New forest bill can hurt tribals. Debate it in detail

FCA amendment bill has the potential to hasten the diversion of forests for non-forest purposes, especially where forest land has been classified as degraded

It began in the colonial era. Hostile attitudes of the authorities towards forest-dwelling tribes were first seeded by the British government, which saw these marginalised groups as encroachers on forest land that needed to be resettled elsewhere. Independence brought little change in these biases. The Agriculture Commission of 1976 classified forest tribes as “impediments in the development” of forests. The forest policy of 1988 was the first public document where the government explicitly conceded that there existed a forest-dwelling tribal population. This policy also included in its objectives the security of fodder, fuel, and other requirements of this population.

Tribal farmers In Pankhanda tribal village are seen doing rice farming, in Thane, in Mumbai. (Praful Gangurde / HT Photo )

Such acknowledgement, however, remained largely on paper for the next two decades, even as street protests raged. There was little recognition of the people’s right to continue living in forest land despite them having lived there for generations.

It was only with the passage of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in 2006 that the system accepted millions of tribal and other people as rightful dwellers of forests. The Forest (Conservation) or FC rules of 2014 and 2017 recognised this.

FRA compliance in FC processes required that the recognition of rights be completed in the proposed forest to be diverted, that titles be issued, details of the proposal and impacts on scheduled tribes (STs) and other forest dwellers be placed in front of gram sabhas, and their free prior informed consent be sought before sending the proposal for stage I clearance. Gram sabha — set up as a constitutionally recognised assembly of voters — was seen as the right place for a common villager to voice her dissent or consent.

The Forest (Conservation) Act or FCA was passed in 1980 when the then central government realised that states were diverting forest land for non-forest purposes at an alarming rate. FCA required that the states or any government body take a prior clearance from the Union ministry of forests, environment, and climate change (MoEFCC).

In 2022, the Union government changed the FC rules, doing away with the requirement of seeking consent and leaving the process of recognition of rights to be carried out after stage I clearance. This became a bit of a fait accompli because marginalised tribes and forest-dwelling communities were often left with little option other than accepting whatever compensation was being offered and hand their forests over to the project promoters.

But now, the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023 threatens more large-scale disruptions. The bill sailed through the Lok Sabha last week and is likely to be passed by the Rajya Sabha soon. Though the government’s numerical strength in Parliament meant that the passage of the bill was most likely a given, the fact that there was very little debate on pertinent issues that might impact the lives of thousands of people is regrettable.

FCA provisions that narrow the definition of forests and make larger tracts of land available for development and infrastructure projects — especially in the Northeast where vast chunks of entire states would fall under the category where relaxation in environmental norms are given to within 100 km of international borders — is likely to affect tribespeople and forest-dwelling communities adversely. But how would these provisions co-exist with the norms under FRA, which bestows significant rights to these groups?

This question was raised in the Parliament, and the tribal affairs minister responded by saying that FRA and FCA would be parallel processes. It remains unclear how two very different bouquets of norms can exist parallelly. This was also a curious response because the ministry of tribal affairs (MoTA), in an office memorandum on February 6, 2018, had taken a different stance.

“...While MoEFCC had maintained that it [FRA clearance] would be required to be obtained by project proponent at stage II of FCA clearance, the views of MoTA is that this would prove to be fait accompli as by that time the project proponents would have made sufficient progress and the tribals living in the forest area earmarked for use by project would be put to a great disadvantage and it has been seen that many a times the project applies for FRA clearance only in the last minute…” the ministry had written.

In another communication from the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) to the MoEFCC on September 26, 2022, the constitutional body requested that FC rules be kept in abeyance.

“Out of 128 applications for forest diversion over 100 ha for mining that were processed between 2009 and 2018, 74 were approved (stage II) and 46 were given in-principle approval (stage I), with only 5 rejected and 4 closed for various reasons. None of the rejections was on grounds of FRA non-compliance or any adverse comments by rights-holding gram sabhas. Furthermore, in a subset of 14 cases where complete documentation was available, the records showed that the collectors’ certification that the FRA process was complete was given in violation of ground realities: all sites were forested and inhabited by forest-dwellers but no CFR process had been completed anywhere. Further investigation on the ground revealed that gram sabha meetings…. made no mention of the possibility of the gram sabha having any community rights over the forest. The changes introduced by the FC Rules 2022 will further increase such violations.”

The FCA amendment bill has the potential to hasten the diversion of forests for non-forest purposes, especially in cases where the forest land has been classified as degraded. A bio-diverse natural forest cannot be compensated by any artificial plantation. It deserves to be debated and discussed in detail.

Milind Thatte is director of Tribal Ethos & Economics Research Foundation, an independent think-tank based in Maharashtra. The views expressed are personal