Between November 18th and November 24th, mass protests attended by tens of thousands of people are taking place in seven States across India. The demands of the protesters are simple: stop illegally encouraging government officials and private business to engage in scams, and start respecting democracy, transparency and accountability under the law. The specific demands are below. The protests are as follows:

• Tuesday, November 18th: protests and public meetings took place in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu and in Wayanad, Kerala. Each was joined by several hundred people. Contact: M.S. Selvaraj,Campaign for Survival and Dignity – Tamil Nadu, 09442085049
• Today, November 20th: mass protest in Dangs District, Gujarat. Contact: Dineshbhai Powar, Convenor, Adivasi Mahasabha, 07874362297
• Tomorrow, November 21st: a mass convention on forest rights and natural resource issues will take place in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Contact: Alok Shukla, Convenor, Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan, 09977634040; Bijaybhai, 09425364761
• Saturday, November 22nd: a public protest rally followed by a public meeting on forest rights in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Contact: Rajkumar Sinha, Madhya Pradesh Jangal Jeevan Adhikar Bachao Andolan, 09424385139
• Monday, November 24th: a mass convention against the anti democratic and anti people measures of the Central government in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Contact: Brian Lobo, Shoshit Jan Andolan, 09421549824.
• Monday, November 24th: Secondly, a protest dharna in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Contact: Shankar Gopalakrishnan, Campaign for Survival and Dignity / Chetna Andolan, 09873657844.

DEMANDS NOTE: MASS PROTESTS AGAINST ATTACK ON DEMOCRACY IN THE FORESTS

Today the Central and State governments are moving very fast to make it easier for the Forest Department and big companies to take over forests and violate people’s rights. The Forest Rights Act of 2006 has barely been implemented properly. Even though the law says that every village with forest dwellers should have rights recorded over their community forest resources, this has not even happened in 1% of the villages. In the places where this has happened, such as in Gadchiroli or parts of Maharashtra, the Forest Department is trying to take control back into its own hands.

The new Central government – continuing the work of the Environment Ministry of the last government – is trying to destroy the Act through the back door. Some of the steps taken since May:

• Orders have been issued that control over minor forest produce should be given to JFM committees, not the gram sabha (this is completely illegal).
• On July 31st, the Prime Minister’s Office held a meeting where they asked the Environment Ministry to issue orders saying that projects can be given forest land without gram sabha consent. This is illegal and in violation of the Supreme Court’s orders. Meanwhile, even though this change has not been made, the government has cleared projects without taking the consent of gram sabhas.
• Senior Ministers like Nitin Gadkari and Prakash Javadekar are writing letters supporting the Maharashtra Forest Department, which is trying to create a system which will give the Forest Department full control over management of community forests.
• On October 28th, the Environment Ministry issued an illegal notification giving District Collectors the power to decide, in certain areas, if the Forest Rights Act needs to be implemented prior to forest land diversion. This is an incitement to criminal actions and violations of the law.

We condemn these steps and call upon the government to respect democracy in the forest and stop trying to illegally sabotage the power of the gram sabha. We demand:

• Respect the power of the gram sabha to manage, use and protect forests and forest lands.
• Stop rejecting claims and recognise all individual and community rights. Stop interfering with role of the gram sabha in deciding rights.
• Reject any project which gram sabhas have not consented to. Punish officials and companies who have taken over forest land without gram sabha consent.
• Respect gram sabha’s power to manage and non-timber forest produce, and to take the full revenue from it.

Friends,

Behind the scenes, one of India’s most important areas of resource governance is being taken backwards. In the name of being industry friendly, the government is empowering one of India’s most corrupt and non-transparent bureaucracies. It is legitimising the absolute control these handful of officials enjoy over 23% of the country’s land area. Naturally, this will lead to more conflicts, more delays, and more scams.

150 years ago the British took control of this country’s forests. 87 years ago they passed the final version of the law that created the bureaucrat-controlled, licence and bribe driven, police state that governs India’s forests today.

Today the BJP wants to turn the clock back to the colonial era – much like the Manmohan PMO wanted to, and like the Rajasthan government’s plans for land acquisition. India’s poorest people are to suffer yet more of the brutalities that impoverished them in the first place. The one true reform in forest law in over a century is getting sabotaged in the name of “reforms.”

If you want to know the background to what’s going on, go to “What are Forest Rights?”

What Does the Law Say About Takeover of Forest Land?

Under the Forest (Conservation) Act, no forest land can be “diverted” for “non-forest use” without the permission of the Central government. Before the FRA, this was decided entirely by eight or ten officials in Delhi. The Forest Rights Act imposed two requirements on this process (upheld by the Supreme Court in the Vedanta case):

1. People’s rights have to be recorded first, and this has to be certified by the assembly of all the residents of the affected village (the gram sabha);
2. No forest land can be diverted without the informed consent of the affected gram sabhas (see below on why gram sabha consent is a good thing).

What Is the Government Trying to Do?

