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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | States violate community forest rights as Centre delays implementation of CAF Act -Ishan Kukreti

States violate community forest rights as Centre delays implementation of CAF Act -Ishan Kukreti

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published Published on Dec 4, 2017   modified Modified on Dec 4, 2017
-Down to Earth

States exploit the delay in the drafting of rules for the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act to assert rights over land claimed by communities under the Forest Rights Act

More than a year after Parliament passed the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016 (CAF), the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) is yet to roll out the mandatory rules to implement it. In fact, the ministry in November asked an extension till January 3, 2018, from the Rajya Sabha Committee on Subordinate Legislation to finalise the rules, which set the deadline of June 2017. “The proposed rules are currently with the ministry’s integrated finance division,” says D K Sinha, inspector general, forest, MoEF&CC and memeber of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA).

In the absence of the rules, forest departments in at least 15 states are undertaking afforestation as per the state CAF guidelines released by MoEF&CC in 2009, which are silent on the fundamental question of what kind of land—forest or revenue—can be used for carrying out the drives. As a result they are using the funds under CAF to take charge of forestlands that are being considered for community ownership and management, under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA). At present, the fund under the Act, which makes afforestation compulsory to compensate for the forestland diverted for non-forest purposes, has Rs 42,000 crore of which 10 per cent should be with the National CAMPA and the remaining with the state CAMPAs.

“Odisha forest department is using CAF to fence land over which local communities have claimed rights. Then they are using the land for plantations,” says Sanghamitra Dubey of Vasundhara, a non-profit working on tribal rights in Odisha. As per Vasundhara data, the forest department has started plantations in forestland in at least 10 villages in Kalahandi district. It says residents in nine of the 10 villages have already applied for community forest rights. “Except from one village, the forest department did not even consult the gram sabhas (village council) before diverting the land for compensatory afforestation,” says Dubey.

When Down To Earth spoke to Sudipto Das, the state’s chief conservator of forest, CAMPA, he said he had no knowledge about the conversions because he had “recently joined the department”. The state received Rs 241 crore under CFA in 2016-17, of which it has spent close to Rs 2.97 crore for 48 afforestation drives.

“Compensatory afforestation as a concept never incorporated the idea of public participation. This has become complicated with the introduction of FRA, which allows people to claim rights over forestland. Now there is a clash between the two laws,” says Kanchi Kohli, legal research director, Namati Environmental Justice Programme, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

Please click here to read more.

Down to Earth, 20 November, 2017, http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/how-states-are-violating-community-forest-rights-due-to-delay-in-implementation-of-caf-act-59165


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