Forest Act comes into force, green activists cry foul

Amid strong opposition from environmentalists, the government grants tribals and forest dwellers rights over land and forest produce, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jan 2, 2008, 03:14:22 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Amid strong opposition from environmentalists, the government on Tuesday notified the rules enforcing the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, giving tribals and forest dwellers rights over land and forest produce.

Almost 80 years after "historic injustice" was done via Indian Forest Act, 1927 taking away all forest rights of tribals and dwellers, the Central government took about two years in implementing the law once it was introduced in Parliament.

But, the law will not be applicable in the critical tiger habitats notified by Environment and Forest ministry on Monday. This will allow the government to relocate about 10,000 villages living in 27 tiger reserves for which the government has provided about Rs 4,000 crore.

The move is aimed at pacifying the strong tiger lobby, which had claimed that Forest Rights law would be a death trap for the already dwindling tiger population, and Congress high command, which had expressed similar concerns.

The Forest Rights law allows gram sabha, the elected village body, to restore traditional, land and community rights to tribals and forest dwellers, provided they have been living there for the last 25 years. The period will be calculated from December 2005.

The proviso, environmentalists claim, would be a death knell for Indian forests. "See what has happened to 250-square kilometre of forests near Ranchi, which was declared 'munda kodkhati'(area for locals to use forest). There is not even a single tree left there," said P.K. Sen, former Project Tiger, Director. Environmentalists like he and Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India believe that the government has put the country's fragile wildlife into grave danger by implementing the law in the present form. But, Valmik Thapar, a wildlife activist, was a little more cautious. He said, "In my opinion the law will have serious repercussions on wildlife in India. But for the time being I will keep my fingers crossed."

The Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a federation of tribal and forest dwellers' organisations from eleven states, welcomed the government decision and termed it a victory for all tribals and forest dwellers. In the same vein, the federation also accused the government of watering down the primary Act in the rules, notified on Tuesday. "The rule 3(1) defines the gram sabha as the gram sabha of the panchayat, which would include

numerous actual villages. This will make democratic functioning impossible (as the number will simply be too large); further, in many areas forest dwellers will be the minority. This contradicts both the Forest Rights Act — section 2(p) of which clearly states that, in Scheduled Areas at least, the gram sabha should be that of the hamlet — as well as the

panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996. The rule will make the law impossible to implement," said Shankar, convenor of the federation.

The tribal affairs ministry officials, however, said that the district administered would be trained on implementing the law as desired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a recent meeting of National Wildlife Board.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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