Neither the UPA nor the NDA was ever fully committed to the Forest Rights Act. Ever since it was passed, State and Central governments have systematically tried to bypass it when handing over forest land to corporates (for details see this timeline).

If you try to push through projects by acting like people don’t exist, is it surprising that they protest and go to court? Is there any point in then whining about “delays” and “obstructions”? But never mind common sense, because here’s what the BJP government is trying to do:

What are Forest Rights?

One hundred and fifty years ago, the British made the forest laws that still operate in India.

• The point of the forest laws? To make timber and resource extraction easier for the British and their cronies.
• The method? Declare vast areas government forests. Bring them under your officials, ban every other use, and throw everyone else out. 23% of India’s land area is now recorded as forest.
• What about the millions of people who lived in and used these lands? The forest laws were designed to remove them. A single “settlement officer” was to “settle and acquire” their lands. Using anything else in the forest would be a “concession” that could be withdrawn at any time.
• What happened? Even this “settlement” wasn’t done. In 2003, Madhya Pradesh admitted that 82.9% of its reserved forests never completed this process; 40% of Orissa’s reserved forests never did; as of 2005, 60% of India’s national parks and 62% of its sanctuaries hadn’t done it. An estimated 150 million to 250 million people depend on forest lands for livelihoods, through cultivating land, collecting non-timber forest produce, using water bodies etc. All of these are considered crimes and huge bribes are extorted by forest officials.

This is why tribals and other forest dwellers are the poorest people in the country.

Besides, citizens lost all access to forest management. Today, if you plant a tree in a reserved forest, you are committing a crime. Nearly a quarter of India’s land and some of its most valuable resources are managed by a closed, corrupt bureaucracy. More than 10,000 villages in Orissa and many thousands more across India are protecting forests, but as per law, they are all criminals.

What Does the Forest Rights Act Say?

It requires the government to record the rights of forest dwelling communities – both tribal and non-tribal. Rights include land being cultivated, non-timber forest produce, access to water bodies etc., and so on. For 150 years the forest areas have seen no democracy, only Department raj. So the law says:

• Claims for rights are first placed before the assembly of all residents of the village – the gram sabha – for deciding which are legitimate. Claims approved in the assembly are screened by two higher committees, with half officials and half panchayat representatives.
• People have the right and power to protect and manage their forests – not just the department.

What are Community Rights?

Some people are confused about “community rights.” These have nothing to do with caste communities. Forest dwelling communities have always shared use of their forests for many livelihood activities. Collecting non-timber forest produce; grazing cattle; using water; and particularly, managing and protecting forests are done together. Hence in the Act these rights are recognised for a group / village rather than for individuals.

Gram Sabha Consent: Transparency and Accountability in Action

There would be no point in recognising forest rights if the entire forest can then be destroyed by bureaucrats. By forcing companies and officials to justify their projects to those most directly affected, this requirement is transparency in action. For the first time in India’s history, there is a real possibility of challenge by citizens to the bureaucrat-corporate-politician nexus that otherwise decides everything about natural resources.

This is why the Supreme Court held that Vedanta could not get its mine until all questions had been placed before the village assemblies for their “active consideration.”

But is it fair to give gram sabhas a “veto”? Won’t this stop “development”?

All that the consent requirement does is force the project proponent to justify what they are doing. In public every company and govt agency promises great rehabilitation. Forest dwellers are typically extremely poor and marginalised. If a project will genuinely improve their lives, why would they say no?

There are fears that NGOs or others will “mislead” people. But corporates and governments have budgets and staff thousands of times larger than any NGO, and can easily explain their point of view. As the then Tribal Minister said, “there is no reason to believe that forest dwellers will arbitrarily oppose measures in the public interest.” Unless that is, of course, that the government knows that a project actually is not in public interest and would prefer to ram it through.

Maharashtra FD uses compensatory afforesation funds to produce distorted propaganda about the Forest Rights Act

Friends,

Recently, the Maharashtra Forest Department published a “study” that purported to show that the Forest Rights Act is leading to forestdestruction.  Contrary to their claims, the study’s own data shows the opposite – and in fact exposes the Forest Department’s penchant for blatantly twisting facts to favour itself.  In the past, such false “data” has often been used again and again, in the press, in the courts and in the government, to discredit forest rights and the movement.  We are circulating this critique so as to ensure that those who want to know the real picture – as revealed, we note again, by the study’s own data – can have access to it.

The study is available here.

