Delaying Power Shifts, the Landscape Responds.

The permanence has always been the definition of power over forests. The people in possession of land, weapons, and the right to extract have determined the way forests are utilised, defended, or destroyed. In most parts of the globe, this authority has been vested in men, and the physical strength, hunting traditions, and colonial forest rules, which institutionalised masculine authority. But here and there, within the cultures, are incidences of this order being purposely disrupted. Women take over forest spaces in totality, albeit within a limited period of time: one day, one ritual cycle. These scenes compose what may be described as a 24-hour matriarchy, in which the power of the forest must pass on completely to the hands of the female creatures.

Also, what is remarkable about these moments is not their symbolism, but their consequences. The sinuosity of use, implementation, and ecological decision-making appears on the surface when women assume control of the forest. These episodic shifts in power demonstrate the other modes of governance that were based on care, restraint, and intergenerational survival. Nowadays, with a climate crisis and global deforestation, it is no longer a cultural hobby to learn what occurs in these interim matriarchies, but a policy and ecological need.

Forests as a Politics and Gendered Space:

Forests are not apolitical environments. They are political platforms influenced by the law, custom, and authority. The colonial forest management systems in Asia and Africa also treated forests as a source of income and imposed strict regulations on them, making them usually inaccessible to some, such as women and the local people. This exclusion was carried on into post-colonial rule as well, with the forest departments still being patriarchal entities.

Unlike other unrelated research, however, the anthropological research demonstrates a continuous and subsistence-oriented relationship between women and woods. Women go out in search of fire poppy every day, pick wild foods in times of shortage, and keep the already existing medicinal knowledge on a generational basis. With this close dependence, there is a governance ethic of regeneration, as opposed to extraction. Once women are empowered, albeit in a temporary way, the forest turns from a place of domination to one of stewardship.

Ritualised Power and Memory: Mukka Sendra as Forest Governance.

One of the most vivid manifestations of ritualised matriarchal consideration directly related to forest power can be seen in the tribal practice of the Mukka Sendra (Jani Shikar) of the Oraon people. Happening twice a decade, Mukka Sendra is not a festival of celebration but a system to change the authority. Women inherit the right to hunt, arrange armed marches along the forest, and introduce absolute rules of participation. Men are not only forbidden to go hunting, but they are also not allowed to eat the results of the hunt cooked.

The ritual is a celebration of a historical event that happened in the sixteenth century at Rohtasgarh Fort, where Oraon women struggled to protect their society against the attacking armies when men were away. Mukka Sendra is turning this memory into a living institution that publicly recognises the potential of women to defend land, inflict discipline, and become an administrative unit with a collective judgment.

Mukka Sendra is re-adapted in modern times with an ecological mindset. Most villages give animals the names they do to prevent the destruction of wildlife by making the ritual a force in preservation as well as destruction. Mukka Sendra forest turns into a controlled area of restraint, coordination, and accountability—something that is mostly lacking in extractive forest economies.

Case Study One: Odisha Women-Led Forest Regeneration.

In the Nayagarh district of Odisha, logging was not under control, and thus logging experienced in the late twentieth century led to tremendous degradation of forests. There was a failure in enforcement by the government, and forests were quickly depleted. Acting in resistance, village women made their own forest protection associations on an informal basis. These women were out during night patrols, imposing harvesting laws, and they all went against the culprits.

Decades of longitudinal research reveal that forests that were being protected by women showed a lot of regeneration in ten years. The degree of canopy cover grew, the animals came back, and the rate of illegal logging was significantly reduced. It was observed that women tended to take early measures against violations as compared to men before the damage got out of control. This example is illustrative of how even some temporary or informal matriarchal power is capable of healing the ecological balance.

Case Study Two: Jamuna Tudu and the Politics of Resistance.

