Forest Act 2022 :
Adivasi tribal communities are thrown into the colonial Wildfire.
P A PremBabu
New legislation has been enacted to subvert the forest act and displace Adivasi – tribal communities for corporate, forest mafia to ransack forest resources. The central Sankh Parivar administration has made all plans to exterminate the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006 and implement the new Forest Conservation Rule (FCR) under the Forest Conservation Act 1980.
With this new law, which overturns and completely replaces the Forest Protection Act of 2003 and the amendments of 2004, 2014 and 2017, the Modi administration can effortlessly besiege the forest land and dedicate it to the domestic and multinational blood suckers.
Now the question of the hour is weather our democracy can become a significant, dynamic force to start agitation against this gruesome uprooting of adivasi and other tribal communities from their habitats and constitutional rights that shackles them, and gravely endangeres their lives and environment.
We have tangible experience and encountered several cases pertaining to similar issues, how judiciary and law enforcement agencies are going to approach this unconstitutional neo colonial finance capitalist crisis law which tramples tribal communities who have got distinctive constitutional
deliberation.
It is no coincidence that such hawkish, expansionist mandates as law in the name of corporate sustainable development occur in the new Indian context, where the fountains of democracy have almost dried up.
The Indian President Draupadi Murmu, a tongue – tied witness of
upper class fascist regime’s wreaking havoc on the lives of the tribals with brutal law of deception intending their extermination, belongs to Santhal Tribe – a natural worshippers – who had formed their own army to fight against British.
All remaining forest Rights, which are granted after intensive struggles to end the historical injustice and persecution faced by the tribal communities in the country, are going to be rubbed out.
With the amendment of 2022, the Modi government has conferred a formal assurance that the most monstrous activities can be carried out by felling, chopping, burning and uprooting all vegetations and trees in the forest land of one hectare and above.
The Forest Rights Act which ensures all forest rights, except hunting, to tribals in all forest zones and forest lands including unclassified forests, existing or other forests, protected forests, and national park was gradually debilitated and stamped out.
Now with the new amendment 2022, the finance capital occupation forces can physically and ethnicly carry off tribal communities in the name of development.
Legal interpretations and observations are going to be derived from the legal field that if compensatory afforestations are built under the label of ‘surrogate forest’, it could be a substitute for encroaching and laying hold of forest resources.
These violent legislative definitions aimed at the complete incineration of forest, do not enter into the fact that forests are not just flora and fauna, but are the habitats that sustain the earth and the livelihood of the tribals who protect them and preserve its values.
Net Present Value (NPV)
is the name given to the Blood Money the bandits pay for the bogus process of afforestation to cover up these hidden hole-and-corner deeds that make forests the breeding ground of mining mafias and resource grabbers.
In the 2022 Act, only 10.69 to 15.95 lakhs has been valued for this desertification of forest.
Despite a court order in 2008 to review this amount every three years, it was implemented only in 2022.
The government claims that the newly amended ‘Corporate Protection Act’ will enable companies to invest in mega projects, including mining, even in strictly prohibited bays, to be a catalyst for ‘Ease of doing Business’ which can be described as the signature tune of India’s development.
Like this,
between 2008 and 2019, 2,53,179 hectares of forest land has been subject to exploitation for the forest resources.
The requests received by the Ministry of Forests on a regular basis for conversion of forest land for non-forest purposes are submitted with a submission that the Forest Rights Act will be considered later.
In 2009, following a massive protest by tribal organizations, blocking the National Highway, the Ministry of Forests was forced to issue a strict directive to allow non-forestry purposes only with the permission of the Gram Sabhas in accordance with the Forest Act.
A blatant subversion of forest rights
In February 2013, the Ministry of Forests overturned its own order by informing all states that the permission of the village councils was not required for the use of forest land for roads, canals, pipelines, optical fibers, transmission lines, etc.
The order also added an insidious farce that social groups such as Primitive Tribal Groups (PTB) and Pre-Agricultural Communities (PAC)
should not be affected.
Now in the new amendment of 2022, it is unequivocally stated that Forest Rights Act need not be complied with the final approval of the Ministry of Forest and Environment, for construction activities and non-forest purposes.
The Forest Rules of 2022 are a set of Finance Capital protection laws put together by the central government to allow private developers to clear forests by felling trees without seeking permission from tribal groups. With the implementation of this Act, tribal communities and other agricultural communities will not have any rights in their forest areas.
The forest rights act of 2006 was the reason why tribal villages in Kerala were listed as forest villages for the first time in history. That is what the fascist regime has now burned out. Thus the Forest Rule 2022 becomes a pretext for plundering forest land. Another serious social impact of this Act is that the Adivasis and other tribal communities will be denied access to the Gram Sabhas and Panchayats as there is no clear definition of the power structure of the Gram Sabha in this new Act.
The Corporate ‘Mandir Fascist’ Union government has also moved to amend three laws pertaining to the protection of the environment – the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981. The amendments will “decriminalise” offences to “weed out fear of imprisonment for violations”. Offenders will no longer face the threat of imprisonment but will be faced with just monetary fines. Legal and policy experts believe that the amendments will encourage a pollute-and-pay attitude.
The Adivasi Gram Sabha has the right to determine and record the traditional boundaries of the tribal communities and to ensure their special habitations and other uses within them. It is that tribal democracy which is going to be shattered and disintegrated by this damn law. It is a simple extension of colonial forest policy. Tribals are being thrown by the fascist regime into the wildfires of the colonial British era of forest exploitation.
It constituted an Advisory Committee, a regional empowered committee at each of the integrated regional offices and a screening committee at State/Union Territory (UT) government-level. There is no any representation of Adivasi, tribal, and other forest dwellers in these implementing commities.
According to the Environment Ministry’s statements in the Lok Sabha, between April 2016 and March 2022, the despotic Modi government approved licences to cut 99,982 hectares of forests across the country, an area half the size of Noida. Since the enactment of the FCA in 1980, 3.54 lakh hectares of forests have been cleared, an average of 8,448 hectares a year. In spite of these direful rate at which forests are being flattened, commitments for compensatory afforestation are either not being met or are unregulated which is obvious in the Environment Ministry documents. Officials admit to not having “complete details” on the progress of compensatory afforestation.
Ministry of environment and Forest conveniently forgotten the 1996 Supreme Court order in T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad vs Union of India regarding the identification of forests and their conservation. In its order on December 12, 1996, the court directed that tree-felling and non-forestry activity in forests across the country should be stopped. It also directed States to set up expert committees to identify forests by its dictionary meaning. Lands so identified were to be notified as forests irrespective of ownership.
Now quarter of a century later, States are far from accomplishing the process. Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu have identified private forests and deemed forests. Mumbai’s Aarey forest is one such deemed forest. The court, in its order, also directed the Union government to apply the provisions of Forest Conservation Act, 1980, to all forests thus identified. By way of explanation, the government is obligated to protect all forest land and prevent their destruction for non-forest purposes.
According to the Forest Conservation Rules , 2003, subsequently amended in 2004, 2014, and 2017, at least 1,000 trees a hectare must be planted in all compensatory afforestation land to make up for the depletion of “land by land” and of “trees by trees”.
The new absurd, invasive rules say that an identified non-forest land with a canopy density of 0.4 (40 per cent tree cover) or more can be considered for swapping as compensatory land. The earlier requirement to plant 1,000 trees a hectare has also been invalidated.
86-year-old Ondan of Wayanad’s Nenmeri Kulipura Colony, who despite having received one acre of land in the government records ten years ago, still goes to government offices to find out where that land is, is a representative of brutal tribal poaching..
