Tree felling in forests to be decriminalised

Centre to allow private players to chop down trees but forces on States onus of getting consent from forest dwellers

Hyderabad: The Narendra Modi government may boast about nominating Draupadi Murmu, a tribal, for the President’s post but it has also discreetly initiated efforts to take away the rights of the people she represents — the forest dwellers. The BJP government at the Centre is all set to place the Forest Conservation Rules, 2022, before Parliament during the upcoming session from July 18 to August 12.

The union Environment Ministry has already notified the new rules under the Forest Conservation Act of 2006 to repeal and replace the earlier 2003 Forest Conservation Rules and its amendments in 2004, 2014 and 2017. If approved, the new rules would pose a serious threat to forests and their inhabitants — forest dwellers, flora and fauna.

Primarily, the Forest Rights Act vests all forest rights (whether listed in the law or not), except for hunting, on forest dwellers on all forest lands, including “unclassified forests, un-demarcated forests, existing or deemed forests, protected forests, reserved forests, sanctuaries and national parks.” It prescribes procedures for the orderly approval and handing over of forest land to user agencies for diversion, de-reservation and lease for non-forestry purposes.

The proposed changes include decriminalising kindling a fire or carrying fire in forest areas, felling trees and dragging timber, and felling or damaging a tree reserved under a special provision of the law. The Environment Ministry is seeking to replace the provision of imprisonment for six months and a fine, with only a fine of Rs 500.

The union government claims that the amendments are focused on ‘decriminalisation of relatively minor violations of law, expeditious resolution through the compounding of relatively smaller offences, reducing the compliance burden on citizens, rationalisation of penalties and preventing harassment of citizens’.
The Act also introduces a new land-use category that adversely affects all existing residents of a forest, whether wildlife or people, most often in the form of their complete exclusion. Not so surprisingly, several provisions are meant to pave the way for private developers to cut down forests without obtaining the consent of forest dwellers for land up to five acres.

Earlier, it was mandated to obtain informed consent from gram sabhas and State governments for allowing private players to fell trees. The new rules are framed in such a way that the Centre will have its way and allow individuals or companies to ‘develop’ beyond five acres, but the State governments bear the people’s brunt. These allow the union government to permit the clearing of a forest beyond five acres before consulting the people living in it. However, the onus of securing consent from tribals and other forest-dwelling communities has been forced on the States by asking the latter to “ensure that the rights of tribals to their traditional forestlands are recognised and their consent is taken before their forests are chopped down”.