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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Centre seeks to change forest policy to promote industrial plantations in natural forests -Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava

Centre seeks to change forest policy to promote industrial plantations in natural forests -Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava

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published Published on Mar 23, 2018   modified Modified on Mar 23, 2018
-Scroll.in

The existing policy bans commercial activity in natural forests to protect forest dwellers. The new draft policy is up for public comments till April 14.

The Union government has drafted a new National Forest Policy. If approved, the policy will allow the corporate sector to grow, harvest and sell trees on government-owned forest lands. So far, this is explicitly banned under the existing National Forest Policy, which was laid down in 1988.

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre has been wanting to open forest lands to industry since 2015, when it passed guidelines to that effect and asked states to take the initiative. But the 1988 policy did not allow that plan to proceed. Government guidelines need to adhere to the nation’s laws and policies, and the 2015 guidelines were in contravention of the 1988 forest policy and did not have an explicit legal basis either. If the new draft National Forest Policy is approved, however, it will permit the government to amend environment laws and allow industry to take over patches of forest lands.

The Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has put the new draft National Forest Policy up for public comments till April 14. The ministry did not respond to Scroll.in’s email queries asking about the reasons for allowing private plantations in the forests and its impacts on the forests and the forest dwellers.

A long-standing demand


The National Forest Policy governs the formulation of all laws and schemes related to forestry, including forest protection, management and the use of forests – such as for production of wood and by forest dwellers.

Several industries that use timber and forest produce as raw materials, such as the paper and pulp and wood-board industry, have demanded for decades that India’s forest policy allow government forest lands to be opened to industry – which they term a “reform”. The first such proposal was mooted in 1998 and then in 2008. But each time, the proposals were shot down by the government of the time.

More than 300 million tribals and other forest dwellers in India are either directly or indirectly dependent on forest lands for their livelihood. Successive governments have therefore chosen not to let industry take over green patches to protect the rights and interests of these citizens. In 2006, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government passed a law – the Forest Rights Act – to further strengthen the rights of tribals over forests, which colonial-era laws had turned into government property.

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Scroll.in, 22 March, 2018, https://scroll.in/article/872579/centre-seeks-to-change-forest-policy-to-promote-industrial-plantations-in-natural-forests


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