Forest Rights

The Forest Rights Act, 2006 has the potential to democratise forest governance by recognising community forest resource rights over an estimated 85.6 million acres of India’s forests, thereby empowering over 200 million forest dwellers in over 1,70,000 villages. However, till date, only 3% of this potential area has been realised.

The Forest Rights Act represented a historic step forward
for forest management in India, and it is often hailed as
such. However, it did not emerge from struggles for the
control over forests alone, but was a product of an
ongoing intersection between political conflict, features
of Indian capitalism, and the conceptions of
“environment” and “development” in India’s political
discourse. In that sense, it is not only an “environmental”
legislation, but an economic and social one, and one that
belongs to a particular political conjuncture,
representing both its limitations, and more importantly,
its liberatory possibilities. This paper looks at the FRA in
this context and explores how it grew out of this kind of
politics, being marked both by the constraints of this
period, and by the spaces it created for genuinely new
conceptions and processes of development.

The progressive subjugation, appropriation, enclosure and policing of the forests in India since the colonial period has left millions of forest peoples in a precarious struggle for survival and waging a continuous battle for their rights. The exclusionary development and conservation thrust left in its wake, devastated forests and forest peoples. What began as the final uprooting of forest peoples from the forests in 2002, ironically triggered a nationwide struggle that forged a unique law in 2006 on tenurial rights and forest governance, with communities in control over both environment and development. However, in the decade since then, despite having made remarkable strides, with the threat of losing their vicious hold over the forest and lives of forest peoples, the state and particularly the forest bureaucracy, elite environmentalists, and the corporates continue to confront the forest peoples and the law relentlessly. This narrative details the making of the law, and the simultaneous strengthening of the law and its subversion in law and practice, a clear reflection of the ongoing power struggle as it unfolds. (See http://www.lead-journal.org/abstracts/17073.htm)

Caste discrimination and Dalit Rights over natural resources is one of the most complicated issues that the country is today faced with. As such this is not a new question; however the current format is a relatively newer one. There are specific reasons and compulsion for raising this question at this juncture of history as the betrayal of the betrayed continues for centuries unknown till today. Raising this issue would unfold the conspiracy of the upper caste rulers of this country to which they may be obliged to answer. This paper investigates the overall idea of caste in relationship with natural resources, human resources and human wisdom!

This book includes 20 case studies of World Heritage sites from around the world and relevant background articles. The case studies explore and document, from a human rights perspective, indigenous peoples’ experiences with World Heritage sites and with the processes of the World Heritage Convention. They also identify recurring concerns and systemic shortcomings in the implementation of the Convention, as well as opportunities the Convention may provide for indigenous peoples and the defense and promotion of their human rights. The section on Western Ghats of India: A Natural Heritage Enclosure? examines the dubious manner in which the Western Ghats was declared a World Heritage Site without concern to the people, forests and laws.

Discussions on human wildlife conflict in India typically take place within a very narrow frame - viewing the problem as a result of human "encroachment" into wildlife territories, and hence one to be primarily addressed by 'compensating', relocating or 'protecting' local communities.  Most research focuses on protected areas and severely underestimates the scale of the problem.  This study, based on field surveys in Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand, throws up a very different picture, where conflict is a major problem, but one to which structures and practices of forest management in the country are a central contributor.  It also points to how more democratic and rights-respecting approach to forest management are an essential part of any solution.

The ethno-botanical knowledge of the Kani people related to a plant identified as ‘arogyapacha’ was utilised to develop, transfer, produce and internationally market ‘Jeevani’ as an anti-fatigue, adaptogenic and immuno-enhancing formula by the Tropical Botanical Garden Research Institute, India. Showcased and acclaimed internationally as a model benefit-sharing arrangement, various issues have been posed upon deeper analysis relevant to benefits accrued in the context of indigenous peoples with regards to genetic resources associated to traditional knowledge. This model is also placed in the specific context of the non-implementation of the laws on land rights in Kerala and absence of even such a law in Tamil Nadu, and the violations of rights of Kanis to forests as stipulated in the forest laws and the denial of the rights to self-governance under the Constitution to Scheduled Tribes by these two states. The new national legal regimes in compliance with Convention on Biodiversity and TRIPS, rather than recognising the rights of Adivasis or Indigenous Peoples, further infringes their rights accorded in the limited international laws related to territorial rights, rights to resources and self-governance/self-determination.

