The Forest Conservation Amendment Bill 2023, which seeks to clarify what constitutes ‘forest’ and exempts certain forest lands from obtaining prior forest clearance, was introduced in the Lok Sabha amid commotion with little time for any discussion on Wednesday.
The bill exempts certain forest lands including those within a distance of 100 km along international borders or Line of Control (LOC) proposed to be used for construction of strategic linear project of national importance and concerning national security; forests situated alongside a rail line or a public road maintained by the government; tree plantations on private lands that are not categorised as forests.
It has been referred to a joint parliamentary committee for their response.
One of the major objectives of the bill is to remove any ambiguity around the Supreme Court’s December 12, 1996 judgement in TN Godavarman Thirumulpad vs. Union of India and others case where the top court directed that “forests” will not only include forest as understood in the dictionary sense, but also any area recorded as forest in the government record irrespective of the ownership.
The bill states subsequent to the said judgment, the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act were applied in the recorded forest areas including such recorded forests, which had already been put to various type of non-forestry use, thereby restraining the authorities from undertaking any change in the land use and allowing any development or utility related work. There were also apprehensions on applicability of the Act in the plantations raised in private and government non-forest lands.
Experts who reviewed the bill said it was an attempt to dilute the implications of the SC judgement and free up certain categories of forests from the purview of the Act.
“The bill systematically dilutes the provisions of ‘Deemed Forest’ in Supreme Court judgment in TN Godavarman, where any land which is recorded as forest in govt record required ‘Forest Clearance’. Now the amendment proposes to include only those lands which are recorded as forests on/after 25 October 1980,” tweeted Debadityo Sinha, Lead- Climate & Ecosystems, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. “This is major exemption and threaten a significant area of forest land in the country, especially because majority of such recorded forest lands were originally transferred to forest dept during abolishment of Zamindari system (in 50s-70s),” he added.
“The bill aims to significantly exempt the requirement of ‘Forest Clearance’ for Recorded Forests. forests within 100 km of international border, as well as establishments for defence and paramilitary forces, public utility on forest land. It also exempts forest land alongside railways & roads (upto 0.10 ha), >10 ha forest land ‘proposed’ to be used for security infrastructure. The list of exemptions…now includes ‘silviculture’, establishment of zoo/safari, ecotourism facilities included in Management Plan; ‘any other like purposes’ ordered/ specified by the Centre,” added Sinha cautioning that the classification is vague and could exempt activities that are damaging to forests and wildlife.
Forest rights groups also opposed the bill. “All these proposed exemptions directly violate Forest Rights Act 2006. These are in continuation to the several other such exemptions that MoEFCC (Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change) has illegally granted for making forest diversions easy for government and private agencies. MoEFCC illegally exempted compliance with FRA in forest diversions, for instance, in the case of i) linear projects, ii) mineral prospecting, iii) forest diversion in areas without “tribal populations”, iv) grant of mining leases, v) creation of land banks among others. Further, while the earlier exemptions were in effect in violation of both Forest Conservation Act (FCA) and Forest Rights Act (FRA), the proposed exemptions under FCA would still be in violation of FRA,” said a note circulated by a coalition of forest rights groups immediately after the bill was introduced.