Government proposes amendments to the Forest Conservation Act reasoning current laws not encouraging plantation, forest creation and mounting timber import bill
The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) released the proposed amendments to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 for public consultation, six months after the Union Cabinet approved it.
The ‘public consultation paper’ released October 2, 2021 has focused on the coverage of the FCA besides aspects like what constitutes non-forestry activities and thus, could be taken out of the law’s purview.
FCA is the nodal legislation that regulates deforestation in India. This law in force prohibits felling of forest trees for non-forestry purposes without the approval of the Union government.
The legal definition of a forest — which also decides the application of the FCA — has been a contentious issue since December 1996. Before December 12, 1996, both state and Union governments extended the coverage of FCA to those forests notified under the Indian Forest Act, 1927, or any other areas as notified by other local laws.
On December 12, 1996, the Supreme Court in the TN Godavarman Thirumulpad case extended the applicability of FCA to those areas that could be defined as forests in the clinical dictionary meaning, irrespective of ownership.
Later, using this definition, plantations in non-forest areas like privately-owned plots and even land with shrubs and trees were also treated as forests, attracting the provisions of the FCA.
The proposed amendments to the FCA will keep areas now deemed forests using the “dictionary” meaning out of the purview of the regulations.
The details of the specific changes to FCA are not known but the paper reasoned:
Identification of such land is subjective and arbitrary to some extent. This leads to ambiguity and has been observed to result in a lot of resentment and resistance, particularly from private individuals and organisations. Considering any private area as forest, would restrict the right of an individual to use his / her own land for any non-forestry activity. Many times, the proposed change in the land use is not considered by the government even under the provisions of the Act.
Once the FCA treats a private-owned area as forests, like lands with tree cover, the owner has to compensate for equal area if he / she wants to take up any non-forestry activities. This is called compensatory afforestation and is legally binding.
“This has further led to the development of a tendency to keep most of the private land devoid of vegetation, even if the land has scope for planting activities. In view of this, it is felt extremely necessary to define the scope of application of the Act in an objective manner,” according to the paper, which is open for public feedback.
The MoEFCC consultation paper mentioned that in a tropical country like India, any piece of land if left unattended would have wild growth vegetation. Thus, such land would be treated as deemed forests using the dictionary meaning.
“Such land would continue to attract provisions of the Act. Therefore, people in general have a tendency to prevent any tree-like vegetation growing on their land.”
However, the amendments are still not clear on whether the government would completely lift the FCA provisions on such land already declared as deemed forests using the dictionary meaning as per the Supreme Court order.
Rather, going by the paper out for consultation, the government is proposing a kind of relaxation on non-forestry activities in ‘deemed forests’ having private ownership. According to the paper:
To ease the grievances of the private individuals whose land comes within the state-specific Private Forests Act or the purview of dictionary meaning of forest in terms of Supreme Court order dated 12.12.1996 and accordingly where FCA is applicable now, it has been proposed to allow such owners for construction of structures for bonafide purposes including forest protection measures and residential unit upto an area of 250 square metres as a one-time relaxation.
On March 25 this year, Down To Earth (DTE) accessed the documents containing draft amendments to the FCA.
DTE reported:
The amendments were reportedly shared with the Union cabinet in March 2021 but were not made public. They propose to “grant exemptions to railways, roads, tree plantations, oil exploration, wildlife tourism and ‘strategic’ projects in forests,” according to the documents in possession.
MoEFCC cites the increasing import bill for timber as one of the prime reasons for easing private lands with trees out of the FCA purview. Annually India spends around Rs 45,000 crore on import of wood and wood derivatives.
The other reason for encouraging plantation and forest growth on private land is to meet the National Forest Policy target of bringing 33 per cent of the country’s area under forests and tree cover. Currently, 24.56 per cent of geographical areas are under forests.
“There is a practical limitation to increase forest cover. Therefore, more and more non-forest lands, including land under private ownership are required to be brought under the tree cover for ecological, economic and environmental benefits,” the MoEFCC paper noted.
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