Campaign for Survival and Dignity
Ph: 9873657844, www.forestrightsact.com, forestcampaign@gmail.com

Lies, Damn Lies and Satellite Data – the Maharashtra Forest Department’s ‘Study’ on the Forest Rights Act

This deeply faulty and obviously biased study manipulates data and facts in order to make a case against the FRA. In particular, it does not highlight that its own data shows that:

• Only 2% of claims that it investigated could actually be “false” even by its incorrect interpretation;
• The satellite imagery it uses is highly unreliable and is not even internally consistent, making it impossible to verify what is actually growing on the lands in question;

The study suffers from two major problems:

Problem 1: A faulty and incorrect framework. The study has adopted an extremely limited and faulty framework for analysis. The FRA recognises 14 different rights. However, the study has focussed only on one of them, forest rights (FRs) recognised under section 3(1)(a) of the Act. This section recognises “the right to hold and live in the forest land under the individual or common occupation for habitation or for self-cultivation for livelihood by a member or members of a forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes or other traditional forest dwellers”. The key word here is the right to hold and live in the forest land under‘occupation’ and not necessarily under actual cultivation. This has been further clarified by Rule 12(A)(8) of the FRA amendment rules notified on September 6, 2012, which states “The land rights of self-cultivation recognized under clause (a) of sub-section (1) of section 3 shall be, within the specified limit, including the forest lands used for allied activities ancillary to cultivation, such as, for keeping cattle, for winnowing and other post-harvest activities, rotational fallows, tree crops and storage of produce.”

Thus any of the following would be a right of a forest dweller under section 3(1)(a):

• growing tree crops on the occupied land;
• leaving part of the land fallow for a year or two to allow it to regenerate or because the person does not have the capacity to cultivate it that year;
• using a part of the land for other allied activities ancillary to cultivation
• growing ordinary crops with a boundary marked by trees;
• Building a shelter on the land to live in; etc.

Against the above provisions, the study is based on the wrong interpretation that rights can only be recognised on land that, on a satellite picture, is fully covered with ordinary crops as on 13.12.2005.Using this faulty framework, the study has sub-divided the land over which rights have been recognised into land under cultivation, barren land, land with forest cover or a mix of these three, and categorised all recognised rights having land uses other than pure cultivation as faulty or illegal. Despite this, out of 35,044 finally recognised FR cases analysed, 85% cases were found to be under cultivation in 2005-06 covering a total area of 40116 hectares (an average of just over one ha per FR).

The remaining 15% cases were found to have either ‘barren’ or ‘forest’ or a combination of cultivation, barren and forest as land use. Only 2% of the total cases analysed were actually found to have only forest cover representing less than 1% of the total area over which forest rights have been recognised (and even these, one should note, could consist of tree crops). If correct, this indicates a remarkable rigour in the process of verification of the claims preceding their approval.

Half of the remaining 13 percent supposedly ‘illegal’ FR cases consist of only ‘barren’ land and the other half have a combination of land uses. Both should be perfectly legal in view of the clarification given by the amended FRA rules that land under occupation can include land used for activities ancilliary to cultivation, including rotational fallows and tree crops. This is due to the adivasis traditional practice of rotational cultivation which requires parts of the cultivated land being left fallow in rotation over which vegetation is allowed to regenerate to restore its productivity.

Terming FRs on ‘barren’ land or land having a combination of forest and cultivation as illegal is highly questionable due to the nature of cultivation practiced in forested tribal areas. Due to the interdependence of agriculture with forests, it is quite common for people to retain trees on their cultivated lands or protect adjoining forests as a part of their livelihood system. The FRA does not bar recognition of land under a combination of land uses which is under occupation of the claimant as clarified by the amendment rules.The very assumption that land for self-cultivation cannot have any tree cover is bizarre for anyone familiar with adivasi culture and practices.

Problem 2: A bigger problem with the study, however, is the effort made to privilege satellite imagery as the exclusive basis for assessing the legitimacy of recognised FRs.

In this, the study has inadvertently achieved a self goal by attempting to prove changes in land use over the approved forest rightscases from 2005 upto 2011 by superimposing the claimed lands on Cartosat-1 satellite images and National Remote Sensing Centre’s (NRSC) Land Use Land Cover (LULC) maps for the same years. This comparison has brought out the following:

• Most of the cases classified as totally under agriculture in the NRSC maps are also classified as agriculture in the Cartosat ones;

o    Most of the cases classified as “forest” in the NRSC maps, however, are classified as agriculture in the Cartosat ones;

o    Only 7% of the plots classified as “forest” in the NRSC maps are also classified as such in the Cartosat ones;

o    There is no way to check if land that is classified as “barren” was in fact fallow cultivated land.

All of this is stated by the study itself.

Despite such major discrepancies between the NRSC LULC and Cartosat-1 maps, most of the analysis of the study relies on NRSC satellite images – which the study itself states are problematic. This clearly indicates that satellite imagery, particularly for small patches of land, is useless in the absence of ground truthing, which should actually have been done at the time of field verification of each claim. This is why the FRA not only provides for a transparent, gram sabha based process including physical verification of every claim, but also permits use of satellite imagery as only one of over 13 types of evidence out of which any two may be submitted in support of a claim. The Forest Rights Committee of each Gram Sabha has to intimate the forestdepartment prior to undertaking physical verification and forest officials are members of both the sub-divisional and district level committees which further examine the veracity of the claims recommended by the gram sabha. Each forest right title is certified by a tribal, revenue and forest official. By questioning the approved FRs post facto, the study is not only questioning the entire system but even the functioning of the forest department’s own officials (including the forest officer A. K. Jha, who was in charge of implementing the FRA in Maharashtra in its first years).

