A larger injustice against the tribal and other forest dwellers unfolded when independent India adopted the British legislation of Indian Forest Act of 1927 which handled the governance of forests back to the state, and converted large tracts of forests into ‘reserved forests’ without mapping the villages within or settling the claims of these communities. Natural forests are a part of the biosphere, and a vital instrument towards maintaining life on earth. The Tribals (indigenous peoples) and other forest dwellers have historically lived naturally in such land areas. However, ever since forests became a state managed entity, there has been a shift from conservation of forest and the tribal’s way of life to a market-driven approach of acquiring and divesting forest resources, without adopting adequate conservation practices.

To address this state of things, the framework of forest governance began to change with joint forest management in the ‘90s, and later, the Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006 made a landmark reform by admitting the historical wrongs meted out to the forest dwellers, and recognizing the rights of the forest dwellers as integral part of the forest.  The law defiLFI the bundle of rights to be enjoyed by a claimant forest dependent community over a defined patch of land classified as forests in government records till date. It provides for restitution and recognition of forest rights across the country including individual rights to cultivated land in forest areas as well as collective rights to conserve, manage, control and use forests as common property. From the standpoint of livelihood, it is a major institutional reform aimed at providing tenurial security over a critical livelihood resource in rural and forested areas of our country. The FRA provides the forest dwellers with individual rights, community rights on forest land, and the right to manage minor forest produce.

Despite its intention of setting the ‘historic injustice’ right, the implementation of the Forest Rights Act even after a decade of its enactment, has been largely half-hearted if not down-right abysmal. According to a nation-wide study done by Community Forest Rights Learning and Advocacy Process (CFR-LA) in 2016, only 3% of all potential CFR claims have been given till date (as against 170,000 forest and forest fringe villages as per FSI). The July 2016 Annual Report on FRA by Ministry of Tribal Affairs shows that only 40.78% of all claims have been distributed, while 46% of all claims have been rejected so far.

Difficulties in the implementation of FRA – Several systemic challenges are impeding the progress of implementation of FRA. Community rights are not given attention; other traditional forest dwellers living in the forest areas have to prove their residency for 75 years making them the new landless; and lastly, even the size of land claimed by Tribals is not agreed upon. Moreover, managing forest produce by forest dwellers is directly in contradiction to the existing control of these assets by the corporate entity of forest development corporations.

Community Forest Rights – The process of recognizing community forest rights and community forest resource rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 has brought out a range of issues relevant for forest governance and management. Some of these include community processes of preparing management plans and decision making, restoration of degraded forest lands, institutional structures for management of NTFPs including value addition and processing, the roles of various government departments/agencies in supporting gram sabhas to effectively exercising their rights. The roles of NGOs/CSOs in assisting village communities post recognition of CFRs in various aspects of management and governance of forest requires attention.

Forest land diversion for mining, industrial corridors, and other infrastructure projects due to successive governments’ push continue at an accelerated pace. According to Centre for Science and Environment data, as much as 47,473 hectares of forest land were diverted for non-forest purposes only in two years (2014-2016), while in the last 30 years, 11,37,686 hectares of forest land were diverted for the same purpose.

Lack of PESA (local land governance) capacity – Provisions of Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 (PESA) pose another challenge. These are areas where Scheduled Tribe (ST) population is significant, and much of these areas are natural forests. PESA  provides strong Gram Sabha (local governance) supervision on these lands, but in practice, the challenges of lack of capacity of Gram Sabha and state’s efforts to lease these lands out for mining, often violate PESA norms. The political class and the state bureaucracy’s  resistance to widen and deepen decentralization also compounds the challenges of implementation of PESA. 

Legal framework leads to development deficit in forest areas – The legal framework as regards forest has another challenge: The legal jurisdiction of the Panchayati Raj and Development Block administration does not cover forest areas. This means that the resident of forest areas cannot access any of the development and social security support offered by the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) and Block administration. Typically, rural housing under Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), old age pension, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) works, widow pension, and many other supports therefore cannot reach the forest dwellers inside reserve forests. Such factors contributes to development deficit in the forest areas.