The world today is grappling with an unprecedented phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic. The nationwide lockdown has severely affected the livelihoods and survival of Adivasis (tribal communities) and forest dwellers as they are unable to collect and sell forest produce. The lockdown, which began in March, coincided with the Minor Forest Produce (MFP) harvesting season.
For the tribal communities in the country, approximately 70 per cent of the income comes from the MFPs. Furthermore, when the lives and livelihoods of these vulnerable communities are at stake, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has issued an advisory that restricts the community’s access to the protected areas in a bid to save wildlife from any potential human-to-animal transmission of the novel coronavirus. While this isn’t scientifically proven, the advisory will severely threaten the survival and food security of these communities.
These are very significant rights that communities have fought for decades that culminated in the enactment of The Scheduled Tribes and Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA). The current context has demonstrated the significance of the FRA even more.
Forests in India have always been contested spaces. Given the multiple uses of forests and different agencies claiming their control over them, governance has largely been an issue of social conflict given that forest landscapes cover over 23 per cent of the country.
In India, almost 60 per cent of the forest cover is found in tribal–dominated states like Jharkhand, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh. More than 300 million poor people, especially Adivasis (tribal communities) depend on forests for their survival. These are also the mineral-rich states but suffer from the classic case of a resource curse.
Tribal people in these states continue to live in chronic poverty as a result of dispossession from resources. The large-scale displacement from land due to infrastructural development projects, mining, and violence against women are some of the factors that have intensified the struggle of the tribal people. Between 2015 and 2018, over 20,000 hectares (ha) of forest land has been diverted for activities such as mining, thermal power plants, and other infrastructure projects. As per the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs (2014 data), more than 60 million people were displaced since India’s Independence, of which 30 per cent were tribal communities.
The state management of forests without community participation has been relentlessly opposed by the local communities. While competing interests look at forests for timber, wildlife protection, mineral wealth, and land; communities regard the forest as a source of livelihood and identity. From the colonial era to the post-independence years, the forest policies of India were primarily focused on commercial forestry and exclusionary conservation.
Following the colonial approaches to govern and manage the forests, the State denied communities their rights over forests that they had traditionally used and conserved. The Forest Rights Act, 2006 was meant to correct this historical injustice.
There are two main aspects of the FRA. One is the recognition and vesting of substantive pre-existing rights and providing a framework for the recording of forest rights, and empowering gram sabhas with the right to protect, conserve, and manage community forest resources. This marks a decisive step in resource governance. The 2006 Act endeavours to empower communities to govern the forests for sustainable use and conservation leading to a paradigm shift in the governance of forests in India.
However, given the multiple actors and various legal regimes that determine forest use, there is a constant tussle over the control and decision-making over the forest. While the FRA addresses the rights issues and the Tribal Affairs Ministry is the nodal agency, it is largely silent on processes and procedures that should follow in case of community resources or agricultural land recognised need to be diverted for infrastructural projects.
The Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA), 1980 lays down the procedure for diversion of forests for non-forest purpose with the Environment Ministry being the nodal agency. Through a circular issued in 2009, the Environment Ministry linked the FRA and the FCA, which is now reflected in the Forest Conservation Rules, 2017. Written gram sabha consent and completion of the rights recognition process is mandatory prior to any forest diversion. There are also multiple other legislations, which have a bearing in the same context. While in the case of forest diversion, when linked to the FRA, recognises the community’s roles in decision-making, the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act, 1957 has no such provisions.
Similarly, exclusionary conservations measures are leading to relocation from national parks and tiger reserves following the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and in many cases without the FRA implementation. The provisions of the decision-making power of gram sabhas over community forest resources have furthered the long-standing dynamics of power and control over these resources between the communities and the forest department.
The report “Locating the Breach” mapped 703 ongoing land conflicts across India. Almost 68 per cent conflicts are located on the commons where tenurial rights are recognised under the law, but challenged constantly by the eminent domain of the State.
The ground experiences also point to the fact that communities, civil society and local movements have used a variety of strategies to resist these conflicts. They have sought effective remedies by evoking multiple laws to challenge rights violations. Therefore, to understand forest rights, it is important to understand and unpack the various laws involved in forest-governance, authorities involved and procedures used to negotiate and determine how forests to be used.
One such attempt has been through a recently-launched online course by Oxfam India on Community rights and forest governance (http://bit.ly/ForestRights). Developed in partnership with the Centre for Policy Research and the Nagrik Open Civic Learning, the course caters to a wide range of stakeholders – lawyers, journalists, students, activists and researchers. The course will help to develop a clear understanding of the historical, economic, political and social factors driving the uses of forests, the legal and administrative framework for the governance of resources and rights in forests and the negotiation of conflicting claims over land use. The course also discusses the practical tools that communities can use to protect and advance their interests in these conflicts. The course is also being developed in Hindi and Odiya to have a wider outreach.
In the times of the COVID19 crisis, when the attention is focused on the pandemic and the on-going efforts, this opportunity is also being used to amend or pass orders/circulars to ease the process of forest and environment clearances. The environment ministry’s Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), on account of COVID19, has recommended extending the validity of forest clearance automatically for the government-owned mines whose lease period got a 20-year extension and thus will not require fresh forest clearance. It is the local people living in these areas who can assess the impacts on the ground and report violations prior to extensions given to mining leases. Therefore, it is even more important to understand the critical provisions of the Forest Rights Act and forest diversion processes in the current context.
Sreetama Gupta Bhaya currently works with Oxfam India
