Last week, the Ministry of Environment and Forests uploaded a “draft National Forest Policy” and invited comments in two weeks.

Then, they decided it was not a draft at all, but just a “study”. This is odd, considering that the document is titled “National Forest Policy (Draft).”

And, on top of this, this policy that is not a policy directly incites State Forest Departments to violate the single most important forest law passed since independence – the Forest Rights Act of 2006 – by supporting their disastrous Joint Forest Management policies and rechristening it “community forest management.” This when, as per international studies, almost half the forest land in the country actually belongs to communities as per law. Just to add insult to injury, the policy does not even contain the words “forest rights” and does not have a single reference to the law.

Nothing unusual for this Ministry. Consider what it has done in the last two years:

• Framed a bill (the CAMPA Bill) for granting tens of thousands of crores to State Forest Departments for “planting trees in forests” – without a single word about the legal rights of those who use and live in those forests. In other words, an invitation to use these funds to grab lands and take over forests over which forest dwellers have statutory management rights under the law.
• Issued guidelines for allowing private companies to illegally take over forest lands and plant commercial plantations on them – while criminally preventing local communities from exercising their rights in those areas. Those guidelines too were, surprise surprise, never actually made public by the Ministry, and had to be exposed by a reporter.
• Illegally backed the passage of “village forest rules” by the Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh government – against the opinion of the NDA’s own Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
• Diverted huge areas of forest land for corporate projects while constantly violating – and sabotaging – the requirements for forest dwellers’ consent and prior recognition of rights contained in the law.

The single consistent theme is – act as if the Environment Ministry and forest officials are above the law, ignore local communities, and treat them as if they are animals with no legal rights. Then empower your bureaucrats with sweeping, illegal powers and massive funds, while handing out the country’s resources to corporates. Call this “reforms” and “transparency” while making sure unaccountable bureaucrats can seize natural resources for their own and corporates’ benefit – even at the cost of endangering the country’s entire financial system.

The final irony? A “nationalist” ruling party obsessed with accusing others of being “anti-national” – while systematically seeking to restore the colonial system of forest management and the colonial law on land acquisition.

A crusade in which the Environment Ministry is leading from the front.

Campaign for Survival and Dignity http://www.forestrightsact.com

On Friday, May 13th, Prime Minister Narendra Modi implicitly attacked the Opposition for “delaying” the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, claiming that “thousands of crores” could have been released to the States had it been passed.  This was a transparent dodge, since the issue was not whether to pass the Bill or not; the Bill could easily have been passed if the government had agreed to respect forest rights.

This was clear from the beiinning.  After the PM’s statement, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh issued a short statement to clear the air:

In his farewell remarks to the Rajya Sabha yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi regretted the failure of the Rajya Sabha to pass the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill in this session. However, the Prime Minister failed to mention that the reason this Bill could not be passed was his own government’s inexplicable decision to not include any provisions in the Bill for respecting the rights of forest dwellers bestowed by the Forest Rights Act, 2006 when engaging in afforestation projects. This was objected to by the Congress, CPM, JD(U) and the TMC. This at a time when plantation activities of forest authorities are resulting in conflicts across the country. When the opposition gave notice for amendments to this effect, the government could have accepted them; but instead of doing so, the government chose to defer the Bill.  This shows clearly that the government does not intend to respect forest rights, as is apparent from its moves to lease forest lands to private companies and similar steps. It is for the Prime Minister to explain why his government is so keen on transferring thousands of crores to forest bureaucrats without any measures to ensure that these funds are not misused, and that the rights of our country’s poorest people are protected.

Furthermore, on Thursday – when there was still time – CPM MP Jitendra Choudhury had written to Environment Minister Javadekar to accommodate protection of forest rights in the Bill, reminding of him of commitments he had made during the Lok Sabha debate.  He released the letter after the PM’s statement. A copy of the letter is below.

Letter from Com. Jitendra Choudhury, CPM MP, Lok Sabha

After declaring several times that it would pass the compensatory afforestation fund bill in this session, the Central government backed off on Wednesday in the Rajya Sabha and pushed it to the monsoon session.

After Congress MP Jairam Ramesh gave notice for moving an amendment to protect forest rights, and after it became clear that the Left and other parties were also taking similar stands, the government chose to back off rather than accept protection for people’s rights.