One might further note that the study’s observation that some claims have been approved over land with young plantations is also of little consequence as across the country, there have been complaints about the forest department forcibly undertaking plantations onforest land under cultivation, often to prevent the cultivators from claiming rights under the FRA. The FRA provides for a right to insitu or alternate land where claimants have been illegally evicted prior to December 2005. It is also hardly surprising that some land use change has taken place on less than 1 percent of the total area of the approved FRs as that is in the nature of cultivation practices in forested areas. It is quite possible that having obtained security of tenure, the right holders have started investing more in improving the productivity of their land. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has also asked all state governments to ensure that rightholders obtain access to all govt development programmes, including land development.

It is really unfortunate that the forest officials who have steered this study have ignored the fact that the FRA is not only about recognising rights over tiny patches of land – it is meant to undo the historical injustice done to forest dwellers by the very department they represent. Indeed, they are blind to all the other rights in the Act and fail to even look at whether they have been implemented or not. Of course this is hardly surprising, considering that this would expose the role of their department in blocking the recognition of most such rights and subverting the law.

The final and biggest irony of this study is that it has been funded with money generated for compensatory afforestation through destruction of natural forests for non-forest uses approved by forest departments themselves. It would be useful to know how much of the money meant for compensatory afforestation was spent on undertaking this poorly designed study, and how many hectares of plantations that could have supported together with how many person months of forest officials’ highly paid time were devoted to it.

Friends,

The Rajasthan government is all set to pass a new land acquisition law, one that has been described as a major “reform.”

But is it reform to pass a law that’s 120 years old?

For the Rajasthan Land Acquisition Bill (see here) is nothing but that – a cut and pasted, slightly tweaked version of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. Word for word, down to including an entire chapter that is now utterly irrelevant.

And what does this slightly tweaked version of the colonial Act say?

• “Resettlement and rehabilitation” will consist of providing 10% more money in some cases and 30% in other cases (s. 22). Nothing else will be done for resettling those displaced. This when a century of experience has shown that the majority of displaced people are impoverished by projects and that lack of rehabilitation is one of the biggest problems with land acquisition in the country.
• “Obstructing acquisition of land” will be punished by at least six months’ imprisonment and a fine of anywhere from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 3 lakh. (s. 70) This when conflicts over land acquisition affect more than a quarter of the country’s districts.
• Landowners’ consent will only be taken for “purely private projects.” It will not be required for any PPP project that is “needed for the social and economic operation and development of the state” (i.e. anything; read s. 2 and s. 3(f)(xv) together). As for consent for purely private projects, no acquisition is ever done in the name of a “purely private project”, because the practice is that the state acquires the land in the name of its Industrial Development Corporation (IDCO) and then “leases” or “transfers” the land to the private party. In short, consent will never be needed – just like in the colonial law.
• Compensation is to be awarded by multiplying the “market price” by various factors – but the “market price” is supposedly that reflected in average sale deeds (s. 12). As anyone who has ever bought any property in India knows, sale deeds reflect only a fraction of the real price. And, just to be safe, the bill goes on to say the Collector can ignore any sale deed that actually reflects a high price (see end of s. 12(c)). So fair compensation goes out the window too.

And everything else is pretty much exactly the same as the 1894 Act. Every decision that matters – whether a project is worth the damage it will cause; whether the land area demanded is reasonable; who should be compensated; by how much – is to be made by bureaucrats behind closed doors. Just like in the good old days of the British Raj.

The real comedy comes in chapter IX of the law, which is a word for word copy of part VII of the original Act – with one section deleted. But part VII of the original law was intended to cover acquisition of land for private companies. This is now covered by the main body of the law. So an entire chapter of the new law, with six full sections, is completely redundant. It’s only there because no one bothered to apply their mind when cutting and pasting from the old Act.

The UPA’s new Act of last year also had severe problems. But instead of addressing any real issue, the BJP wants to turn the clock back. After decades of debate over land acquisition; thousands and thousands of conflicts; protests, police firings, killings and massacres; the Raje government wants to revive the same law that created the problem in the first place. And to do so in the most mindless fashion possible.

Meanwhile it turns out that Rajasthan already has acquired more land than it needs and that land is being used for speculation.

Nayi soch, nayi umeed indeed.

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

What the Forest Rights Act Provides For

The FRA is not a “welfare scheme for tribals.” Rather:

• It recognises the rights of forest dwelling communities (not just tribals) to land, water, forests and forest resources. These are rights over things they were already using, but which were not recorded earlier as a result of colonial forest laws. The issue concerns at least 15 crore people.
• Deciding who has which right is supposed to be done through a process starting from the gram sabha, or village assembly.
• The gram sabha not only has the power to decide on rights, it also has the power to decide on forest management and protection.

Why the FRA Will Be a Big Policy Issue

What does this mean? Crucially, it means:

No project can come up on forest land without 1) the consent of the affected gram sabhas and 2) the process of recording rights being completed, which again has to be done certified by the gram sabha, since it is the authority.

