FOREST RIGHTS CLAIMS AND ISSUES - POLITY
News:
● The
National Commission for Scheduled Tribes has secured FRA implementation reports
of all States and Union Territories by invoking its Constitutional powers to
approach the Supreme Court directly.
Features of The Forest Rights act, 2006:
● The
act recognizes and vest the forest
rights and occupation in Forest land in forest Dwelling Scheduled Tribes
(FDST) and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD) who have been residing in
such forests for generations.
● The
act also establishes the responsibilities and authority for sustainable use, conservation of
biodiversity and maintenance of ecological balance of FDST and OTFD.
● It
strengthens the conservation regime of the forests while ensuring livelihood and food security of the FDST and OTFD.
● It
seeks to rectify colonial injustice to the FDST and OTFD who are integral to
the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem.
Types of rights:
The
act identify four types of rights such as
1. Title rights:
● It
gives FDST and OTFD the right to ownership to land farmed by tribals or forest
dwellers subject to a maximum of 4
hectares.
● Ownership
is only for land that is actually being cultivated by the concerned family and
no new lands will be granted.
2. Use rights:
● The
rights of the dwellers extend to extracting Minor Forest Produce, grazing areas, to pastoralist routes, etc.
3. Relief and development rights:
● To
rehabilitation in case of illegal eviction or forced displacement and to basic
amenities, subject to restrictions for forest protection.
4. Forest management rights:
● It
includes the right to protect, regenerate or conserve or manage any community
forest resource which they have been traditionally protecting and conserving
for sustainable use.
Who can claim these Rights?
● Members
or community of the Scheduled Tribes who primarily reside in and who depend on
the forests or forest lands for bona fide livelihood needs.
● It
can also be claimed by any member or community who has for at least three generations (75 years) prior to the 13th day of
December, 2005 primarily resided in forest land for bona fide livelihood needs.
● The
Gram Sabha is the authority to initiate
the process for determining the nature and extent of Individual Forest Rights
(IFR) or Community Forest Rights (CFR) or both that may be given to FDST and
OTFD.
Procedure:
● First,
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 plays this role because it is a public body
where all people participate, and hence is fully democratic and transparent.
● 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 (Section 6(6)). The Committees have six members – three government
officers and three elected persons.
● At
both the taluka and the district levels, any person who believes a claim is
false can appeal to the Committees, and if they prove their case the right is
denied (sections 6(2) and 6(4)).
● Finally,
land recognized under this Act cannot be sold or transferred.
Issues in implementation of the Forest rights Act,
2006:
1. Non-compliance of the procedure
- The process of constitution of a Forest Rights Committee comprising members
from within the village by conducting a Gram Sabha with two-thirds of the
members present is not followed in many places. These committees were mostly
constituted by the Panchayat Secretaries upon the directives received from
District Magistrates at short notice.
2. Lack of Transparency
- The nominations for members for the taluk-level and district-level committees
were not transparent.
3. Women rights
- The FRA provides for equal rights in titles issued under the Act for women
but on the ground level, women were hardly visible in this regard.
4. Proofs of evidence
- In the initial stages of implementation, there was insistence on satellite
images as evidence while other admissible proofs were ignored, as happened in
Gujarat resulting in mass rejections of claims.
5. Issues in confirmation of the award
- In some villages around Bastar, Chhattisgarh, the plots claimed and the
documents confirming the award did not match. Besides, the extent of land that
was awarded was far smaller than what was claimed.
6. Non expansion of other welfare schemes
- Various welfare and developmental schemes of the Rural Department were not
extended to the tribal people who received documents of land possession under
the FRA despite the directives issued by the Ministry.
7. Poor awareness
- Poor awareness levels among the tribal people proved to be a drawback
especially in the scheduled areas which are remotely located.
8. Decline in the quality of forest produce
- The tribals possess lands (including the lands recognized under the FRA) that
are small, of poor quality, infertile without irrigation facilities thus
forcing them to look for other sources of livelihood. In Chhattisgarh, earnings
from activities such as collection of tendu leaves for rolling local cigars
were affected when there was an influx of labourers from Bihar who were willing
to work for low wages.
9. Lack of coordination
- The biggest challenge throughout the country has been a lack of coordination
between tribal, forest and revenue departments at the local level.
10. Issues Related to Minor Forest Produce
- Mere granting of ownership over minor forest produce (MFPs) will not improve
tribal livelihoods, as overall production of MFPs (except for tendu leaves) has
fallen rapidly due to monoculture plantation by the forest department.
WAY FORWARD:
● To
support the mission-mode implementation
of FRA, it is critical that the governments at the Central and State levels
be reinforced with people and financial resources.
● In
addition to utilising technology to
map and track the application of FRA, the forest bureaucracy needs to be
overhauled in order to deliver services to gram sabhas.
● The
recognition of CFR rights would shift Indian forest governance toward a
community conservation regime focused on food security and livelihood.
● At
the local level, large-scale awareness
and information dissemination campaigns informing both tribal and lower-level
officials are required.
● It
is critical to develop a detailed training
and capacity-building strategy for those responsible for implementing the
FRA, such as Panchayats, Gram Sabhas, village level Forest Rights committees,
and so on.
● To
make it easier for the Gram Sabha to identify and file claims for individual
and community rights, the relevant maps and documents should be made available
to the Forest Rights Committee and claimants.