This development comes a week after a CPM MP revealed documents in a national convention showing how the Modi government continues to try to sabotage forest rights, and to give bureaucrats illegal powers to override gram sabhas.. The next few months will tell if the Centre is going to continue on that path, or if it is going to accept amendments that would at least be a first step towards protecting people’s rights.

Want to know more background, and have the details of the amendments? Read our statement from yesterday.

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

The Rajya Sabha is today slated to discuss the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, 2016 – in the midst of a demand for amendments from the Opposition. This Bill concerns a giant sum of money – 42,000 crores – and 23% of the country’s land area, affecting the lives of millions of people. The NDA government’s attitude to these amendments will show whether the Modi government will continue to promote the absolute power of bureaucrats, even when it is clear that they are engaging in criminal and illegal activities.

Congress MP Jairam Ramesh has given notice of an amendment to the Bill, and the Left is also expected to move amendments. MPs of other parties have said they support the spirit of the amendments.

This bill concerns money with the CAMPA fund (see background note at the end). In its current form, the Bill hands over these giant sums of money to committees dominated entirely by State and Central forest officials. The principal amount can be spent on almost anything (see section 6 of the bill) but it is being sold as a tree planting exercise.

But after the Forest Rights Act, it is now a legally accepted fact that millions of people in India live in or around forests, depend on them for their livelihoods and have legal rights over them. This Bill states that forest officials can simply plant huge numbers of trees (or undertake other “forest management” projects) in natural landscapes – such as grasslands, natural open forests, grazing areas, common lands or people’s cultivated lands – without even checking if people have rights over them, leave alone consulting them about where they should be planted, what species should be planted, and what impact this will have on their lives.

Plantations have been one of the major sources of conflict in forest areas, as forest bureaucrats routinely use them as a way to get more people’s land under their control. For instance, in Odisha, a Juang tribal village was pushed to near starvation after it lost nearly all of its common lands to compensatory afforestation plantations.

The amendments being moved today, including that for which Mr. Ramesh gave notice yesterday (see below), say only that before spending the money, forest officials will have to obtain a certificate that the implementation of the Forest Rights Act is complete in the area and that the villages in question consent to the plantation. These are are the same conditions that are already applicable to diversion of forest lands for industrial projects – since the former can be as destructive as the latter. They also say that where people have management rights or ownership of forest produce under the FRA, they should be in charge of the planning (otherwise, what is the meaning of their management rights?) These amendments will add one small check to ensure that people have at least one forum where they can defend their rights.

All of this will also help address the rampant corruption in CAMPA funds. In 2013 the CAG found giant irregularities in spending of compensatory afforestation funds. After evaluating plantations done in 2008, the agency found that only 11% of plantations actually survived, and in many cases no plantation was actually done. Records were mostly incomplete, funds had been spent on activities not permitted under the Rules, and so on. The findings in CAG report have been corroborated by monitoring studies done by independent researchers as well as by state forest departments.

The question is – will the Modi government continue its systematic sabotage of gram sabha consent? Will it continue to incentivise private companies and bureaucrats to engage in criminal grabbing of forest land?

Today’s actions will tell.

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

BACKGROUND – WHAT IS CAMPA?

Under the Rules to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, whenever any forest land is “diverted” to any non-forest use, an equal area (if revenue land) or double the area (if “degraded” forest land) must be planted with trees. The user agency seeking the diverted forest land has to provide the land / the funds to purchase the land and the funds to plant the trees. In 2002, during hearings in theGodavarman “forest” case, the Supreme Court observed that most of this money was either not being spent or was being spent on other things, meaning that very little afforestation was happening. Hence it set up an ‘ad hoc’ authority to control this money and also imposed an additional, much larger penalty amount for diversion of forest land, consisting of payment for what it called the “net present value” of the forest being lost (an amount that was arbitrarily fixed at certain figures). However, the government pointed out that the court could not direct how this money should be spent, since the constitution required that the expenditure of any fund must be authorised by an Act of Parliament. As a result, the money simply accumulated. In 2008, the Centre tried to bring a CAMPA bill (substantially similar to the present one), but it was unanimously rejected by the Standing Committee. The money continued to accumulate, reaching a now estimated 42,000 crores. The new Bill is an attempt to allow for expenditure of this money. But even though the 2008 Standing Committee report had itself highlighted the need to respect forest rights and ensure democratic accountability for the funds, this was ignored by the NDA government as well.