The FRA’s requirement was recognised by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in an order dated 30.07.2009 (often referred to as the “August 2009 order” or “2009 order”) that said that no project should receive forest clearance – for taking forest land – without providing gram sabha certificates that the FRA process is complete and that they consent to the takeover.

In April 2013, the Supreme Court held that this is what the FRA requires (without any reference to the 2009 order) in the famous Vedanta case.

But, the vast majority of large infrastructure projects in this country seek to take forest land, and infrastructure projects are at the centre of growing economic problems. Between 2010 and 2012, the NPAs of public-sector banks rose by 95%, with the power sector accounting for the largest proportion of those, and infrastructure accounting for 35% of all loans to industry. Power sector projects have been held up precisely on the issue of forest land takeover, where people have been protesting against both thermal power plants and linked coal mines. For instance, Essar’s massive power plant in Mahan, Madhya Pradesh is held up because of the linked coal mine is facing massive protest for attempts at illegal land takeover.

Why Should Forest Dwellers’ Consent Be Required for a Project?

Some have objected to giving communities a “veto” over a project that might be in the “wider interest.” This is not how things actually work. Forest dwellers are highly marginalised, frequently terrorised communities who have been at the mercy of the Forest Department and the state.

Everyone, including corporates, agrees in principle that rehabilitation and consultation should be done prior to takeover of land – but in practice the only way such things even begin to happen is if the community can threaten to withhold consent. Otherwise officials and companies have no accountability and ignore legal requirements. We have seen the results in the fact that the vast majority of those displaced over the last six decades received no rehabilitation at all and were simply driven out of their homes like animals.Naturally, brutal eviction of people results in even more protest.

What is Happening Around the Issue

In the rush to grant “speedy clearances”:

• The Environment Ministry has been ignoring its own 2009 order and granting clearances to projects without FRA compliance.
• The Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure – set up to speed up clearances – has repeatedly tried to get around FRA compliance by just directing that projects be cleared despite the illegality.
• In late 2012 the Prime Minister’s Office tried to get the 2009 order withdrawn (to make it easier to ignore the FRA). After press reports on the issue the government backtracked and issued an exemption for “linear projects” (roads, power lines, etc.) in Feb 2013. After the Supreme Court’s Vedanta judgment the Tribal Ministry recently (March 7, 2014) pointed out to State governments that even this exemption is illegal and that gram sabha certificates are required in all cases.
• Linked to this, the Forest Department has been trying to regain ‘lost ground’ in terms of its control over forests, with the increasing tacit support of the corporate sector. A new “Working Plan Code” was issued last month which essentially ignores forest dwellers’ rights to manage and protect forests under the FRA. Large amounts of money are being put into “Joint Forest Management”, which in practice is not participatory and is controlled by local forest officials (who hold all the key posts in the ‘participatory’ bodies). These committees have been used in various areas to engage in plantation activities on common lands, to split villages against community rights, and to try to take over community forest management powers from villages (as in Andhra Pradesh and Tripura).

And meanwhile:

• Increasing numbers of cases against illegal clearances for projects are reaching the courts and the National Green Tribunal. In several recent cases, courts have held against the project proponents after finding gross illegalities.
• A recent Society for Promotion of Wasteland Development study found that over a third of the country’s districts are witnessing protests and conflicts around land takeover for projects, particularly in forest areas.
• Over the last ten years the Maoists have made grabbing of forest land and destruction of forest dwellers’ livelihoods by projects the centre of their activities.
• On the ground FRA implementation is still patchy and slow, due to resistance from the forest bureaucracy and corporate opposition in project areas.
• This has also led to increasing protests. Mass protest against denial of forest rights has been seen in Assam, Orissa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal, Karnataka and other States in the last few years.

In sum, the next government will be faced with an issue where there is a direct confrontation between the interests of India’s biggest corporate houses and large numbers of very poor but increasingly organised people. The FRA is hence going to be a crucial policy issue.

Did you know that violation of the forest rights of any tribal or Dalit is an atrocity under the SC/ST Atrocities Act? Just to clarify, this means that the Collectors of Kalahandi and Rayagada Districts (who gave false certificates for Vedanta’s illegal mine) would now face from six months up to five years in jail; the forest officials who routinely harass, beat up and evict forest dwellers now face the same; and those who are trying to stop people from protecting their forests in MP, Chattisgarh, Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand and so on also merit the same penalty.

In a little noticed move in March of this year, an ordinance was issued (copy here) to amend the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Now section 3(1)(g) of the law explicitly states that “[to] wrongfully dispossess a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe from his land or premises or interfers with the enjoyment of his rights, including forest rights over any land or premises or water or irrigation facilities or destroys the crops or takes away the produce therefrom” is an atrocity under the Act. Section 3(1)(f) also criminalises the “wrongful” transfer of land that is owned by or under the possession of an SC or ST, and such wrongful transfer includes through the fabrication of records.

Of course, such actions were always a criminal offence under the Forest Rights Act itself, and indeed under the SC/ST Atrocities Act as well. But the penalty provisions of that Act were deliberately made procedurally complex by the government to protect the forest bureaucracy, and the SC / ST Act was not explicit. This is now no longer the case, and we both hope and plan that cases be filed everywhere under these sections.

