Environment Ministry Cries Foul As Activists Write to PM About It ‘Subverting’ Forest Rights Act

Bengaluru: Activists’ allegations in a recent letter to the prime minister about the Union environment ministry “subverting the Forest Rights Act” (FRA) are “a gross misunderstanding of facts”, the ministry said in a long statement on social media on Thursday (July 3).

The statement also said that Union minister Bhupender Yadav’s words that titles given under the Act may have also contributed to forest degradation across the country have been “grossly misrepresented, distorted, represented in a piecemeal manner and is totally out of context”.

On June 28, more than 100 civil rights activists and organisations wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the Union environment ministry “subverting” the FRA (which recognises the rights of forest dwellers and permits them to sustainably harvest forest produce and conserve these lands) in many ways, including by submitting “legally untenable data on encroachment in parliamentary forums and the NGT [National Green Tribunal]”.

The letter pointed out that Yadav’s comment attributing the loss of forest to FRA titles given to Adivasi and forest dwellers in an interview to the Hindustan Times on June 5 had “no legal basis and evidence, and is highly irresponsible and misleading”.

It added that the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2023 – a biennial publication by the government-run Forest Survey of India (FSI) that quantifies changes in forest cover across the country – blames the FRA for forest loss “with no evidence”.

Meanwhile, on July 2, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs asked for an explanation from the Union environment ministry via an office memorandum, demanding that the ministry support the claim made in the ISFR 2023 – published on December 21, 2024 – that the FRA was among the several factors responsible for the decrease in forest cover in the country.

The Wire had reported in detail about this aspect in the ISFR 2023 on January 2 this year, six months before the Ministry of Tribal Affairs’ letter to the Union environment ministry. Policy experts had told The Wire then that authors of the report should “qualify and clarify this reasoning that the recognition of rights under FRA has had a negative consequence for forest cover”.

Forest rights activists meanwhile told The Wire that the main reason for the non-acknowledgement of the importance of the FRA, and its lack of implementation across the country, is because state forest departments and the Union government are loath to hand over power over these lands to the respective gram sabhas, because this would decrease the control that these governmental organisations have over forests in the country, which cover at least one-fourth of India’s area.

‘No subversion, only commitment’

The Union environment ministry is “committed to protecting forests, India’s green cover and communities dependent on them or living in the vicinity of said areas”, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) said in a statement on X on the night of July 3.

“The reference in social media to a letter alleging ‘Subversion of the Forest Rights Act’ reflects a gross misunderstanding of facts,” the statement said.

The FRA – officially the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 – says that the rights of people who have been living on forest lands for generations were not adequately recognised in either the colonial British era or in independent India, resulting in “historical injustice to the forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers who are integral to the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem”.

The FRA aims to set this wrong right by thus recognising the rights of these peoples by providing individual or community or both kinds of rights to tribal and other forest dwellers, giving them the right to live on their ancestral land, and also collect and use minor forest produce (such as mahua flowers in Chhattisgarh, or wild honey in Karnataka). At the same time, they are responsible for protecting the forests and utilising its produce sustainably.

According to government data, as of October 2023, as many as 23.43 lakh land titles amounting to an area of around 1,80,70,577 acres were distributed under both individual and community rights across states under the Act.

However, the implementation of the Act leaves much to be desired: a 2024 study found that even 15 years after it became law, there were huge gaps in its implementation due to lack of knowledge and conflicts of interest across districts in Maharashtra, Odisha, Karnataka, Assam and Chhattisgarh.

Delays are the norm; an analysis found that the gap between the number of FRA claims filed and the number of claims recognised – which was always high – has increased after 2014. Many indigenous communities are up in arms about not receiving their title deeds under the Act.

In an interview to the Hindustan Times on June 5, Union environment minister Yadav suggested that land titles given under the FRA were among the several reasons for forest degradation in the country.

Linking loss of forest cover to the FRA

“Although there is a net increase in dense forests in the country, there are areas where the dense prime forests have been affected with degradation. This may be due to encroachment, illicit felling and in [the] northeast region, due to shifting cultivation. And to a lesser degree, due to unregulated grazing, natural causes like storms and landslides, and also titles given under [the FRA], Yadav said in the interview.

He continued: “This may be addressed by taking up stringent protection measures added with effective community involvement, and also by regulating shifting cultivation in [the] case of [the] northeastern region.”

This is one of the ways that the Union environment ministry is “subverting” the FRA, said more than 100 civil rights activists and organisations in a letter to the prime minister on June 28. 

“The minister’s response attributing the loss of forest to FRA titles given to Adivasi and forest dwellers has no legal basis and evidence, and is highly irresponsible and misleading … While blaming [the] FRA, the Adivasi and other forest rights holders, the minister conveniently overlooks the fact that the MoEFCC itself allowed the illegal diversion of more than 3 lakh hectares of forest since 2008 for non-forest activities denuding forests, without complying with [the] FRA,” the letter said.