Full Text of Amendment Proposed by Mr. Jairam Ramesh (other parties also moving amendments)

Seven Parties Support National Convention Against Illegal Takeover of Forest Resources, Delegates from Eleven States Join

On May 4th, 2016, in New Delhi, CPI(M) MP Com. Jitendra Choudhury revealed that he has written documents showing how the Prime Minister’s Office and the Environment Ministry have continuously attempted to empower bureaucrats and bypass citizens’ rights – even those enshrined in law in the Forest Rights Act. Notwithstanding a judgment of the Supreme Court and their own public professions of commitment to forest rights, the Narendra Modi government continues to try to bypass the law – even after its own Tribal Ministry has said such moves are “illegal”. Com. Choudhury noted that this is of a piece with the government’s general efforts to disempower people. As with the land acquisition ordinance last year, the NDA government appears hell bent on empowering bureaucrats and corporates and destroying all transparent, accountable procedures for handing over land.

The documents can be found here. A short explanatory note is here. To understand them, also read our timeline on attempts to sabotage the Forest Rights Act for corporate projects.

Com. Choudhury made these statements at the National Convention on Illegal Takeover of Forest Lands and Resources. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh and JD(U) leader Ali Anwar (Rajya Sabha) also condemned the NDA government’s systematic attempt to grab natural resources and marginalise people’s rights – especially in forest lands. Shri Jairam Ramesh explained how the Environment Ministry’s order of 2009, which spelled out the FRA’s requirements of gram sabha consent and completion of recognition of rights before diversion of forest land, is under systematic attack under the NDA. He noted that he had also faced tremendous pressure to privatise forest land for industry, but had resisted it; the NDA government then issued orders to that effect in August 2015. Shri Ali Anwar attacked the government for its anti-people policies and deliberate cultivation of corporates and the bureaucracy.

Leaders of the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India(Marxist Leninist) Liberation sent statements of support and expressed regret that due to Parliament and other obligations they could not attend.

Over 250 delegates from mass organisations and people’s movements from ten States – Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Himachal – joined the convention and spoke about the struggles in their States and the illegal grabbing of resources and lands. From every state the same pattern repeated – Centre and State governments conniving in failing to recognise people’s rights over forest lands, as well as the Central government facilitating the illegal takeover of forest land through encouraging diversion without consent, plantations on people’s lands, and funding of parallel institutions intended to displace the powers of the gram sabha.

The Convention ended with a condemnation of the consistent and criminal attack on transparency, accountability and democratic control over natural resources by the NDA government and by most State governments.

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

Com. Jitendra Choudhury (CPI(M)), Lok Sabha MP from Tripura, showing the assembly the documents he has obtained

Indian Social Institute, New Delhi

Dear friends,

As you know, across the country, the Central and State governments are engaged in a massive, illegal takeover of forest land, often in connivance with big private companies. This giant land grab is resulting in the impoverishment and illegal displacement of lakhs of people, and the loss of livelihood for many more. Some forms of this illegal land grab include:

• Diversion of forest land without recognising forest rights and without taking the consent of gram sabhas, or forging gram sabha resolutions giving consent, despite the requirements of the Forest Rights Act.

• Continuous sabotage of rights recognition under the Forest Rights Act and denial of recognition for both individual and community rights.

• Use of para military forces to arrest, terrorise and kill those resisting take over of their lands and forests.

• Declaration of new reserved forests, protected areas and other state-controlled forests without respecting either prior forest laws or the Forest Rights Act. Forced relocation of people from tiger reserves in violation of the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006, and the Forest Rights Act.

• State governments acquiring land without respecting the requirements of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, the Forest Rights Act or the PESA Act.

• State governments, such as Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and others, amending their laws or planning to amend their laws to bypass consent when acquiring land for projects.

All of these steps have the same basic objective: grabbing of resources without respecting the powers of the gram sabha and people’s democratic rights. The intent is always the same – to autocratically seize people’s lands and resources for the eventual benefit of private capital.

To oppose this brutal and criminal attack on the rights of the people and on the natural environment, a national convention will be held on May 4th in New Delhi.
In this national convention, representatives from at least ten States will be attending, discussing the struggles in their States and their plans for ongoing protests. In the run up to the Convention, mass protests have already been held in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and other States raising these issues.

We hope you will be able to join us at this important convention. The convention will be held at the Indian Social Institute, Lodhi Road, New Delhi. The convention will begin at 1030 am.

Today, the Supreme Court overturned a 2008 Madras High Court order – the only order against the Forest Rights Act from any court in the country. This should dispel any illusions from Friday’s proceedings in the court, which were incorrectly reported as being about “encroachment” of forest land.