Meanwhile, the Environment Ministry doesn’t seem to have heard of this, because it’s carrying on with notifying all kinds of policies that will encourage its officers to land themselves in jail. These include a new “Working Plan Code” that ignores community powers over forest (naturally, since “working plans” have their origin in the colonial system of “working” forests for timber, people’s rights be damned); a plan to implement the dangerous REDD+ agreement that will result in widespread violations of rights; and even changes that will encourage Collectors to give certificates they have no power to give under the law, all in order to favour companies. Such is the way of the MoEF and the corporates of our country – ignore every law, every right and every struggle until they blow up in your face, and then whine about “policy paralysis” and “populism.”

In January of this year an application was filed in the Supreme Court in an ongoing case (Wildlife First and Ors. vs. Union of India and Ors.) that seeks to have the Forest Rights Act declared unconstitutional. In their most recent application, the petitioners – Praveen Bhargav of Wildlife First, Kishor Rithe of NCS and Harshvardhan Dhanvatey of TRACT – seek to further restrict the operation of the Act in the name of ‘conservation’ concerns.

Below is an open letter jointly issued by several conservation NGOs, movements for democratic forest control and experts in conservation biology, against this application and the petition itself. It demonstrates how few people, including in the conservationist community itself, agree with these notions and how dangerous they actually are. We request that others who are interested also add their names to the joint statement. Please contact us to do so.

The prayers of the interim application and a point by point rebuttal by the Campaign for Survival and Dignity will be sent later today. Press queries on the petition can be addressed to us (9873657844, forestcampaign@gmail.com) or to any of the signatories. The recipients can be reached at: Praveen Bharghav (wildlifefirst@gmail.com), Kishor Rithe (kishorrithe@gmail.com), or TRACT (info@tractindia.org).

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

http://www.forestrightsact.com, 9873657844, forestcampaign@gmail.com

JOINT OPEN LETTER TO ANTI-FRA PETITIONERS IN SUPREME COURT

Dear Wildlife First, NCS and TRACT,

We recently came to know that in January, you filed an interim application in the Supreme Court seeking, among other things, to have an ‘expert’ committee of the CAG re-examine all rights under the Forest Rights Act; to make it possible to resettle people from PAs without recognising their rights first; to bar sale of non-timber forest produce from PAs; etc. After so many years, when at last people are receiving rights historically denied to them due to the prevalent forest and PA policies, you seek to turn the clock back. These very same policies, as you know very well, have created complex challenges for conservation itself by creating enclosures and opening them up at will.

We are shocked that you would file a petition like this at a time when the Central government is seeking to accelerate clearances and industry is piling on pressure to make forest, biodiversity and resource destruction easier. You would surely be aware that across the country a significant force that has stopped this resource loot is local communities fighting to protect their natural resources and habitats, often by using the FRA. Your petition seeks to gravely undermine one of their primary weapons.

We understand that you have concerns regarding the implementation of the FRA, but these can be debated separately. An expensive, long and dangerous court battle – fraught with the risk of being hijacked by government bureaucracies and corporate front groups – is not the way to address them. This would put at risk many community and other conservation initiatives that have existed and have been strengthened by the FRA. Indeed, there are many examples from the states where FRA has been effectively used by local communities/gram sabhas to strengthen protection and management of forests, as in the case of Niyamgiri, Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, and protected areas such as the BRT Hills. The prospects for conservation under FRA need to be appreciated by conservation groups and organizations.

In light of this we call upon you to withdraw your writ petition against the FRA and this interim application. Please consider the implications of your actions for conservation itself. Your petition is likely to facilitate the accelerated loot of this country’s natural resources.

Sincerely,

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

Kalpavriksh Environment Action Group

Vidharbha Nature Conservation Society

Vasundhara

All India Forum of Forest Movements

All India Union of Forest Working People

Greenpeace India

Vivekananda Girijana Kalyan Kendra, BRT Hills

Mahan Sangharsh Samiti

Indian Community Activists Network

Society for Promotion of Wasteland Development

Nitin Rai, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment

Kartik Shanker, Associate Professor, Centre for Ecological Sciences

Dr. MD Madhusudan, Nature Conservation Foundation

C. Made Gowda, Soliga Abhivrudhi Sangha, BRT Hills

Dr. Kundan Kumar, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto

Dr. K.H. Amitha Bachan, Western Ghats Hornbill Foundation

Dr. Bhaskar Vira, University of Cambridge

Purnima, KHOJ, Melghat

Dr. Vena Kapoor, Nature Conservation Foundation

Anush Shetty, Nature Conservation Foundation

Kanchi Kohli and Manju Menon, Independent Researchers

Anand Shrivastava, PhD programme, University of Cambridge

Prasant Mohanty, NIRMAN, Orissa

Dr. Susamma Isac, Research Officer, Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Siddharth Singh Negi, Uttaranchal Youth and Rural Development Centre, Uttarakhand

Dr. Sharachchandra Lele, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment

This morning, a joint statement was issued by a number of movements, conservation NGOs and experts (click on the link to see it) in conservation biology against the application filed in the Supreme Court against the Forest Rights Act. Below is a more detailed open letter from the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a national platform of forest dwellers’ organisations, along with the full text of the prayers in the application.

