Forest Rights recognition major issue in 153 LS constituencies, says analysis

There are around 153 parliamentary constituencies where recognition of individual and community forest rights is among the major issues facing voters, a new analysis has found. These are areas where the gram sabhas could take primacy in decision making and conservation of forest areas.

Building upon a similar exercise conducted in 2019, independent forest rights researchers released an analysis on Friday which assess the potential of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006 in advancing the rights of tribal and other forest dwelling communities to their forests and resources against the backdrop of the upcoming 2024 general elections.

Of the 153 core FRA constituencies, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 103 seats, while the Congress won only 11 seats in the 2019 general elections. The Congress, which enacted the FRA, under pressure from various people’s movements for tribal rights has performed poorly in Parliamentary Consituencies (PCs) where FRA is a core issue, while they are runners-up in as many as 79 out of the total 153 core FRA constituencies, the analysis stated.

Estimates suggest that at least 40 million hectares of forest land, comprising more than 50% of the total forest area, could be vested as Community Forest Rights (CFRs) with gram sabhas.

This has the potential to secure the rights and livelihoods of at least 200 million people, including nearly 90 million tribal people. Approximately one-fourth of the villages in the country i.e. 1,75,000 are eligible for CFR rights. Most districts with a high number of eligible villages are situated in tribal-majority and poverty-stricken regions, often entangled in conflicts over land and resources, the report by independent forest rights researchers Soz and Tushar Dash, with inputs from various forest rights groups in the country, said.

“Regrettably, 17 years since its inception the implementation of the Act has consistently fallen short. This lapse in implementation underscores a lack of political will to address the issue of forest tenure rights and justice for the Scheduled Tribe Communities and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) through effective implementation of the FRA. There exists a pervasive disregard for the profound connection adivasi and forest dwelling communities share with the forest, coupled with an increasing shift in the policy direction towards commercial extraction of forests. This disregard has systematically led to the undermining of the constitutional rights embedded in the Forest Rights Act,” the report said.

According to Dash, not more than 10% of IFR and CFR potential in the country has been recognised.

The researchers used two major sources of data-- the FRA Potential of Parliamentary Constituencies which is based on the Census of India, 2011 and the Parliamentary Constituency wise Election Data of 2019 General Elections.

To calculate an estimate of electors who are eligible for forest rights recognition as per FRA, a ratio of ‘No of Electors in India in 2019’ divided by ‘Population Estimate of India in 2019’ (census 2011) has been used as proxy and multiplied by the Population of Gram Sabhas eligible for FRA implementation, researchers said. “This is an approximation and not an exact result. It should give candidates and parties an idea of how forests and forest rights are very important in a large number of constituencies,” said Soz.

Out of the 153 core FRA constituencies, the Congress and the BJP ran directly against each other in as many as 74 constituencies, of which the Congress won only 5. There are 47 total ST reserved seats in India out of which 42 are core FRA Constituencies, as per the analysis. The BJP won most of the ST seats in the 2019 elections.

In PCs reserved for STs, the issues of rights of the adivasi communities become central in election campaigns for political representatives for both – the current dispensation as well as the opposition. Electoral candidates in ST reserved constituencies have a lot to gain by using the implementation of the FRA and land tenure rights as a core issue in election campaigning, the analysis added.

The key issues in these constituencies would be effective implementation of FRA, especially community forest resource rights and empowerment of gram sabhas, the threat of eviction from forest land, implementation of Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (or PESA), 1996, effective price for minor forest produce among others.

Apart from that the series of legislative and policy changes that affect FRA and the rights of communities such as Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, the Draft National Forest Policy 2018, changes in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (LARR 2013) as well as the recent amendments to Forest Conservation Act in 2023 are major concerns raised by the forest rights advocacy groups.

“As far as tribal constituencies are concerned the situation is very different now because post 2019, a number of policy level developments happened. New laws like the Forest Conservation Amendment Act were passed which have started affecting people. This election is a different situation,” said Dash on Friday.

“In 2014 efforts started to involve private sector in compensatory plantations started through consultations. In 2015, MoEFCC (Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change) issued a detailed guideline which proposed that in so called degraded forests, private sector can be involved in PPP (public private partnership) mode to engage in afforestation activities. There were lots of objections. The guideline was not pursued. In 2018 when the national forest policy was revised and a new draft was proposed, it also included a proposal to include private sector in afforestation. That also faced widespread opposition. Even the ministry of tribal affairs raised concerns and wrote to MoEFCC about it. The draft policy was either abandoned or left pending. But thereafter forest conservations amendment act and rules were amended and the provision to include private sector in accredited afforestation has been included,” he added.

Land Conflict Watch, a data research project also released a report on Friday which found that out of 781 land conflicts being mapped by the project, in the constituencies with FRA potential or implementation there are 117 land conflicts that directly affect forest dwelling communities, and these involve 2,10, 949.74 ha of land. Around 44% of these 117 conflicts were triggered due to conservation and forestry projects such as plantations and involved the forest administration. A land conflict is defined as any instance in which the use of, access to, ownership of and/or control over land and its associated resources are contested by two or more parties, and where at least one of the contesting parties is a community.

HT reported on July 13, 2022 that even as the Centre’s new Forest Conservation Rules 2022 published on June 28, 2022 faced criticism for allegedly diluting certain provisions on recognising forest rights before granting clearance to a project, Opposition parties and legal activists alleged that the rules have also removed obligation to get gram sabha consent, which was introduced through an amendment in 2017.

Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav clarified thereafter that Forest (Conservation) Rules, 2022 does not dilute or infringe with the provisions envisaged under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. In a note shared on social media, Yadav had said the Forest (Conservation) Rules 2022 are not inconsistent with the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 rather rules emphasise the compliance of relevant provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 by the nodal agencies recognised under the FRA, 2006.

HT reported on February 27 this year that corporations, other private entities can take up plantations on degraded land, including open forest and scrub land, wasteland and catchment areas, under the administrative control of states that have been identified by forest departments, a new notification by the Union environment ministry has said. These plantations will help generate green credits which can be traded and used as a leadership indicator under corporate social responsibility, the notification dated February 22 added.

The FRA, 2006 adopts the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (or PESA), 1996 framework of empowerment of village self-rule and participatory self-governance in forested regions.