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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Forest Rights Act May Pave Way to Disputes

After visits to 17 states, a committee set up in April last year to check out the implementation of India’s Forest Rights Act, meant to fix “historical injustice,” wasn’t very happy. The law, which came into full effect two years ago, was intended to assert the rights of forest dwellers more firmly.

“The overall finding of the committee is that, with notable exceptions, the implementation of the FRA has been poor, and therefore its potential to achieve livelihood security and changes in forest governance along with strengthening of forest conservation, has hardly been achieved,” said a 284-page report on the law’s progressissued on Monday.

The Indian government appears to be trying to rectify the legacy of British-era laws to protect the forests or to secure forest produce like timber for colonial revenue. Those laws left forest populations dependent on the decisions of local forest officers to carry on with their traditional livelihoods, a situation that largely carried on after Independence.

In August, the environment ministry rescinded clearance for a bauxite mine proposed by a Vedanta Resources subsidiary on the grounds that the project violated this law and didn’t secure the consent of local people in Orissa state. But the large-scale mapping and documentation of forest rights, in the form of land title deeds issued to individuals and communities, that was supposed to make it easier for the government to uphold forest rights isn’t happening the way it’s supposed to.

The report agreed with concerns previously raised by activists that, although the law provides for it, few claims have been made to assert community rights over resources. Activists say that states need to do a better job of helping communities understand that they can apply for rights over areas used for grazing or for collecting forest produce the community needed for its daily livelihood. Monday’s report agreed that this part of the law had been “largely neglected.” Instead, it’s focus so far is largely on individual - rather than group rights.

The way the act is being implemented could also lead to future disputes, and not just between industry and forest dwellers.

The report says many individual titles are being granted without checking them against the areas in question. So far about a million claims have been accepted across India. The report said states need to do a better job of physically measuring land for which a title is being granted, in the presence of neighbors, as well as using satellite imagery so that competing claims don’t arise later.

The report said the western state of Maharashtra had initially done a very good job in gathering information using the available technologies.

But, the committee noted, a state panel that was monitoring the implementation of the act in Maharashtra “stopped this process half way because of the ’slow progress’ and now title deeds are granted without land measurement, which is a very serious concern.”

The report also noted that people are continuing to be turfed out of wildlife areas for conservation reasons, which it said is in violation of the law. In some mining areas, the committee said claims had been rejected with no reason offered as to why.