AN OPEN LETTER TO ORGANISATIONS TRYING TO STOP THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FOREST RIGHTS ACT

Dear Praveen Bhargav (Wildlife Trust), Kishor Rithe (NCS) and Harshvardhan Dhanwatey (TRACT),

We are writing to express our deep dismay at the position you have recently taken before the Supreme Court, in your interim application (IA 5) filed in January in Writ Petition 109/2008 (Wildlife First and Ors. vs. Union of India and Ors.). We fail to understand why, at a time when it has become clear to everyone that the key enemy of the environment is the Forest Department-facilitated corporate looting of natural resources, you insist on continuing to attack the rights of the country’s poorest citizens while further empowering that very same bureaucracy. Moreover, you do this in a forum where you know the millions of ordinary people that will be affected have hardly any chance of being heard, and can only be heard at enormous cost to themselves. While people are fighting and dying to protect forests and natural resources across the country, you not only want the Forest Rights Act – their strongest weapon so far – struck down, you now ask for them to be deprived of their rights as well.

In your application you ask for the following (a full set of the prayers is at the end of this open letter for public reference):

· YOUR PRAYER: “set up an independent committee of experts or the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to examine the implementation of the impugned Act… and in particular the procedure adopted”: Perhaps you are unaware that several independent committees, both within and outside the government, have already examined the implementation of this Act thoroughly and that the government itself has issued several reports in this regard. In all of them, contrary to the implied scaremongering in your petition, what has emerged is that millions of people are actually being deprived of their rights. No mention of this is made in your petition.

· YOUR PRAYER: “direct the above mentioned committee … to report as to the extent of forest land which has been physically occupied by ineligible claimants… and the extent of forest land that has been recovered…”: Eight years after people fought and won a democratic and transparent process to decide their rights, you want an unaccountable committee to decide who is “eligible” and who has “illegally occupied” land. And how can a single committee do this for the whole country? Only through local officials, who in turn will demand bribes. In other words, your petition would-empower precisely the corrupt system that created the problem in the first place.

· YOUR PRAYER: “direct the respondents to permit voluntary resettlement of people residing within national parks and sanctuaries without insisting on settling their rights under the Act”: How precisely is such resettlement supposed to be “voluntary” when people have no idea what their rights actually are? They are supposed to take a “voluntary” decision about resettlement when they live under the daily harassment of forest officials, deprived of their livelihoods; and you desire that they should not even be given the chance to assert their legal rights and discover that they can live peaceful lives in the forest as well? How can any decision be “voluntary” when you want people to have only two options: face continued illegal harassment and repression, or accept whatever they are offered in the name of “resettlement”?

· YOUR PRAYER: “direct the respondents to issue directions to all the States for mandatory use of satellite imageries for verification of all claims…”: Perhaps this prayer indicates just what kind of conservationism you endorse. Obviously, satellite imagery is irrelevant to all forms of community rights over the forest, which are the real innovation in this law and the real key to protection of forests. For simple land plots as well, as verified by several independent inquiries of the kind that you want yet again, satellite imagery usually fails – because ground truthing is not done properly, the imagery is incorrect, or, most importantly, it is simply not available to the people who need to assert their rights. Instead, it is only available with officials and elites. Once again, through the backdoor, your petition will empower the bureaucracy which has been responsible for massive destruction of forests and violation of forest dwellers’ rights.

· YOUR PRAYER: “grant ad-interim ex-parte stay of commercial extraction of all nontimber forest produce (NTFP) from national parks and sanctuaries”: You seek to disguise your intentions with the use of the term “commercial.” But you know that in practice, until this law came into existence, forest officials did not permit forest dwellers to sell even the small quantities of produce they collected for their survival livelihoods. You will be aware that in many protected areas – such as in BRT wildlife sanctuary in Karnataka, or in Simlipal Tiger Reserve in Orissa – more than 60% of people’s cash income comes from sale of NTFP. As a result, when these rules were imposed, malnutrition and poverty skyrocketed in these areas (reaching 82% in Simlipal). Now, when communities across the country are experimenting with collective, democratic management of NTFP for their livelihoods – at times with the support of conservationists – you want the court to reinstate a misguided, illegal and brutal ban which has no scientific basis.

The most crucial threat to forests and natural resources in this country today is the corporate juggernaut, with its demands for increasing clearances for its own speculative profiteering. But you quite significantly have not chosen to approach any court about illegal diversion of forest land in violation of the Forest Rights Act. Instead, you seek to divert attention and enormous resources into an expensive, long and pointless court battle, to prevent you from negating the progress achieved over the past eight years. This, of course, is conveniently just what the corporates want.

