The bill is expected to be tabled for clearance during the ongoing Monsoon Session of Parliament
Representative photo: iStock. A section of activists from the Himalayan region have raised concerns over the proposed amendment to the Forest (Conservation) Act. The proposed Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023 (FCA) will erase the rights of indigenous communities living on India’s borders, they said on July 22, 2023.
The activists who gathered for a dialogue on the issue, organised by the Youth for Himalaya coalition, called the provisions of the bill ambiguous. They expressed concerns over the provisions on exemptions from due processes paving the way for the exploitation of fragile forest lands and mountains.
Following the dialogue, activists called for a nationwide Tweetstorm on July 24 that saw over 11,000 tweets in three hours.
FCA is expected to be tabled for clearance during the ongoing Monsoon Session of Parliament that began on July 20, 2023. All the proposed amendments to the bill have been approved by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on FCA.
If the bill comes into effect, it exempts many activities from requiring forest clearances, including those in forest lands of up to 0.10 hectares alongside roads and rail lines and construction of defence-related or public utility projects.
It will also exempt forest lands within 100 kilometres from the international border / Line of Control / Line of Actual Control for strategic linear projects. The activists alleged that Kashmir and almost the entire Northeast India region come within this 100 kilometres ambit. They also raised concerns over the potential dilution of article Article 371, which contains special provisions for certain states as well as the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
“For the Northeast, we have Article 371, the Sixth Schedule of Constitution and other special statuses which gives us certain immunities and rights to make decisions regarding our land. But this Bill is an erasure of those rights. It opens up the resource-rich areas of the Northeast to extractive industries,” said Pranab Doley, a political activist from the Mising tribe, Kaziranga, Assam.
Takpa Tenzin, president of Spiti Civil Society, Himachal Pradesh, pointed out that the proposed amendments contradict The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and The Panchayats (Extension to The Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 by not defining strategic linear projects or addressing the requirement for people’s consent to access certain lands.
In the past, Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT) has stopped a Teesta Stage-4 520 Mega Watts proposed by NHPC because Gram Sabha had not given forest clearance. But with the FCA Bill, which does not require consultation with the Gram Sabha, it would be very difficult for us to save our land that the indigenous people and Buddhists of Sikkim worship, said Mayalmit Lepcha, president of the Sikkim Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association and the general secretary of ACT.
“West Bengal and Bangladesh, with whom we share our river, would also be impacted,” added Lepcha.
In Jammu and Kashmir, religious pilgrimages and native pastoralists seeking to graze are already denied land. Pastoralists are often told that they pollute the land, the land is within a Protected Area, or it has been taken by the government for strategic purposes, Shaikh Ghulam Rasool, founder of Jammu and Kashmir RTI Movement and member of Forest Rights Coalition, Jammu and Kashmir, said.
“The upper areas of several Protected Areas like Kazinag National Park, Limber and Lachipora Wildlife Sanctuaries are already in the firing range. We were in the talks about how to do grazing. But we can’t put that forward now as it may all be named strategic land,” Rasool added.
The bill states that FCA will only apply to areas recorded as forests in government records on or after October 25, 1980. Activists pointed out this will invalidate the Supreme Court’s 1996 judgement in TN Godavarman vs Union of India and others.
They also expressed concern regarding the processes that will be followed for forest lands given exemption from the requirement of forest clearance. In the Tanakpur to Pithoragarh road, around 102 sensitive zones were encountered, said Ravi Chopra, former chairperson for the Supreme Court-appointed high-powered committee on the Char Dham highway project.
In the first two years, more than half the locations already had landslides. This happened because the required geological investigations had not happened, he added.
“Often, waste from cutting a mountain is thrown on the other side of the road — even if people are settled there — or water bodies. Landslides add to this and the sea level rises, leading to increased flooding. Environmental and social assessments help determine where dumpyards can be made which is currently not happening.”
He added that linear projects like railways, roads, and electricity transmission all require tunnels. Blasting tunnels causes cracks in the mountains, which lead to disasters like Joshimath sinking.
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