Why are unclassed forests ‘missing’?

Why are unclassed forests ‘missing’?

Subject: Environment

Sec: Environment Laws

Context:

• In response to a Supreme Court order from February 19, 2024, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) published the reports of various State Expert Committees (SEC) on its website in early April.
• These reports, a response to public interest litigation, address concerns about the constitutionality of the 2023 Forest (Conservation) Act Amendment, particularly the identification and status of unclassed forests.

What does the FCAA stipulate?

• The Forest (Conservation) Act Amendment (FCAA) results in unclassed forests, previously protected under the 1996 T.N. Godavarman Thirumalpad case, losing their legal protection.
• This exposes these forests to potential diversion.
• The State Expert Committee (SEC) reports were mandated to define ‘forests’ broadly, including all categories regardless of ownership or notification status, under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. 
• Consequently, any diversion of unclassed or deemed forests for non-forest purposes now requires approval from the Central government.
• These unclassed forests can include lands owned by various government entities, community forests, or privately owned areas, even if they are not officially designated as forests.

Have these forests been identified?

• The identification of unclassed forests remains unclear.
• Initially, their status was not known from 1996 until the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) indicated to a Joint Parliamentary Committee that State Expert Committees (SECs) had identified such forests, countering criticisms that the amended Forest (Conservation) Act would ignore these lands.
• Despite this assurance, a response to a January 17 RTI application revealed that the MoEFCC did not possess the necessary reports.
• Recent uploads of SEC reports to the MoEFCC website show that no state has provided concrete data on the identification, status, or location of unclassed forests. 
• Additionally, seven States and Union Territories have not established their SECs, and although 23 States submitted reports, only 17 comply with the Supreme Court’s guidelines.

What do the reports say?

• The State Expert Committee (SEC) reports reveal that only nine States have detailed the extent of unclassed forests.
• Most states and union territories provided only general information about different types of forest areas, such as those under government, forest, or revenue department control, and rarely included forests under other government departments.
• Additionally, geographic locations for these forests were largely unspecified, with any provided data focusing on reserve or protected forests—information that is already accessible through Forest Departments.
• The reports also cast doubt on the accuracy of the Forest Survey of India’s data, as seen in discrepancies like Gujarat’s SEC report listing its unclassed forests at 192.24 square kilometers versus the Forest Survey’s much higher figure of 4,577 square kilometers from 1995-1999.
• Furthermore, the lack of on-ground verification by the SECs has been linked to potential large-scale destruction of these forests, which were supposed to have been identified and protected starting 27 years ago.
• The absence of baseline data from 1996-1997 makes it impossible to quantify how much unclassed forest land has been lost, exemplified by the omission of Kerala’s ecologically sensitive Pallivasal unreserve in the reports, an area significantly affected by the 2018 floods.

Implication:

• This failure undermines the goals of the Indian Forest Policy, which aims for significant forest coverage of 33.3% in plains and 66.6% in hilly areas.

Key features of the Forest Act:

Source: TH