IT WAS icing gone sour on a cake you can break your teeth on. On January 4 this year, the Madhya Pradesh food and civil supplies minister, Ramesh Solomonand, griped to the press about his disapproval of the state forest department's decision to impose a total ban on the collection of any forest produce in the national parks and sanctuaries under its jurisdiction.
Solomonand was concerned that the measure would deprive "poor tribals living around the specified regions of their livelihood". Agreeing with him, many of his party colleagues in Bhopal and New Delhi goaded the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) into initiating measures for an eventual reversal of the decision.
While party mandarins denied the serious implications of this deafening protest from within its own leadership,it became clear that the Congress is already lost in deep 'woods over the proposed Conservation of Forests and Natural Ecosystems Act. Some nonCongress state governments have already denounced it volubly.
Non-governmental organisations have already held a national level workshop on the issue, and are planning to launch a muscular nationwide campaign from mid-March. Further, there are clear indications that movements for autonomous regions in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh will make it their prime enemy target very soon. It is a surprisingly all-party consensus that is predicting that forest-dependent people are bound to react.
Since November last year, politicians, NG0s, ecologists, lawyers and others have been voicing their dissent, and although there is little by way of a concerted movement, the clout of the dissenters is massively broadbased.
Senior MEF officials reveal that at least 3 state governments have sent in acerbic critiques. Rajasthan's colourful chief minister, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, says, "This is the latestexample of the Narasimha Rao government's repeated attempts at denying the states their rights to enjoy natural resources.
Orissa's Biju Patnaik and Jyoti Basu of West Bengal share Shekhawat's views. They flagellate the Bill for stripping the states of all their previous authority over forests. Their ire has been stoked by Section 77 (1) of the draft Bill, which says that any rules made by the state forest administration need Central approval before notification.
Besides, if the law comes through, the states will have to surrender all their rights overa giant annual kitty of Rs 1,100 crow -the last available figures (1990) forrevenue from forest products. Sections27 (A), 29 (2) and 34 (4) empower theCentral government to 'stringentlydirect the use of forests". Despite waffling governmentese, the financialimplications are clear.
Other factors are equallygalling. Parnaik, pugnacious at thebest of times, splutters that thestrong conservationist orientationof the proposed Bill will be 'usedentirely to check developmentalactivities in the states".
Politicians from regions gripped by strong movements forautonomy voice other concerns.Major-General (Retd) B C Kiomduri, the Bharatiya Janata Partymember of Parliament fromGarlawal, is convinced that "it isonly a matter of time before theproposed forest Bill becomes a target of the Uttarakhand movement".Leaders from Bihar's Jharkhandregion, regardless of party affiliations, echo similar apprehensions.
Indeed, grousing is on withinthe ruling Congress itself. One 1okSabha member Emma tribal belt ofMadhya Pradesh spoke darklyabout its grassroots workers cautioning leaders that tribal areextremely tureasy with the proposedlegislation.
Such grassroots level awareness is a very recent development and hascome about almost entirely due toinformation dissemination by NGOs andvoluntary agencies working with forest-dependent people- In fact, the NGOs hadtapped leaking Congress sources andknew of the gavernmerit's plans in Maylast year. However, recent attitudinalshifts have lent the NGOs a new sense ofimmediacy.
"Within the NGOS, there has been arise of elements who have begun to callfor an outright rejection of the Bill,"says Ashwini Chhatre of Delhi's IndianSocial Institute. They oppose "thosewho seem to be willing to go along withthe basic structure of the Bill, calling foronly a few reformative changes".
Chhatre, who is coordinating theanti-forest Bill lobby,, insists, "Thefor" department aims to slow down,even reverse, whatever trends India haswitnessed of popular participation inforest management since the mid-80s."
Environmental researchers andacademicians have exposed the dubioususe made of several general ecologicalconcepts, reaffirming the NGOs' conviction that they are right in demandingcomplete withdrawal. For instance,Sections 1.12 and 13(D) say that thecommunities' rights to collect fuelwood and fodder will be subject to thecarrying capacity" of forests.moreover, if forest officials are convinced that an area is alreadydegraded, they can stop communities from using it until the land "isrestored to its original productivecapacitr.
Seemingly to keep forestshealthy, such apparently usefulmeasures are unacceptable toexperts, who point out that "carrying capacity" is very difficult todefine or estimate accuratelybecause it depends upon multifarious factors. And, as Amita Baviskar,a Delhi University lecturer andenvironmental activist, points out,"Our foresters have failed miserablyin establishing the carrying capacities of national parks or sanctuarieseven for a single species -saytigersor elephants." It is naive to expectthem to map the forest lands intheir entirety. Without such data,they will be free to take arbitraryanti-people decisions.
Critics decry the insensitiveapproach towards shifting cultivation, or jhum, widely practiced inthe northeast, The Bill seeks to banjhum within 3 years of notificationof the identification of the practice,and to immediately ban jhum onany slope with a gradient of over30 degrees. It also makes Centralpermission mandatory for farming on any slope inclined between 10-30 degrees. "Which sensible government would want to spare time or effort to go around measuring the gradient of every patch? " asks Mahesh Rangarajan.
Rangarajan says research has firmly established that largescale commercial extraction of timber poses a much greater environmental threat for the northeast. But "no such curbs as proposed on jhum are applicable on commercial forestry here".
Critics also revile the pacifying lollipop of "people's participation" in forest protection: first because, while village forests can be declared "reserved", the reverse will be prohibited. And with the forest department having already cornered the best pieces of land, "where will good quality land for village forests come from?" asks Chhatre.
The provisions for arresting without warrant, on mere suspicion that some-one may possess forest produce illegally have been branded as "simply Draconian".
Vociferous support from the legal community has given more power to the NGOS'elbows. Rajiv Dhawan, a Supreme Court advocate specialising in environmental laws, fears that "the provisions will enable maverick environmental authorities to claim they are ecologically sensitive, even as they perpetrate disasters". He also feels thatmany of the provisions run counter to the spirit of the panchayati raj legislation enshrined in the Constitution through the 73rd amendment.
A sitting Supreme Court judge opines, "The Bill seems to replace all natural rights to forestswith mere concessions Maverick granted by the state."
The 3rd encouraging enviromentalfactor for the NGOs is the draft People's Natural Resource Management Bill prepared by P R Seshagiri Rao and Madhav Gadgil of the Centre of Ecological Sciences at the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science. Regarded by some as the alternative forest bill,this document addresses itself to a "sustainable, biodiversity- friendly, integrated, people-oriented system". Rao says that the underlying principle of their draft is "the recognition that any sustainable system must be based on the empowerment of the masses".
Convinced that their protests against the government's draft Bill may find legal legs after all, NGOS are gearing up for an all-out attack. Now corralling mass responses at 4 regional levels, some groups will first hold 2 major meetings towards January-end in Madhya Pradesh and Chhotanagpur. By mid-March,they will convene again to evaluate the responses and try to hammer out a consensual alternative draft.
AD this does lend a semblance of unfolding activity. But, warns Rao, "It will have to be seen whether the groups will actually be able to develop a concrete strategy to chatmelise their opposition." Much more brainstorming and purposeful action is required before such a strategy can emerge, he says. Chhatre also talks about the need to gather popular support.
Aware of these developments, the bigwigs in the MEF are uneasy but are putting up a brave front. The minister himself feels that, lacking a popular support base, the NGOS' will probably achieve little. The quiet but firm inspector general, forests, A Ahmed, however, says: "Mark my words - we will be there." There is an army of disgruntled people chafing to prove him wrong.