One of the best-recorded contemporary instances of women assuming responsibility for the forests, perhaps, is that one of Jharkhand. Tribal women protest against the timber mafia. Notorious timber mafias that operate without any restrictions were challenged by Jamuna Tudu, a tribal woman who mobilised thousands of women. Since 1998, Jamuna groups have been putting up forest protection committees in the woodlands where they patrolled the area, blocked smuggling paths, and even confronted loggers.

She moved to cover several districts and saved more than 50,000 acres of forest. Forest records were later verified as showing major regeneration in these spots by satellite data and forestry surveys. The leadership by Jamuna Tudu shows that women's governance of the forest is not in idleness. It is tactical, aggressive, and able to tear down established structures of exploitation.

Case Study Three: Gender Outcomes and Joint Forest Management.

The Joint Forest Management (JFM) program in India, in turn, is another testimony that women make a difference in managing the forests. Comparative studies of male-dominated and women-inclusive forest committees depict outstanding differences. Forests in which women were more active performed better in terms of regeneration, more aggressive rules, and reduced levels of conflict.

An analysis conducted by the World Bank established that groups that had women tended to make long-term investments in sustainability instead of short-term extraction. Such results indicate that partial inclusion or time-limited inclusion of women can transform governance results.

Why When Under Female Domination Forests Act Differently?

The differences in ecosystems witnessed under women-managed forest governance do not happen by chance. First comes environmental degradation that happens to women. Loss of forests makes women travel longer distances to get fuel wood, suffer food insecurity, and lose access to medicinal resources. Decision-making based on these realities is more focused on preservation than profit.

Temporary matriarchies demonstrate that authority based on lived experience bears no similarity whatsoever to authority based on ownership or force. The forest turns into a communal property and not a resource to be utilised.

The Political Temporality of Power:

It is the temporality of the 24-hour matriarchy that makes it so powerful. The fact that it is time-bound enables it to operate in a patriarchal society without causing resistance, but its effect is enduring. These instances justify women’s control in public and visible terms, leaving post-regenerated woods and social perception.

It is also temporary matriarchies that reveal a very important truth about dominant forms of governance: permanence is not the key to efficacy. Even a short-lived change of power can make the system change.

Global Comparisons and Greater Conclusions:

The same trends are observed in the world. Women in some regions of Africa and Latin America provide relative conservation success in their forest commons through women's cooperatives. Such examples support the position that gender-inclusive governance does not exist merely as culture but works in a structural sense.

These lessons are increasingly urgent in the light of the ever-increasing rate of forest depletion due to climate change. This could be a solution to conservation plans all over the world, since increasing female power, either on a short-term or long-term basis, would be a revolutionary step.

Summation: What the Forest Teaches Us about Power.

When women assume control of the forest, there is hardly mayhem. Rather, forests are put under control, conserved, and replenished. The blueprint is found in the hidden tradition of the 24-hour matriarchy, whether it is ritual, resistance, or government. It teaches us that power does not require permanence in its transformative capacity, and authority does not require aggression to be effective.

In a world where the ecological system is on the way to collapse, these moments bring to mind the fact that the future of forests is not necessarily in the hands of those who use them, but in the hands of those who know them well and can take proper care of them.

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References:

• Agarwal, B. (2009). Gender and forest conservation: The impact of women's participation in community forest governance. Ecological Economics, 68(11), 2785–2799. https://www.sciencedirect.com
• Dhanagare, D. N. (1986). Peasant movements in India 1920–1950. Oxford University Press.
• Indian Express. (2017). Lady Tarzan Jamuna Tudu who takes on timber mafia. https://indianexpress.com
• Kristjanson, P., Bah, T., Kuriakose, A., Shakirova, M., Segura, G., Siegmann, K., & Granat, M. (2019). Taking action on gender gaps in forest landscapes. Program on Forests (PROFOR), Washington, DC, USA.
• Note on ethnographic/oral tradition sources: Mukka Sendra, Three Dots symbolism, Rohtasgarh battle: oral and ethnographic accounts of the Oraon tribe (personal communication, 2025). No direct online source exists.