Context:

• The Forest Rights Act completed 15 years. This has been marred by myriad implementational issues between the Forest Department and various Tribal Rights Groups.

Forest Rights act:

-  The act recognises mainly two types of forest dewellers:

1. Forest Dwelling Scheduled Tribe
2. Other traditional forest dewellers.

- It gives these communities the right to cultivate the land maximum upto 4 hectare.

Aims of act:

• Grants legal recognition to the rights of traditional forest dwelling communities, partially correcting the injustice caused by the forest laws.
• Makes a beginning towards giving communities and the public a voice in forest and wildlife conservation.

Types of Rights granted:

1. Land Rights:

• Forest dewellers gets the right maximum upto 4 hectares.
• The land cannot be sold or transferred to anyone except by inheritance.
• Those who are cultivating land but don’t have document can claim up to 4 hectares, as long as they are cultivating the land themselves for a livelihood.

2. Use Rights:

• Minor forest produce things like tendu patta, herbs, medicinal plants etc “that has been traditionally collected (see section 3(1) (c)). This does not include timber.
• Grazing grounds and water bodies
• Traditional areas of use by nomadic or pastoralist communities i.e. communities that move with their herds, as opposed to practicing settled agriculture.

3. Right to Protect and Conserve:

• For the first time, this law also gives the community the right to protect and manage the forest.
• Section 3(1) (i) provide a right and a power to conserve community forest resources.
• Section 5 gives the community a general power to protect wildlife, forests, etc.

Proceedure of Rights:

• The gram sabha (full village assembly, NOT the gram panchayat) makes a recommendation – i.e who has been cultivating land for how long, which minor forest produce is collected, etc.
• The gram sabha’s recommendation goes through two stages of screening committees at the taluka and district levels.
• The district level committee makes the final decision.
• At both the taluka and the district levels, any person who believes a claim is false can appeal to the Committees.
• One cant appeal beyond the district level committee.

Importance of these Rights:

Checking the Wrongs on Forest Dwelling communities:

• The acts looks to right the wrongs of government policies in both colonial and independent India toward forest-dwelling communities, whose claims over their resources were taken away during 1850s.
• The alienation of tribes was one of the factors behind the Naxal movement, which affects states like Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand. The act through identifying IFR and CFR tries to provide inclusion to tribes.
• The act will ensure that people get to manage their forest on their own which will regulate exploitation of forest resources by officials, forest governance and management as well as tribal rights etc.

Sustainable forest protection

• The act also has potential of sustainably protecting forest through traditional ways along with providing tribes means of livelihood.

Expansion of fifth and 6^th Schedule:

• It expands the mandate of the Fifth and the Sixth Schedules of the Constitution that protect the claims of indigenous communities over tracts of land or forests they inhabit.

Better Forest Governance:

• It has the potential to democratise forest governance by recognising community forest resource rights over an estimated 85.6 million acres, thereby empowering over 200 million forest dwellers in over 1,70,000 villages.

Challenges :

• The debate on the issue of the act leading to even more encroachment of already troubled forest lands has started.
• Though the act tries to focus on the needs of the forest dwellers, it defeats the purpose when the eviction rate of families from these lands increases as their claims on these lands are not accepted by the government.
• The role of the sub-divisional level committee is always questioned as they have been given the important right to make a decision on the needs and claims of the marginal communities on the piece of forest lands.

Unwillingness of the Forest department:

• Issues have arisen from the part of forest departments who have been seen unwilling to give their forest lands. Role of forest department to let the forest dwellers sow in the forest the reap the benefits is criticized as tribes like Baigas have blamed the department to not support their claim over the land.

Lack of Capability among tribes:

• The tribes and communities also lack the capability to prove their occupancy over the forest land and the law turns out to be weak to strengthen their claim.

Commercial Plantations in Degraded lands:

• Government’s role of allowing commercial plantations in degraded land is also debated and questioned as the degraded land makes 40% of forests.

Lack of Verifiable Data:

• The studies conducted in Chhattisgarh revealed that during various instances, the plots claimed and the awards given do not match.

Information Asymmetry:

• The Tribals majorly received lesser rights than claimed due to the fact that they believed if they claimed their right, they may lose the smaller claim as well. This information asymmetry had led to the further alienation of the tribal persons from the mainstream.

Failure of Last Mile Connectivity of Schemes:

• Various developmental schemes for rural development such as Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram, etc. have not been able to empower the vulnerable sections and failed to allow for the assertion of political space.

Lack of Quality Land:

• The land allotted to the Tribal persons is mostly small, of poor quality and not very fertile. The lack of irrigation facilities and labour-wage economy further destroy their productivity and profitability. The declining industry of local cigars in Chhattisgarh is a prime example of the same.

Supreme Court order on Forest rights implementation:

• Court has ordered the eviction of lakhs belonging to the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) categories across 16 States, whose claim as forest-dwellers has been rejected under the Forest Rights Act.
• It ordered the Forest Survey of India (FSI) to make a satellite survey and place on record the “encroachment positions.”

Way Forward:

Working with Communities:

• Awarding of the community rights must be increased to ensure well being of the forest.
• Forest department must work in collusion with the tribals in seeking the sustainable development than acting as bureaucratic department.

Innovative Techniques: 

• The techniques of horticulture must be provided to the tribals so that they may increase their productivity and afford a better quality of life.

Involvement of Civil Society: 

• Various organizations such as in Dang, Gujarat allowed for the hand-holding of the beneficiaries at every step.

Kerala Model: 

• The promotion of eco-tourism and medico-tourism to safeguard the interests of the tribals is another positive step. Also providing skill-based education with assured jobs on a large scale in proportion to the demand would do wonders in these areas.