Lok Sabha clears contentious bill that seeks to amend forest act
The Forest Conservation (Amendment) Bill, which provides for contentious exemptions for constructions on forest land, was passed in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
The Forest Conservation (Amendment) Bill, which provides for contentious exemptions for constructions on forest land, was passed in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday despite concerns and in the middle of protests as the deadlock over the Opposition’s insistence on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement in the House on the Manipur violence continued.
The bill was in March referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), which invited public suggestions in May. The panel cleared all amendments the environment ministry proposed even as four Opposition lawmakers on the committee submitted dissent notes.
During the debate on the bill, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav cited international commitments on the climate crisis and Nationally Determined Contributions with three quantitative goals. He said the first two goals have been achieved nine years in advance but the third of creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3.0 billion tons of CO2 equivalent was yet to be realised.
“For that, we need to focus on agroforestry and increase tree cover. The goal is important for the entire world.”
“In 1996 there was a Supreme Court order which said forests should be recognised as per the dictionary meaning of the word. There was ambiguity around this description. Due to this several developmental projects were stalled. For example, in Jharkhand, if there is a girls’ school in a forested area and we cannot build toilets because of this ambiguity, it impacted public utility projects of this nature,” Yadav said.
Yadav added they want critical public utility projects to reach these regions. “The exemption to forest areas in 100km area from the borders, LAC [the Line of Actual Control with China], and LOC [Line of Control, the de facto India-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir] will help develop roads critical for border areas... help develop strategic infrastructure for our national security.”
He underlined the JPC reviewed the bill and passed all the amendments proposed.
Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member Rajendra Agarwal, who headed the JPC, was presiding over the proceedings in Speaker Om Birla’s absence when the bill was discussed and passed.
UDF MP NK Premachandran said that a substantial motion on a policy matter cannot be made until the proceedings related to the no confidence motion are concluded. Bhartruhari Mahtab of Biju Janata Dal asked if the amendment would cover India’s vast forests under the unclassed category. Yadav said the amendment would cover all recorded forests. Experts also found that less time was given to Opposition MPs to voice their views on the bill and its impact on forest dwellers.
“The submission of the JPC report and the subsequent role of its chairperson in presiding over the Lok Sabha proceedings during the bill’s approval has raised numerous troubling questions. Clearly, the chairperson is determined to stifle any dissenting views against the bill, as evidenced today when MPs who dared to express even the slightest disagreement were abruptly cut short, while ruling party MPs were granted ample time for lengthy speeches in support of the bill. Such conduct severely undermines the standard of parliamentary proceedings, plunging it to an alarming low,” said Debadityo Sinha, Lead-Climate & Ecosystems, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
The bill was passed days after around 400 ecologists, scientists, and naturalists wrote to Yadav and members of Parliament on July 18, urging them not to table the proposed legislation. They cited the devastating impact of climate change and environmental degradation and highlighted floods this summer across north India.
“This is the time for the government to reaffirm its commitment to protecting the country’s immense biodiversity…This amendment will only seek to hasten the decline of India’s natural forests.” They called for additional consultations with domain experts.
In its 201-page report, the joint committee stated that it received 1,309 memoranda along with comments from various state governments, departments and ministries and four notes of dissent from opposition MPs who are part of the committee, among others.
The bill covers only land that has been declared or notified as forest under the Indian Forest Act, 1927, or under any other law. Those not recorded under laws above but has been recorded as forest in any government record, as on or after 25.10.1980, except such land whose land-use was changed from forest to non-forest purpose on or before 12.12.1996 will also be covered under the Act. The bill states prior forest clearance isn’t needed in some cases, including for forest land situated within a distance of 100km along international borders or Line of Control or Line of Actual Control, and which are to be used for construction of strategic linear project of national importance. Almost all of the ecologically fragile north-east would fall in this category.
