for the millions of poor people who rely on the coal economy at present by making use of coal lands as the basis of new hope for sustainable livelihoods.