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India's Supreme Court has ordered its government to evict a million people from their homes for the good of the country's wildlife.

The Washington Post reported the ruling, issued Wednesday, concluded a decade-long case that pitted some of India's most vulnerable citizens' rights against the preservation of its forests.

The court told the government to evict over one million members of indigenous tribes from their homes in public forest land "because they had not met the legal criterion to live there", reported the Post.

With over 700 tribal groups, India is home to over 100 million indigenous people. While forest land is legally controlled by the government, people have lived in these areas for centuries. The number of affected people is estimated to go up to 1.89 million when more states comply with the order.

Human Rights Watch acting Managing Director Nicholas Dawes wrote the ruling had "staggering" implications for India's most marginalized.

India
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