However, Yadav’s comment “has been grossly misrepresented, distorted, represented in a piecemeal manner and is totally out of context”, the MoEFCC statement of July 3 said, in response to this allegation.

The latest ISFR said that forest degradation was caused by a “variety of reasons” but that it could be “addressed by adopting protection measures which are implemented with effective community involvement”. The activists’ letter therefore “totally undermined, overlooked and misrepresented” this context, per the MoEFCC.

ISFR’s blame game

That’s where the minister was quoting from: the ISFR 2023.

The ISFRs, published by the FSI, quantify the change in forest and tree cover across the country every two years based on methods including satellite imagery. The FSI released the latest iteration of the report, the ISFR 2023, on December 21 last year.

As The Wire reported – less than two weeks after the environment ministry released the ISFR 2023 – the document clearly suggests that the implementation of the FRA by giving forest dwellers title deeds could be one of the causes of the “negative changes” in forest cover across the country, apart from other reasons such as “harvesting of short rotation plantations or other forms of logging”, “shifting cultivation practices” and “human activities, such as encroachment”.

The ISFR 2023, however, did not detail the methods by which it had come to the conclusion that title deeds were causing a loss in forest cover.

Forest rights expert and researcher Kanchi Kohli told The Wire then that the authors of the ISFR should “qualify and clarify this reasoning”. This is critical “because of the history of forest governance in India, where rights and ownership continue to be a source of conflict”, she had told The Wire.

“Is this because the record of rights has shifted from forest to revenue or any other category at the time of vesting of rights, or is the claim that rights holders have not conserved the forest cover?” she had asked.

The MoEFCC’s statement on July 3 does not answer these questions.

The activists’ letter too made this connection about how the ISFR was blaming the FRA: it said that the ISFR 2023 provides no evidence for this, and that this was another way that the environment ministry was “subverting” the FRA.

On July 2, four days after the activists sent their letter to the prime minister, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs asked for an explanation from the Union environment ministry via an office memorandum. It demanded that the environment ministry support the claim made in the ISFR 2023 that the FRA was among the several factors responsible for the decrease in forest cover in the country.

The FRA does not deal with the regularisation of encroachments, but instead acknowledges pre-existing rights, the memorandum, accessed by The Wire, noted. It therefore requested the Union environment ministry to provide a “detailed scientific analysis” to support the claim that FRA titles were causing loss of forest cover.

‘Unwilling to transfer power to gram sabhas’

According to forest rights expert and researcher Bijoy C.R., the main reason for the non-acknowledgement of the importance of the FRA, and its lack of implementation across the country, is because state forest departments and the Union government are loath to hand over power over these lands to the respective gram sabhas because this would decrease the control that these governmental organisations have over forests in the country, which cover at least one-fourth of India’s area.

Alok Shukla, convenor of the Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan that has been raising the concerns of indigenous communities in Chhattisgarh against deforestation for coal mining, concurred.

Gram sabha consent is ingrained in the FRA and this plays a huge role in people being able to protect and conserve forest lands they depend on, as the Chhattisgarh experience has shown, Shukla told The Wire.

“And yet gram sabha consent is being fudged in many cases as in the case of Hasdeo,” he said. “The government does not want to give community rights to people.”

For example, in the case of the Pare Galma II coal mine in Tamnar in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district, where people have been protesting the felling of trees to develop a coal mine that will be operated by the Adani Group, villagers across all 14 affected hamlets have insisted that they have not given their gram sabha consents, sources told The Wire.

And yet, according to activists, a three-day operation last week clear-felled several acres of forests that come under the community forest rights of the villages.

As per reports, a case pertaining to this is being heard in the Chhattisgarh high court.

Amending the Forest Conservation Act, 1980

Activists also said in their June 28 letter that the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, which mandates gram sabha consent for development projects, has now been done away with in its new avatar, the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, which was passed by parliament in 2023.

This is something that legal policy experts pointed to when the Bill was being discussed in both houses of parliament as The Wire has reported before; however, their caution was thrown to the wind and the new Act passed without changes.

“The Van Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan Rules, 2023 and a series of guidelines issued by the MoEFCC in purported furtherance of these amendments have further diluted the integral role of the FRA and of forest-dwelling communities in the conservation and preservation of forests in India,” the June 28 letter had noted.

However, this allegation has “been made without an in-depth knowledge and understanding of its various provisions, the factual position and its implementation,” the Union environment ministry claimed in its July 3 statement, adding that it had followed due parliamentary procedures to pass the Act.

However, as The Wire has reported before, several parliamentary safeguards were overlooked in the process. These included referring the amendment to a joint parliamentary committee, and deliberately by-passing the existing Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

Though the June 28 letter by activists to the prime minister demands, among other things, that the environment minister issue a public clarification of his media statement and “immediately withdraw his legally untenable claim that [the] Forest Rights Act results in forest degradation”, the environment ministry’s statement defends it, stating that the ministry “has been making unprecedented attempts to not just increase the country’s green cover but also ensure sustainability for dependent communities”.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.