India's forest laws: Felling far, falling short

Efforts to compensate for encroachment and diversion of forest land are failing to recover losses.

The Supreme Court recently restrained central and state governments from making any moves that could reduce forest area. The court added that even when there are exigencies requiring the diversion of forest land for any urgent need, including strategic requirements on the country’s border, alternative land must be provided for compensatory afforestation. 

The court was hearing a batch of petitions, including the one filed by retired Indian Forest Service officers challenging the 2023 Amendment to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. The petitioners alleged that the change would radically undermine India’s decades-old forest governance regime and dilute the apex court’s 1996 rulings in the Godavarman case with regard to the definition of ‘forests’.

The judgment extended the scope of applicability of the 1980 law to all forests, including unclassed and non-notified forests. The 2023 Amendment has excluded 1.97 lakh square km of forest land in the country from the scope of applicability.  

The Forest Survey of India’s biannual reports indicate that the country lost 11,743 square km of unclassed forests between 1997 and 2019. The newly inserted Section 1A(1) in the 2023 Amendment has the potential to accelerate the exploitation of unclassed forests. Around 90% of the forests of northeastern states are unclassed, and successive reports of the Forest Survey of India have uncovered the unprecedented loss of these forests.  

The spirit behind the Supreme Court’s observation is to ensure that forest cover is not lost. That is how the court has made the provision of compensatory afforestation (CA) compulsory, whenever there are exigencies for the diversion of forest lands. For any private or public projects, the forest lands have been diverted only after alternative land is identified for CA and the cost of rehabilitating the alternative land into forest cover is recovered from the user agency. 

This amount is deposited in the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) fund. There are districts where non-forest lands are not available, so the rules provided for the recovery of rehabilitation cost of degraded forests amounting to twice the extent of forest area diverted. There are instances where project activities have been started by states without the Centre’s approval under the 1980 law. Ex post facto approvals have been granted, and the violations have been regularised after recovering the cost of rehabilitation of degraded forests four times the extent of the forest area diverted.  

Anthropogenic pressures

Forests closer to habitation are subjected to heavy anthropogenic pressures and have been degraded. Activities like livestock grazing, removal of bamboo, non-timber forest products and small timber, when unchecked, can lead to the degradation of forests. Intruders in the forests also set fire for easy access to non-timber forest products and the regeneration of palatable grasses and foliage. 

There have been very few success stories where degraded forests are rehabilitated with native species. Wherever we were successful, it has involved the monoculture of exotics. There are hardly any evaluations and monitoring reports indicating the success of CA in degraded forest lands, as well as non-forest lands.   

The CA for forests diverted in evergreen and moist deciduous belts is located in drier areas, where soil is highly refractory and rainfall is poor. There is a big question mark regarding the success of such afforestation. The Great Nicobar Project, which involves the construction of an international container transhipment terminal at Galathea Bay, an international airport, a township and a 450 MVA gas and solar-based power plant on the island, will involve the felling of one million evergreen trees.

The compensatory afforestation is currently being planned in degraded forests in Aravalli hills, Haryana, over twice the extent. However, as the rate of growth would be far too low, this is not compensation in the true sense. Petitioners must present to the court that CA proposals can neither compensate for the carbon sequestration potential of the forests nor provide commensurate ecological services. 

Individual and community claims

The misuse of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, (FRA) leads to deforestation on a continuous basis. Though the Act recognises the rights of tribal communities who had occupied forest land as on December 13, 2005, fresh encroachments and subsequent claims on rights can be noticed even today. 

By 2012, more than 1,200 tribal families were relocated out of the Nagarhole Tiger Reserve, leaving only a small number of 300 families inside. A package of Rs 10 lakh per family was provided then. With the passage of time, some old tribal hamlets which were vacated have been reoccupied. The number of families inside the reserve has crossed 1,000 again. Now, A S Ponnanna, MLA of Virajpet, Kodagu, is insisting on electricity and other development works in the hamlets and has contemplated taking up criminal proceedings against forest officers obstructing this. This might lead to further deforestation. The provisions of FRA do not cover those who have occupied forests after 2012.  

Reports indicate that the FRA has been misused in the states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Individual forest rights claims have been granted, amounting to over 5 million hectares of forest land in the country, and almost an equal extent has been rejected by 2019. Totally, ten million hectares have been deforested. 

In 2019, the Supreme Court directed states to evict those individuals whose claims have been rejected. Eventually, the court modified the order and directed states to re-verify the rejected claims. Many states have not fulfilled this, thereby encouraging the continued deforestation and occupation of forest land.

It is evident from the 2023 report of the Forest Survey of India that the above-mentioned states have lost considerable natural forest cover. The report also suggests that 92,000 square km of forests have been degraded in the last 10 years, indicating large-scale failure of CAs, and the plundering of forests left, right and centre. 

(B K Singh is retired Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Head of Forest Force), Karnataka)