In 2008, hearing a bunch of copycat court cases filed in various High Courts by retired forest officers, the Madras High Court had directed that the Forest Rights Act should be implemented, but no titles should be given without its permission. This was based on fearmongering by forest officials that the case would lead to destruction of forests. The Andhra Pradesh and Orissa High Courts followed the Madras HC by giving similar orders that year, but within less than a year, observing that the petitioners did not seem to be using the methods available to them in law, both of these courts removed their interim orders. Only the Madras High Court order was left standing.

Today, a Bench of Justices Chelameswar, Roy and Sapre orally observed that “no challenge to the vires [constitutional validity] of this Act has yet been made before us.” In their order, the bench stated that “having regard to the fact that claims are proceeding in the rest of the country, we see no reason for a hold up in Tamil Nadu.”

With today’s order the Supreme Court has removed the only obstacle that any court had imposed to the implementation of this Act.

On Friday, the court, when hearing ongoing cases against this Act by a few wildlife conservationists, had asked State governments to report on steps they had taken after acceptance and rejection of claims under this Act. There was no order directing eviction of rejected claimants and no order regarding ‘encroachment’, though this was mistakenly reported in some press outlets. Incidentally, most wildlife conservationists now support the Forest Rights Act; for instance see this joint letter to some of the petitioners in this case..

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

Also read about how the NDA is trying to bring the British Raj back in India’s forests.

Almost a decade after it was passed, the BJP-led NDA government has set out to finish off whatever is left of the Forest Rights Act. Having lost on the Land Acquisition Act, this time it’s a backdoor strategy.

What is happening? A bureaucrat – corporate land grab of almost a quarter of the country’s land area, snatching the livelihood rights of more than 100 million Indians. This from a government who claims to believe in “minimum government.”

Consider:

The Forest Rights Act empowers forest dwelling communities to manage and protect forests. Neither the UPA nor the NDA liked this very much, but it stands as the law, upheld by the Supreme Court.

Now Central guidelines from the Environment Ministry state that private companies can undertake commercial plantations on “degraded” forest land, up to 40% of the country’s forest land area. By implication, the existing forest and vegetation will be replaced by monocultural plantations, with the rights of forest dwellers restricted to “10-15%” of the leased patches. Their legal rights over the remaining 90% of the leased forests will be simply deleted by a stroke of the Environment Ministry’s pen; from empowered owners and managers as per the law, the BJP goverment wants to reduce them to beggars, dependent on whatever crumbs the private company may throw at them.

The State “village forest rules” in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh also ignore the right of forest dwellers to manage and protect their forests. All of this comes after the repeated and blatantly illegal hand over of forest land to private companies by the Environment Ministry.

This at a time when a study has shown that the Central and State governments combined have not even recognised one percent of the forest area over which people have rights; the true area is estimated to cover more than half of the country’s forests.

Both the Central and the State guidelines directly attack the ownership rights of forest dwellers over non-timber (or ‘minor’) forest produce. In both cases, private companies and contractors are to get the main right to forest produce (whether bamboo, timber, or non-timber forest produce) through MoUs signed with forest officials and their local committees (which are presided over by forest guards). Non timber forest produce is the single largest source of cash income (other than migrant labour) in most forest dwelling communities.

Meanwhile, the Modi government has also made much of its decision to ask miners to pay a percentage of their royalties – reduced by two thirds from what the law permits – and that too into a district mineral fund, controlled by the Collector. Once again, bureaucrat raj is equated with development and welfare. Nothing unusual for this government, which makes the District Collector the centre of every policy while reducing accountability wherever possible.

The final irony is that corporates will never actually get all these resources they are being promised. The Central guidelines are self contradictory – they say that the allotment of plots must “safeguard forest rights”, while mandating that rights should be violated; they provide 10-15% of the land for local communities and then talk of how they should be benefited from afforestation. All of this will ensure that implementation of these schemes will be mired in confusion and violence. Meanwhile, all of the schemes are blatantly illegal, as the Centre’s own Tribal Ministry has been feebly (and ineffectively) pointing out.

Finally, whatever sleight of hand they may wreak with the law, people will fight back. Already, ten political parties’ MPs have come together to oppose these blatant illegalities.. Is the BJP headed for one more land acquisition fiasco?

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

While everyone’e attention is focused on the fate of the NDA’s land acquisition bill, another bill has been quietly introduced in Parliament that will have similar implications for lakhs of India’s poorest communities – tribals and other forest dwellers.

