India’s Forest Rights Act impacts an estimated 150 million forest-dwelling people, 40 million hectares of land, and 1,70,000 villages. The act is considered a landmark legislation for the country’s Adivasis and other forest-dwelling communities who were exploited and removed from their own land during colonial rule. However, several reports have revealed that the act’s implementation remains incomplete and faces systemic challenges.
In this article, we explain what the Forest Rights Act is, the reason for its enactment, how it aims to benefit India’s forest-dwelling communities, and in what ways it is failing to do so.
What is the Forest Rights Act?
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, or Forest Rights Act (FRA), came into force in 2008. The act recognises and vests forest rights—including the occupation of forest land—in tribes and communities that have been residing in, cultivating, and conserving the forests for generations.
Claims can be made by Scheduled Tribes that primarily reside in and depend on forests for their livelihood, and any individual or community residing on forest land for at least three generations (75 years) prior to December 13, 2005.
The act recognises three types of forest rights: individual forest rights (IFR), community forest rights (CFR), and community forest resource rights (CFRR).
Under IFR, individuals and families have the right to cultivation for livelihood and habitation on forest land. Under CFR, communities have access to traditional community resources and minor forest products such as bamboo, honey, wood oil, and mahua. CFR also includes grazing rights, fishing rights and access to water bodies in forests, habitat rights for particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs), and access to traditional seasonal resources for pastoral and nomadic communities. Additionally, CFR recognises traditional customary rights—rights rooted in customs but not necessarily written down as law—and the right to protect, regenerate, conserve, or manage any community forest resource for sustainable use. It provides the right to allocate forest land for essential developmental purposes such as construction of school buildings, health centres, and community halls or even for village graveyards and setting up a cremation ground.
The CFRR goes one step beyond CFR as it offers management rights of the forest to the gram sabha instead of the forest department.
These provisions aim to formalise the rights of forest communities and safeguard them from displacement.
The FRA is considered a necessary instrument for these communities as they have faced grave historical injustice and subversion of rights under British occupation of India and even after Independence. The forests have been heavily exploited in the process, and the act seeks to regulate, manage, and sustainably protect forest resources by recognising tribal rights.
Why was the FRA necessary?
The British administration, due to its mistrust in the abilities of Adivasis and other forest-dwelling communities to conserve forests and to employ a ‘scientific’ management system, centralised forest management. They created the Imperial Forest Department in 1864 and enacted the 1865 Indian Forest Act. This empowered local governments to declare certain forest areas as state forests. The 1878 amendment to the Indian Forest Act divided forests into reserved forests (completely government controlled), protected forests (partly government controlled), and village forests (controlled by abutting, or adjoining, villages)—further alienating communities. Local agricultural practices such as grazing and shifting cultivation were banned. Indigenous communities that had long been living off of the forests sustainably through ethical practices and relied on forest produce for food, fuel, medicine, and livelihoods were restricted from accessing the forest. Meanwhile, the British administration exploited the forest by cutting down trees for commercial benefits. The expansion of state forest area was to such an extent that it increased from 14,000 square miles in 1878 to 76,000 square miles by 1890; three-fourths of this was reserved forest area.
Another amendment to the act in 1927 penalised indigenous communities for actions considered offensive by the state; if they lived in the forest area without due permission from the state, they were declared illegal encroachers on their own land. The word ‘conservation’ was not mentioned at all in the act.
Post-colonial rule brought its own challenges. Independent India continued with the oppressive forest acts of the British period. However, due to rising deforestation concerns and reduction of forest cover area, India introduced the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. It regulated the diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes such as mining, industry, and infrastructure. Any diversion required prior approval from the central government.
As the land of forest-dwelling communities was taken away for non-forest purposes, their displacement continued unabetted. As a result, communities faced displacement and eviction, prosecution, and criminalisation, and their rights over the land were severely restricted. No consideration was given to their deep knowledge of forest conservation practices or the cultural significance the forests hold for them.
Similarly, the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972—implemented to conserve wildlife and prevent poaching, smuggling, and illegal wildlife trade—created protected areas such as wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. Adivasis and other forest-dwelling communities were evicted from these areas to create ‘human-free zones’ for the wildlife, that too without adequate rehabilitation and resettlement arrangements.
Historically, there have been many protest movements—the Munda rebellion, Koya rebellion, Santhal rebellion, Narmada Bachao Andolan, Campaign for Survival and Dignity—in response to the injustices faced by tribals, Adivasis, and other forest-dwelling communities.
The FRA aimed to formally recognise the traditional land rights of forest-dwelling communities.