The amendment bill also exempts from seeking prior forest clearance activity on strip forests (up to 0.10 hectares or ha) situated alongside a rail line or a public road maintained by the government and tree plantations on private land not categorised as forests and for up to 5ha proposed to be used for construction of defence related or public utility projects in a Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected area.
The report admits experts have highlighted the amendments were likely to dilute the Supreme Court’s 1996 landmark Godavarman judgment. The verdict widened the scope of the Forest Conservation Act to apply to any land recorded as forest irrespective of its ownership — large tracts of unclassed forests in the northeast, for example.
The ministry clarified that unclassed forests will also be covered.
Experts pointed out that the 100km exemption from border areas can be detrimental to ecologically sensitive areas of the northeast. “Please look at the northeast, for example. If you are going to exempt 100km from each border, what is going to be left? It is a very sensitive area. As it is, we are seeing the problems which are being created because of certain communities who have had traditional rights and customary rights to forests under Schedule VI [of] the Constitution which itself, I believe, is inadequate,” noted an unnamed expert in the submission made to the JPC.
The Sixth Schedule provides for the autonomous administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram. Northeastern states including Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, Sikkim -- all ruled by the BJP or its allies -- have said a clause on exempting forest clearance in forest land within 100km along the international borders would cover their entire states and open up ecologically important forest areas to a change in land-use.
The environment ministry said the 100km provision has been decided in consultation with the defence ministry. It insisted it is considered optimum to meet the requirement of defence organisations and strategic requirements. The proposed exemption along the international borders and in LWE areas are not generic exemptions and will not be available for private entities, it said.
Experts have said the bill violates provisions of the Forest Rights Act as it does not clearly speak of prior informed consent of village councils on forest clearances. The environment ministry has insisted there was no violation.
The Congress’s Pradyut Bordoloi, among those who submitted dissent notes to the JPC, wrote what remains an obvious gap, even in the statement and objects of the amendment, is the reconciliation of the forest conservation legislation with the forest rights question. He added that should have been important, especially when almost all proposed amendments will necessarily come to bear on prevailing, pending, or recognised forest rights. “There is an absence of any perspective on how existing proprietary, customary, and livelihood use rights will be dealt with for net zero-compliant lands or in the case of fresh forest land diversions.”
Another major concern cited by experts is that the bill includes zoos and safaris in forestry activity. “The dispensation to zoos and safaris may lead to concrete structures and road network in the forest areas. (b) Zoos and safaris now being treated as forestry activity is based on absurd premises that it is ancillary to conservation of forest and wildlife. (c) Allowing zoos and safaris within the scope of non-forest activities may disproportionately commercialise forests and wildlife without considering the rights of forest-dependent people, wildlife habitats, and ecosystem services,” a submission pointed out.
“This amendment comes on the heels of a conflicted interpretation of what is a forest (as compared to tree plantations) and what use legally recognised forest lands should be put too. It also comes with the hypothesis that loosening the regulatory hold on forest lands in specific regions and certain non-forest lands in general will incentivise investment for infrastructure development and climate mitigation. If the amendments are accepted in the upper house of Parliament, it will be critical for the government to itself review the efficacy of these assumptions and whether the concerns raised as part of the consultative process continue to have merit,” said Kanchi Kohli, a legal and policy researcher.
“All these exemptions considered in the Bill will be subject to such terms and conditions, including compensatory afforestation, mitigation Plans, etc., as will be specified by the Central Government. To bring uniformity, existing provisions of the Principal Act relating to assignment of forest land on lease to private entities has been extended to Government companies as well. The Bill also added new activities viz. infrastructure for frontline forest staff, ecotourism, zoo and safari into the array of forestry activities for the cause of conservation of forests. Surveys and investigation in the forest areas will not be considered as a non-forestry activity in view of the fact that such activities are temporary in nature and involve no perceptible change in the land use. The Section 6 of the Bill empowering the Central Government to issue directions for the proper implementation of the Act, has also been passed by the Lok Sabha,” the environment ministry said in a note on Wednesday.
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