The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, 2015, deals with how an enormous sum of money – more than Rs. 38,000 crores – should be managed. This money has been collected from projects that have taken over forest land. With more and more forest land being diverted, the money is growing in leaps and bounds. The Bill’s provisions, in short, say:

The money should be managed by forest officials through state and central bodies. There will be no representation or accountability to those living in or dependent on forest lands.

The money – which was collected ostensibly to replace destroyed forests – can be spent on “forest management, forest protection, infrastructure development, wildlife protection and management, supply of wood and other forest produce saving devices and other allied activities.” The Bill also permits using the money for “schemes” which “include any institute, society, centre of excellence in the field of forest and wildlife, pilot schemes, standardisation of codes and guidelines and such other related activities for the forestry and wildlife sector”. In other words, the State Forest Departments can spend this money entirely on themselves. In their existing incarnation, have been spent on everything from jeeps and laptops to tourism lodges and guns.

Much of the money is to be spent on plantations. In 2013 the CAG found giant irregularities in spending of compensatory afforestation funds. After evaluating plantations done in 2008, the agency found that only 11% of plantations actually survived, and in many cases no plantation was actually done. Records were mostly incomplete, funds had been spent on activities not permitted under the Rules, and so on. The findings in CAG report have been corroborated by monitoring studies done by independent researchers as well as by state forest departments.

Rather than address any of these issues, the new Bill seeks to simply legitimize such fraud and hand over far more money to the same Forest Departments that engaged in the earlier scam.

Besides, in practice, compensatory afforestation has become a pretext for taking over the common lands (and in some cases private lands) of forest dwellers across the country (in violation of the Forest Rights Act and the Supreme Court’s judgement on common lands). At a time when the Forest Rights Act is not being implemented, huge funds are to be handed over to the very agencies who are blocking it. This was the main reason that, in 2008, an almost identical earlier version of this Bill was unanimously rejected by the Parliamentary Standing Committee. This form of de facto, massive land acquisition has triggered conflicts across the country, including violence in many areas.

Campaign For Survival and Dignity (CSD) and All India Forum of Forest Movements (AIFFM) are all-India level platforms of tribal and forest dwellers’ movements. We strongly condemn this bill and call upon the government to immediately withdraw it. Instead of funneling thousands of crores to unaccountable bureaucrats grabbing community lands, we need a comprehensive legislation that recognises and respects the right of forest dwelling communities to democratically manage forests and forest lands, including both diversion and compensatory afforestation.

CAMPAIGN FOR SURVIVAL AND DIGNITY
Ph: 9873657844
Email: forestcampaign@gmail.com

ALL INDIA FORUM OF FOREST MOVEMENTS (AIFFM)
Pravin Mote, C/o Nishant Mate, Vidya Niwas 6 L Marg, Chandramani Nagar, Nagpur, Maharashtra 440027.Ph: 09373928263

Devjit Nandi, A-102, Sai Niwas-Torwa, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh-495004

Email: aiffmsecretariat@gmail.com,

Friends,

The District Collector: a single bureaucrat. But, in the name of reform, this government wants him or her to control all natural resources in this country. Consider:

• On land acquisition: the ordinance removes any ability by anyone – government, affected community or the general public – to have any information or involvement in the decision making process. The Collector decides everything, based purely on information from the company.

• On forests: The Environment Ministry is at it yet again, trying to bypass the Forest Rights Act and enable the – you guessed it – District Collector to certify that the Forest Rights Act has been completed. Of course, in every case where Collectors have given any such certification, it has been found to be false.

• On other common lands: the District Collector is in any case the primary authority for transferring these lands.

Corporates may cheer the fact that they only need to pay off or tackle a single official. The rest of us ought to wonder – what kind of “development” are we going to get if we hand over all control over this country’s most valuable resources to unaccountable and pliable bureaucrats? Is it a coincidence that most projects never happen, that most land is never used, and that banks are drowning in bad loans to fraudulent infrastructure companies?

On the ground, of course, people continue to fight, everywhere from Mahan to Jagatsinghpur to Delhi. The opposition parties’ unity is only a reflection of the massive popular resistance against this kind of daylight robbery. We hope it is the start of a true change in this country’s institutions of state – towards respecting democratic control rather than vainly trying to institute bureaucrat dictatorship.

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

9873657844, forestcampaign@gmail.com