The last straw was May 2002. India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) issued a directive to state governments to clear forest lands of ‘illegal encroachments’ by forest dwellers, labelling these as threats to wildlife corridors and forest conservation. The forest area with encroachments in eight states was estimated at 12,50,000 hectares. This order led to widespread evictions, which displaced millions. To enforce these evictions, the government created a Central Empowered Committee (CEC) composed mainly of conservationists, with no representation from tribal authorities.
Public backlash and mobilisation, spearheaded by groups such as the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), led to protests and lobbying for tribal rights. In early 2004, the MoEF issued a notice retracting the eviction orders and advocating for the recognition of tribal land rights. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs was eventually tasked to draft a law recognising forest rights, leading to the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in 2006. This law aimed to formally recognise the traditional land rights of forest-dwelling communities, marking a shift from viewing them as ‘encroachers’ to acknowledging their rights to ancestral lands.
Why is the FRA’s implementation a challenge?
Post the enactment of the FRA, no changes were made to the legal framework of the Indian Forest Act, 1927; Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972; and Forest Conservation Act, 1980—the very laws responsible for the historical injustice towards forest-dwelling communities. There were no amendments or alignment between the acts to ensure smooth implementation of the FRA.
This uncertainty at the legal level presents challenges at the institutional or administrative level, because the forest department seems to follow the older acts. As in colonial times, there’s a lack of trust in the ability of forest-dwelling communities to conserve, protect, manage, and regenerate the forest areas. Thus, efforts aren’t made to inform the villagers about their forest rights.
Even after filing claims for their rights, communities have to wait for years on a decision. The claim process is complex because of the documentation required. To add to this, people remain uninformed when their claims are rejected even though this is supposed to be communicated so they can re-appeal the decision. They aren’t told the reason either. In cases where people are granted the rights titles, the allocated area is often less than what they appealed for, and insufficient for livelihood.
Revenue interests take precedence over community rights.
The local government also struggles to enforce its powers. Gram sabhas are vested with the authority to initiate the forest rights process—a move meant to decentralise forest governance. The gram sabha creates a representative forest rights committee (FRC), with two-third tribals and one-third women. This committee receives, consolidates, verifies, and prepares the map for the claims that are then passed on to the sub-divisional level committee (SDLC), which then passes it on to the state level committee. While this three-tiered process is meant to adopt a bottom-up approach—where the gram sabha is supposed to be the decision-making authority—it isn’t executed as intended. District and forest officials tend to practise a top-down approach where they wield more power than the gram sabha.
Although the claim approval rate for both individual and community forest rights remains low, the latter seem to suffer particularly as they are considered a reduction of traditional control over forest areas for the forest bureaucracy. Revenue interests, such as mining leases or extraction of minerals, take precedence over community rights.
The implementation of the act and accordance of subsequent rights also differs statewise. While some states have a poor track record in recognising both IFR and CFR titles, some do better in one area. Overall, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu are the worst performing when it comes to FRA implementation. Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Maharashtra are the best performing, with Maharashtra recognising most CFR titles.
Although the FRA applies to all the states in Northeast India, it has only been implemented in two: Assam and Tripura. One reason for the lack of implementation is that in many northeastern states, land is a resource that is managed by the community, and people’s rights over their land are recognised through other mechanisms. For instance, Nagaland and Mizoram are guaranteed special provisions by Articles 371A and 371G respectively. In the case of these two states, the state legislative assemblies have the right to decide whether or not to extend the FRA to the state. Mizoram approved the FRA in 2009 and then revoked it in 2019, whereas Nagaland has constituted a committee but has yet to make a decision.
With the ongoing challenges in implementation, the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, has cast a shadow over the FRA.
How does Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, affect the FRA?
The 2023 amendment (FCAA) to the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, undermines the efficacy of the FRA. It restricts conservation to notified forests and forests recorded in government records on or after October 25, 1980. This means forests that aren’t notified or recorded in government records don’t fall under protection; they can be used for plantations, infrastructure, and other commercial purposes—directly impacting the communities residing in these areas. This goes against the Supreme’s Court directive of protecting forests regardless of ownership as mentioned in the 1996 Godavarman judgement. The ruling included forests that aren’t in government or revenue records.
Additionally, the FRA mandates the consent of gram sabhas in forest land diversion for developmental projects. By reducing the scope of lands considered ‘forest’ under FCAA 2023, certain projects may bypass these provisions, and sideline community consultation and consent.
The act also exempts land from conservation when situated within 100 kilometres from international borders. This will particularly impact the forest cover of the northeastern states—the 100 kilometre distance from international borders would cover most of these states as well as Sikkim, with 47 percent forest cover, and Uttarakhand, with 45 percent forest cover.
Srishti Gupta and Jasmine Bal contributed to this article with inputs and insights from Ramesh Sharma, Vaibhav Panda, and Kumar Sambhav.
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