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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Grass or tree?: A rule reclassifying bamboo claims to benefit tribals - but industry will gain more -Nitin Sethi

Grass or tree?: A rule reclassifying bamboo claims to benefit tribals - but industry will gain more -Nitin Sethi

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published Published on Dec 1, 2017   modified Modified on Dec 1, 2017
-Scroll.in

At the heart of the problem is a discrepancy between two laws on rights for Adivasis to the bamboo growing on their traditional forestlands.

Across the world, taxonomists have classified bamboo as a grass. But under Indian law, it was treated as a tree. This definition has long given state forest departments monopolistic control over the valuable natural resource. On November 23, the central government loosened this grip by amending the Indian Forest Act, 1927, to ensure that bamboo will no longer be treated as a tree if grown outside reserved forest areas.

The government claimed that “the measure will go a long way in enhancing the agricultural income of farmers and tribals, especially in North East and Central India”. In reality, experts say that wood-based industries will derive greater benefits from the move than than tribals and forest dwellers.

This mismatch is because of a contraction between the Indian Forest Act, 1927, and the Forest Rights Act, 2006, which gives forest dwellers complete rights to the bamboo growing on their traditional forestlands.

“The ordinance doesn’t address the most fundamental issue of the status of bamboo in forest areas, and the fact that from 2006 that has been the property of forest dwellers,” said Shankar Gopalakrishnan of Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a federation of tribal right groups that advocates for implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

Driving the debate over the legal classification of bamboo is a long history of business interests, government control and India’s approach to forest conservation.

Precious resource

Bamboo is an important raw material for several industries, such as manufacturers of paper pulp and wood-based products. The biofuels industry is also increasingly looking to use bamboo as a raw material. In 2003, the now-disbanded Planning Commission estimated that the bamboo industry had the potential to be valued at Rs 48,000 crore annually by 2015.

The Indian Forest Act, 1927, defined bamboo as a tree, regardless of where it grew. The growing, cutting, transporting and selling of all tree species listed in the law are the monopoly of state forest departments. The act or its state variations also regulated bamboo grown outside designated forestlands.

Tribals and other forest dwellers directly dependent on forests have long asked for full rights to harvest and sell the fast-growing grass species that was denied to them by colonial forest law. Industry has also demanded the right to grow and harvest bamboo on both forestland and plantations. So far, tribals, and to a lesser extent industry, have been restrained in accessing bamboo by a cumbersome licensing system.

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Scroll.in, 29 November, 2017, https://scroll.in/article/859327/why-a-new-ordinance-reclassifying-bamboo-as-grass-will-help-industry-more-than-the-tribals


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