The Forest Rights Act

Foresters try to whitewash with new JFM letter, ongoing forest clearance illegalities

Friends,

The forest bureaucracy and its allies are on the offensive against democratic control once again. Two recent actions – a letter on Saturday that claims to democratise “Joint Forest Management”, and the ongoing effort by the forest bureaucracy to clear POSCO – are basically aimed at undercutting community control and defending their illegal actions. It is a remarkable effort – talk about people's rights as a threat to the environment, and then use the same logic to uphold a corrupt system of patronage (JFM) and to give land to projects by giant companies. After all, this is a bureaucracy fighting to defend its power; and mere environmental destruction is no threat to that power, but democracy is.

Until very recently, this game was played openly – brand forest dwellers as either criminals or ignorant hapless innocents, who need the policing and supervision of the Forest Department. Nowadays, that language doesn't work any more. So, instead, the forest bureaucracy perverts the language of people's rights in order to take them away.

• On forest clearances, most recently POSCO, the forest bureaucracy and their conservationist allies are still pushing internally to transfer the question of Forest Rights Act violations to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA). This seems like a good idea until one notes that, under the law, the gram sabha – the village assembly – is the authority to certify whether the Act has been implemented or not. In the case of POSCO, the Environment Ministry and the FAC have consistently cleared the project, even though, till date, the legally required gram sabha resolutions have never been produced (in fact the gram sabhas have rejected the project). The transfer to MoTA is basically a way of looking for some government department to bypass the control of the people and to give the Ministry a way out to clear the project.

The sudden respect for MoTA is rather ironic when, on every policy decision related to forest rights – which is in fact MoTA's business, as opposed to looking at any particular project – MoEF has consistently ignored the other Ministry and sought to seize control. Only now, when they are threatened by an actual democratic body, do they suddenly see the value of their sister Ministry.

• On Joint Forest Management, the Ministry issued a letter asking State governments to place JFM Committees – the Forest Department's creations for “participatory” forest management – under the control of gram sabhas, to make them into standing committees of panchayats, and to ensure that they are recognised under State laws as organs of the gram sabhas. Once again, seems wonderful. But, in the original policy, JFM Committees were always supposed to be elected by and accountable to gram sabhas. The problem arose from the fact that the forest guard is the secretary of the JFM Committee, and also its joint account holder; and that JFM Committees receive their funds through “federations” called Forest Development Agencies, in which all the key positions are occupied by forest officials. In short, the meetings, funds, minutes and decisions of these “participatory” committees are controlled by forest officials, and it is for this reason that they function as Department proxies. Now the Ministry wants these sham committees to be given the statutory and legal authority that actual gram sabha based committees and bodies enjoy under panchayat laws and under the Forest Rights Act. In short, in the name of “democratising” JFM, the Ministry is foisting these committees on the gram sabhas instead of allowing the latter to exercise their legal powers (which do not require "joint" management of any kind).

For more on the POSCO project, see our page on the project here.

For more on Joint Forest Management, see our page on JFM here.

Campaign for Survival and Dignity