This paper offers a critical assessment of REDD+ in Nigeria through a political ecology perspective. Focusing on questions of property rights and resource access, it maps the discursive articulations and contestations through which carbon rights are being determined. It also shows how these articulations and contestations are linked to land and forest rights, and how they shape everyday access to the forest. Evidence from the Nigerian case suggests that factors that complicate rights and undermine access to resources for forest communities under REDD+ are immanent to the contested terrain constituted in part by REDD+ proposals, proponents' discourses and practices geared towards securing the forest for REDD+. Efforts to secure property rights and guarantee the permanence of REDD+ forests align with economic, ecological and ideological aspirations of state and non-state actors to produce a regime of militarised protectionism. I demonstrate how, in addition to its material and symbolic facilitation of the emergent carbon forestry economy, militarised protectionism as a regime of exclusion also constitutes collateral political economies of 'more-than-carbon' forest resources (such as timber and non-timber forest products) which perpetuate capital accumulation by the elites. It is this kind of exclusion–accumulation dialectic legitimised by carbon forestry claims that this paper describes as carbonised exclusion. The paper thus furthers debates on the political ecology of REDD+ and other carbon forestry projects, while productively engaging technocentric literature on REDD+ and property rights.

This chapter examines the effects of aquaculture development on the livelihoods of households in two historically and geographically distinct coastal communities in north and south Vietnam. It is shown that the importance of open-access resources for livelihoods increases in line with the poverty and vulnerability of the social group. This increase has occurred at the same time as a decrease in the availability of open-access products because of the privatization of resources associated with aquaculture. Many open-access resources are accessed illegally or with unofficial access rights and this has implications for livelihood security, since open-access resources have uncertain rights and legislative status, a status that is open to change and frequently subject to privatization. The high capital investment required and the loans necessary to raise that capital are also increasing the vulnerability of the wealthier households involved in aquaculture.

The Schedule Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA) was passed by the Indian Government to recognize rights of forest dwelling tribal communities. The Act aims to positively impact the livelihood of the forest dependent tribals, but due to the lack of clear understanding and irregular implementation this goals was not fully achieved. The present study was conducted in Tripura, where FRA was implemented to achieve sustainable land utilization and to strengthen the socioeconomic status of the tribals. This study attempts to throw light on the relevance and progress of implementation of FRA in Tripura along with initiatives and benefit schemes of the government agencies to provide sustainable livelihood option through convergence with FRA. The assessment of impact in terms of livelihood improvement and socioeconomic conditions was based on primary survey of 300 FRA beneficiary households in two tribal dominated districts, Gomati and Dhalai. There are indications of positive outcomes regarding, socioeconomic status, change in mindset towards sustainable farming, and impact on income but there are issue with decentralization of governance, implementation of land rights and benefit schemes, and sustainability in farming practices. There is no empirical study conducted on the implementation and impact of FRA in Tripura and therefore such field oriented, policy study would be useful for further implementation and research in regions where forest and tribals are co-existing.

Translating the potential of the Forest Rights Act into reality is a challenge even in regions “meant for” Adivasis, such as the Baiga Chak in eastern Madhya Pradesh, given the weak capacity for collective action, tangled relationship with the forest department, changing
youth aspirations, and people’s conception of the environment at
variance with some provisions of the act.

This paper explores the three decade long struggle over land and forest resources that continue till now in the hinterland of Jharkhand. The focus of the paper is on the regions of Latehar and Palamau that has witnessed sanguinary battles between the Adivasis and the private armies of the landlords named Sunlight Sena. Fashioned after the notorious Ranvir Sena, this private army was raised to bulldoze all forms of resistance by the Adivasi population and their attempts to reclaim the land that was concentrated in the hands of a few Zamindars. Till the late 1990s the land owned by some of the local landlords ran into thousands of acres (the highest being 6000 acres owned by Jagjit Singh Mahuar) and the private armies were raised to safeguard these huge land holdings. The paper along with exploring the stories from that violent past also looks into the present day coercive attempts of the government to acquire land for mega mining projects. The state that did not intervene in the massive land holding or the violence unleashed by the landlords, is currently waging a war to acquire the lands reclaimed by the Adivasis. The paper seeks to explore these continuous violent battles in the past three decades against the feudal forces and the state.

India is a country that is set to face huge social tensions.
Not only will Climate Change make life more precarious for the weather-dependent poor, but the suggested solutions to climate change will de- stabilise them yet further by bringing common resources into systems of international trade, especially via bio-fuel and carbon-trading regimes. However, India also contains the seeds to a solution to this, especially amongst its activist struggles, in the form of calls for "Natural Resource Democracy." The Forest Rights Act is one of the most realised forms of this call, on paper granting local control over natural resources to Indigenous Communities. 

However the implementation of the act is not straightforward, and my case study from a Tiger Reserve in Southern India shows that existing ecological funding regimes only serve to heighten the issues of dispossession that the Act is designed to address. NGOs working within international funding regimes tend to operate in a way that consolidates governmental control of natural resources, so the current Aid regime is not compatible with the forms of local Natural Resource democracy really required to get people through the double instability of liberalised economies combined with a de-stabilised climate. The experiences from implementing the act show that there are ways forward, but that they imply a major rethink in the ways in which development assistance works, away from a liberal-philanthropic or neo-liberal managed empowerment regime, towards more genuinely political forms of local participation and control.