You might claim that it is open to us or anyone else to contest you in court. We ask why you chose this forum rather than, for instance, approaching Parliament to amend the law. That is what we and countless other groups did. But you know perfectly well that the courts are inaccessible to most ordinary people and that the tens of millions of people who will be affected by your actions will be represented by perhaps one or two lawyers in court – while you and the government bureaucrats will gang up against them. Certainly it is your right to approach the court, but pleading that the court overturn provisions of a law unanimously passed by Parliament after intense discussion and debate across the country reflects your undemocratic motivations extremely clearly.

We call upon you and your co-petitioners to immediately withdraw your interim applications and Writ Petition 109/2008 against the Forest Rights Act. Otherwise, whatever your intentions might be, you are facilitating the corrupt forest bureaucracy and the loot of this country’s natural resources by corporates.

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

PRAYERS OF INTERIM APPLICATION FILED BY WILDLIFE FIRST, NCS AND TRACT

(i) direct the respondents to constitute a committee of independent experts or the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) to examine the implementation of the Impugned Act and in particular the procedure adopted for identification of the genuine claims and grant of forest rights in the 3 States namely, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, and submit a report to this Hon’ble Court within two months;

(ii) direct the above independent committee or the CAG to give a report as to the extent of forest land which has been physically occupied by the ineligible claimants after the cutoff date of 13th December 2005 or whose claims have been rejected under the provisions of the impugned Act and the extent of forest land that has been recovered from the such ineligible claimants/ encroachers;

(iii) direct the Respondent No. 2 States to provide information giving district-wise details including the number of individual and community claims filed, claims granted and claims rejected along with the extent of forest area involved in all these three categories within a time bound manner;

(iv) direct the respondents to permit voluntary resettlement of people residing within national parks and sanctuaries without insisting on settling their rights therein under the impugned Act and;

(v) direct the Respondent No. 2 to issue directions to all the States for mandatory use of satellite imageries for verification of all the claims as a proof/ evidence of actual occupation/ physical possession of the forest lands as on the cutoff date of 13.12.2005 before granting any new rights under the impugned Act. Directions may also be issued to use satellite imageries to review all the rights which have already been granted under the impugned Act to verify their correctness;

(vi) grant ad-interim ex-parte stay of commercial extraction of all non timber forest produce (NTFP) from national parks and sanctuaries in view of the prohibition provided in the Wild Life (Protection) Act,1972 and also prohibited by this Hon’ble Court’s order dt. 14.2.2000 passed in IA No. 548 in WP (C) 202 of 1995, till the disposal of the present petition.

Friends,

If you thought the only story about natural resources in India today is how the “new land acquisition law will impede industrialisation” and that “we need more ‘efficient’ environmental clearances”, you’ve missed something.

In a little noticed action, on March 7th the Ministry of Tribal Affairs sent a letter to all State governments. The letter pointed out that the Supreme Court had held that the consent of the gram sabha (village assembly) is required in all cases before forest land can be used – without any exceptions. Over the years the Environment Ministry has been quietly chipping away at this requirement, arbitrarily exempting projects in one State, then some road projects, ignoring the requirement whenever it suits them, and finally – on the direct instruction of the Prime Minister’s Office – exempting “linear projects” (without defining what those are). Apparently the Environment Ministry believed that it can just decide where people’s rights do and do not exist. The Tribal Ministry has belatedly stated what is obvious – you can’t just exempt yourself from requirements because corporates and bureaucrats don’t like democracy..

And that isn’t the only news. The day before this happened, on March 6th, the West Bengal Forest Department wrote a polite letter to the gram sabha of North Khaibari in Jalpaiguri, saying it “would like to seek permission… for CFC [clear felling coupe] operation at North Khaibari.” This doesn’t look significant until you realise that the Forest Department, from the time it was created more than a century ago, doesn’t ask anyone except its own Central superiors for permission to destroy forests. And in North Khaibari, for more than two years, they have been filing criminal complaints, getting villagers arrested, and otherwise trying to crush the struggle of the Uttar Banga Van-Jan Shromojivi Manch for people’s control over the forests. Today, they “would like to seek permission from the gram sabha.”

Meanwhile, in three different projects – Mahan coal block in Madhya Pradesh, Essel’s proposed mines in Keonjhar, Orissa, and the Tata Steel-Adhunik Ganeshpur coal block in Latehar, Jharkhand – the State governments have been exposed as forging gram sabha resolutions and lying to get their projects through. In all three projects the evidence has been produced and, in one case (Essel), the resolutions have been found to be invalid. Clearly this is the next step – officials and companies tried to ignore the gram sabha and the law in the Vedanta and POSCO cases, failed, and have decided to try forgery instead. Now they’re getting caught at that too.

While the media fusses over who the Environment Minister is and the financial press cries itself hoarse about “speedy clearances”, the world is changing. The corporates and powerful of this country can go on imagining that they can do whatever they want, especially if their chosen PM candidate wins. But the reality is that it isn’t about clearances or Ministers or even laws. People fight back against the loot. And sometimes, they win.