6.7 Forest Rights in India
Forest Rights in
India
Before
India was established as a British Colony, there was no forest policy. Each
ruler of various states in India had his or her own approach to manage the
forest resources in their territories. The British imposed the so called scientific forest management in
India whereby their sole agenda was focused on continuous commercial
production of the timber. The formula of the forest management at that
time in India was a typical European production based forestry model for, the
pressure of man of forests was not as high as in current times.
Conflict over Forest Rights and tribal
revolts
The permanence settlement of 1757, the forest act of 1865
and 1878 and the forest policy of 1894 were one of the root causes of
rebellions and revolts of the indigenous communities in India. These revolts
began from 1794 and continued till 1920s. The target of these rebellions was
the new land and forest policies which left them devoid of their traditional
rights over forests. But the rebellions were crushed ruthlessly and British
kept brining fresh areas under state control, formulating new laws for
legitimizing the property rights transferred from communities to state.
In due course of time, forests were declared state property and the
rights of the forest dwellers vis-a-vis the commercially valued species were
curtailed. In some of the forest areas, there was a complete ban on the human
activities such as collection of firewood, fodder, medicinal plants, bamboo
etc.
In 1864, the Forest Department was established,
which strongly asserted the state monopoly over forest resources and exclusion
of the tribal communities from almost all kinds of rights over forest produce.
This was the foundation of modern principles of Forest Administration in our
country.
In 1894, the first
Indian Forest Policy was adopted by the colonial regime. The
policy viewed the forests as the potential sources for generating profits and
‘stressed’ on the need to preserve forests of the hilly regions. But the hidden
agenda was to consolidate the state’s property rights over the forests. The
forest dwellers were not only denied their traditional rights but no role was
given to them in the preservation of the forests. This was the beginning of
marginalization of the forest dwellers in India.
Following the independence of India, the Forest Policy
Resolution 1952 called for the protection of wildlife and preservation of fauna
by demarcating the forests for sanctuaries and national parks. This culminated
in the enactment of Wildlife
Protection Act in 1972. The Forest
Policy 1988 deviated from the economic importance for the first time and
treated them as ecological necessity as source of goods for local populations.
These goods were called Non Timber
Forest Produce (NTFP). This policy also set the target of
increasing India’s forest cover to 33%.
The 1988 Forest policy paved the way for implementation
of the Joint Forest Management (JFM) which
included the involvement of local village communities and voluntary
agencies in the regeneration of the degraded forests. This was for the
first time in centuries that the rights of the local communities over the
forest lands were specified.
·
But the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 had
already criminalized the forest people and taken away their traditional NTFP
and fishing rights, while poaching could never be effectively stopped.
Forest Rights Act 2006
In 1990, a Joint Forest Management Circular was released
by the Government of India, which recommended the involvement of village
communities, voluntary agencies in the regeneration of the degraded forest
lands. However this circular had no force of law behind it.
However, the Forest
Act 2006 marked a real water shade in the history of the forest
communities in India. For the first time, the Government of India via the Scheduled Tribes and the Other Forest Dwellers
(Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, admitted that ‘forest rights on the ancestral lands and their
habitat were not adequately recognized in the consolidation of state forests
during the colonial periods as well as in Independent India resulting in
Historical injustice with the scheduled tribes and other traditional forest
dwellers, who are integral to the very survival of the forest ecosystem”.
This Forest Rights Act 2006
provides the following:
·
Tenurial
Security and access rights to forest dwellers
·
Right
to hold and live in forest land under individual or common occupation for
habitation or for the self-cultivation for livelihood.
·
Right
of ownership access to collect, use and dispose of minor forest produce that
has been traditonay collected within or outside the village boundaries.
·
Other
community rights such as on fish and water bodies.
·
Rights
of settlement and conversion of forest
villages into revenue
villages.
As per this act, Gram
Sabha plays pivotal role in ensuring the rights of the forest
dwellers, decision making, planning and management for Joint Forest Management.
Defining
a Forest Village and a Revenue Village
Forest Village
As per the Forest Act 2006, “forest villages” means the
settlements which have been established inside the forests by the forest
department of any State Government for forestry operations or which were
converted into forest villages through the forest reservation process and
includes forest settlement villages, fixed demand holdings, all types of taungya settlements, by whatever name called,
for such villages and includes lands for cultivation and other uses, permitted
by the Government.
Revenue Village
A Revenue Village is a small administrative region in
India, with defined borders, that is recognized by the District Administration.
One revenue village may contain many hamlets.
In the rural areas
the smallest area of habitation, viz., the village generally follows the limits
of a revenue village that is recognised by the normal district administration. The
revenue village need not necessarily be a single agglomeration of the
habitations.
Thus, a revenue village has a definite surveyed boundary
and each village is a separate administrative unit with separate village
accounts. It may have one or more hamlets. The entire revenue village is one
unit.
Impact
on Lives of Forest Dwellers living in Forest Villages
The most significant difference in living standards of
the tribals living in forest and revenue villages in India is that the tribals
of the Forest villages have lived in the state of insecurity and bondage. The
dwellers of Forest Villages can’t access various schemes of the state and
central governments which are implemented on the basic level of revenue
villages. Over 60 years after Independence, the residents of ‘forest villages’
and other settlements and unsurveyed villages in forests remain deprived of
access to most development programmes due to the land on which these are
located continuing to be recorded as ‘forest’.
·
Whereas
officially there are an estimated 2500 to 3000 Forest Villages, unofficial
estimates suggest their number to be over 10,000.
·
As
no agency other than forest departments can undertake any development work on
forest land, most of these settlements remain outside the jurisdiction of any
local government,
and their residents in some states cannot obtain even domicile
certificates (as only the revenue department can issue these, but it does not
have jurisdiction over forest land) or even voting rights.
Due to their residents lacking any legal rights over the
land, they are treated like ‘non-citizens’ ever vulnerable to eviction or
displacement without entitlement to compensation or rehabilitation.
Conversion
of Forest Villages into Revenue Villages
The 1990 Circular of Ministry of Environment and Forests
(MOEF), Government of India had for the first time mandated the conversion of
forest villages into revenue villages and settlement of other old habitations.
But this circular was lacking legislative backing. Section 2F of the Forest
Rights Act 2006 reiterated the MoEF’s 1990 guidelines, and enabled the
residents of all ‘forest villages’ as defined above, many created by the forest
departments themselves in the past to ensure availability of bonded labour for
forestry operations, to get their villages/settlements converted into revenue
villages.
[Source:https://www.gktoday.in/academy/article/forest-rights-in-india/]
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