Considerable jurisprudence around the Forest Rights Act has been developing in the last 9 years of its operation through judgments and decisions of the constitutional courts, and even some of the district courts and tribunals. This compendium puts some of the more important decisions, along with a short summary and editorial note, in one place for use by judges, lawyers, activists and implementors.

As central India's forest belts are swept into an ever-intensifying state offensive and resulting civil war, there has been a strong convergence of left, liberal and progressive arguments on Operation Green Hunt.  This line claims that the war is about corporate resource grabbing and people fighting back in 'self-defence'.  This note argues that this 'basic line' is problematic and ignores the reality of the political positioning of India's forest areas.  If we look more closely at that reality, it becomes apparent that this line will only strengthen the narrative of the state and of repressive forces.

Decolonization of forest governance was finally ushered in by law almost a decade and a half ago. But democracy in the forests continues to be denied as the law itself got reduced to almost a state-sponsored welfare scheme, where some small bits of land for individual occupation and community access are granted, almost as a concession instead of outright demarcation of forests and their transfer to the Gram Sabhas for governance which is what the law is all about. The performance narrative too is embedded in this deceptive storyline obfuscating and confounding the law itself. Besides numerous implementation issues that require institutional reforms and actions, this distortion stems from three specific functions of the forest bureaucracy who are in effective control of the forests, namely forest diversion for non-forestry purposes, compensatory afforestation in lieu of this forest diversion and creation of inviolate areas. All these induce, if not require, State sanctioned and acquiesced trampling over the Forest Rights Act 2006. Dismantling these countervailing administrative functions opens up the politico-legal and administrative space for democracy in the forests where conservation and livelihood have the possibility to finally converge, and for the Forest Rights Act to finally begin to be implemented in its true intent.

Most of the North East enjoys unbridled authority over forests unlike the rest of the country, free from state control under the debilitating impact
of the colonial-era Indian Forest Act, 1927. Therefore, the Forest Rights Act, 2006 is perceived as irrelevant. But, the sweeping expansion of how “forest” is defined in law by the Supreme Court and its proposed  incorporation into the Indian Forest Act threatens the customary forest  rights of these peoples.

The Schedule Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers
(Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA) was
implemented in India in 2008, to undo the “historical injustice”
meted out to the tribals of the country. The Act ensures Tenurial
and livelihood security by recognising Individual forest Rights
and Community Forest Rights. The Act was implemented in
Tripura with the focus on Individual Forest Rights for habitation
and self-cultivation, to achieve sustainable socio-economic
development of the tribals. The state government converged
many development schemes and two bi-lateral projects with
FRA implementation to achieve its goals. This study objectively
looks into the various schemes of the State departments and the
two bilateral project aided by Japanese international cooperation
Agency and the Indo-German Development
Cooperation. The study highlights the various benefit schemes
that include assistance for rubber plantation, tea plantation,
horticulture plantation, housing, etc and how they have aided in
land development of the Individual Forest Rights. Apart from
providing assistance for land development schemes for
Agroforestry, value addition centres and enterprise development
for NTFP, assistance for formation of Self Help groups,
development of nurseries and plantations, capacity building
programmes run for the IFR holders are also discussed. All these
initiatives in convergence with FRA have set up the foundation
for future development of the tribals who have been long
excluded from the socio-economic processed of the country.

On 7 April 2015, 20 wood cutters, mostly tribal people from the districts of Thiruvannamalai and Dharmapuri in Tamilnadu were brutally shot and killed by a special task force in the forest of Seshachalam forests of Chittoor District of Andhra Pradesh. It is symptomatic of the increasing conflict over resources. Crony capitalism and higher stake go together with increased use of violence of the armed kind, whether by the state or non-state actors. Laws often stand as mute totem helpless in preventing these bloodletting and scams.

Plantations are replacing biodiverse forests under compensatory afforestation, an analysis of land diversion shows. CR Bijoy, IndiaSpend.com

By bypassing the Forest Rights Act in acquiring land for compensatory afforestation and by allowing plantations to replace biodiverse forests as a part of this afforestation, two laws meant to protect forests and the environment are actually threatening India's dwindling forests and already marginalised forest dwellers, an analysis of land diversion data since 2008 and amendments to forest laws show.

The forests of the Western Ghats of India are critical for local, regional and global human well-being in a variety of ways. They provide timber, fuelwood, fodder, manure, medicines and a range of other products for subsistence and commercial use, as well as important soil and water conservation services to downstream communities. Simultaneously, they are considered one of the
world's biodiversity “hotspots”. But forest loss and degradation continues at a significant if not alarming rate in this region. The forms, mechanisms and ultimate causes for this are com
context-dependent and controversial. Typically, the debate is polarised into those who blame local use (driven by expanding populations) and those who blame rigid and excessive state control and absence of community control. Recent efforts to bridge this divide through the conceptualisation and implementation of joint forest management programmes have not yielded significant results; the debate therefore continues unabated.

One reason for the general divergence of views is the lack of comprehensive , empirically-based understanding of the impact of various factors on the ecological outcome (assessed in terms of the biomass productivity, canopy cover and biodiversity). These factors range from economic and cultural factors (such as household resource endowments, and cultural preferences) to institutional factors (such as the distribution of rights and responsibilities between individuals, communities and the
state agencies) as well as ecological conditions (such as vegetation type and terrain). Between 1995 and 2001, we undertook a research project titled ‘Linking Ecology, Economics, and Institutions of Village-level Forest Use in the Karnataka Western Ghats ' with the overall objective of understanding how all these factors combined to influence the villagers' adoption of particular resource extraction and protection regimes. These results are summarised here.

It is argued that, in the absence of legislation, the outcome of decentralisation initiatives in forestry remains limited in terms of devolution of power and assigning authority to politically weak forest-dependent communities are concerned. In this context, the ongoing implementation process of the Forest Rights Act provides an opportunity to examine the institutional arrangements for devolution of power and authority, and measures the extent to which this Act offers space for democratic and inclusive forest governance by the local people. Based on micro-level field work in parts of West Bengal, India, the paper argues that understanding roles of institutions under 'democratic decentralisation' framework is not enough for meaningful democratic decentralisation, particularly for forest resources. If democratic decentralisation of natural resources is to succeed, a variety of factors embedded in the institutions, like actor, power and accountability, is to be recognised.

For more than 40 years oil activity has brought destruction to the ecosystems and the indigenous people of four river basins leading to the Amazon river in Peru. This report investigates the devastating activities of oil operator PlusPetrol Norte on the lives and livelihoods of the Kichwa people from the Rio TIgre, Peru.

Ecotourism    is    increasingly    being    seen  as  a  driver  for  the  eradication  of      poverty      through      economic      development        of        communities.        Impacts  of  ecotourism  are  seen  in  its  multiplier  effects,  ability  to  create  livelihood    alternatives,    governance    and  land  use  patterns.  Ecotourism  is  also  believed  to  create  an  enabling  environment  for  conservation  and  generating    a    monetary    resource    base  for  conservation.  Conservation  education for tourists is also seen as an important outcome. Ecotourism in    forest    areas    are    primarily    located  in  or  around  PAs  and  areas    identified    as    Critical    Wildlife    Habitats,    Critical    Tiger  Habitats,  which  has  resulted      in      opposing      interests    and    conflict    between the adivasis, the state and other actors, which is explored in this paper.

The Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA)  was  implemented  in  India  in  2008,  to  recognize  forest  rights  of  forest-dwelling  tribal communities as  a  historical  reparation  of  injustices  faced  by  them.  In  over  a  decade  of implementation majority of the rights recognised are in the category of Individual forest rights (IFR), to  improve  the  socio-economic  condition  and  put  tribal development  in  a  sustainable  pattern. But only  a  handful of  studies  assess  the  post  rights  recognition  impacts  of  FRA. This  study uses composite  index  to  assess the  impacts on the  socio-economic  condition  of  the  scheduled  tribes  and the  condition  of  the  land  vested  as  forest  rights. The  composite  Indexes were constructed  using  the methodology  given  by  Organization  for  Economic  Co-operation  and  Development  (OECD).  The socio-economic composite  index  consisted  of  8  parameters  and  15  indicators  and  the  Index  for vegetation  condition used four  indicators.  To  validate the  Index, evaluation was undertaken  in the North Eastern state of Tripura. A total of 300 households and 108 vegetation plots from 12 villages were sampled to generate primary data. The evaluation successfully classified 25% of the villages as having ‘very  good’  socio-economic  and  vegetation  conditions.  The  status  of  each  parameter including  their  inter-linkages  and  their  impact  on  the  overall  socio-economic  and  vegetation conditions was also delineated. The major factor that impact the conditions were identified as size of land holding, assistance for development, household income, use of alternative sustainable practices, and  lack  of  skill building.  Analysis  of  the  relationship  between  socio-economic  and  vegetation conditions  pointed  towards  deterioration  of  vegetation  condition  as  socio-economic  conditions improved and indicated the existence of other possible factors that impact the post right conditions. This study successfully marks the advent into the sphere of post-recognition impacts of FRA. The use of Composite  Index can enhance post  implementation  assessments and guide  future policies  and course  of  actions.  Index  can  be  adapted to uniformly assess FRA’s performance in  India, or  any forest policy for devolution of rights around the world