Laws governing forests of Northeast India

Laws governing forests of Northeast India

Subject: Environment

Section: Environment legislation

Context:

• On August 22, the Mizoram Assembly unanimously passed a resolution opposing the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, “to protect the rights and interest of the people of Mizoram”.

Why are the Northeast states opposing the amendment?

• The amendment allows the diversion of forest land for roads, railway lines or “strategic linear projects of national importance and concerning national security” within 100 km of India’s international borders or lines of control, without a forest clearance under the Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA) 1980.
• Most of India’s Northeast falls in this 100 km range.
• Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram and Sikkim are opposing the FCA.

Grant of FCA clearances:

• Special Constitutional protections – Article 371A for Nagaland and 371G for Mizoram – prohibit the application of any law enacted by Parliament that impinges on Naga and Mizo customary law and procedure, and ownership and transfer of land and its resources.
• Such laws can be extended to these States only if their Legislative Assemblies decide thus in a resolution.
• Nagaland extended the application of the FCA to government forests and such other forests and Wildlife Sanctuaries under the control of the State Government.
• Government forests make up only 2.71% of the State’s Recorded Forest Area.
• Mizoram Union Territory became a State with the Constitution (Fifty Third Amendment) Act 1986, adding Article 371G to the Constitution.
• It stipulated that all Central Acts in force before 1986 are extended to the State, including the FCA.
• Moreover, the powers of the Autonomous District Councils in the three Sixth Scheduled areas in Mizoram don’t extend to reserved forests.
• So the FCA covers 84.53% of forest areas that are notified forests, and 6,630 ha have thus far received FCA clearance.
• The FCA is applicable in the rest of Northeast: in Meghalaya and Tripura, the Sixth Schedule Areas within these States, and in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and Manipur.
• Arunachal Pradesh ranked first among these States in FCA clearance (21,786.45 ha), followed by Tripura (9,051 ha), Assam (5,261 ha), Manipur (3,604 ha), Sikkim (2,902 ha), and Meghalaya (807 ha).

FCA 1980 vis-à-vis the Northeast:

• In 1996, the Supreme Court expanded the term “forest land” in the FCA in the Godavarman case to “not only include ‘forest’ as understood in the dictionary sense, but also any area recorded as forest in the Government record irrespective of the ownership” called as the “deemed forest”, thus extending the FCA to unclassed forests.
• These are recorded forests but not notified as forests.
• More than half of the Northeast is Recorded Forest Area (RFA).
• Of this, 53% are unclassed forests controlled by individuals, clans, village councils or communities, and governed by customary law and procedures.
• The remainder is notified forest controlled by the State Forest Departments.
• RFA ranges from 34.21% in Assam to 82.31% in Sikkim with Mizoram having 35.48%, Meghalaya 42.34%, Nagaland 53.01%, Arunachal Pradesh 61.55%, Manipur 78.01% and Tripura 60.02%.
• Of these, unclassed forests range from nil in Sikkim to 97.29% in Nagaland, with 15.47% in Mizoram, 33.43% in Assam, 42.96% in Tripura, 75.67% in Manipur and 88.15% in Meghalaya.
• The apex court’s 1996 order brought unclassed forests under the FCA’s purview everywhere except in Nagaland.
• There are also forests outside RFA, neither recorded nor surveyed: 38.5% of the cover in Assam; 29% in Nagaland; and 1.5% in Mizoram.

FRA 2009 vis-à-vis the Northeast

• In the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (FRA) 2006, “forest land” includes:
  • unclassified forests,
  • undemarcated forests,
  • existing or deemed forests,
  • protected forests,
  • reserved forests,
  • Sanctuaries and National Parks.
• These States can take suo motu cognisance of the existing rights and obtain the concerned Gram Sabha approvals for issuing titles.
• The Ministry of Tribal Affairs can also issue legally enforceable directions under Section 12 of the FRA, paving the way for this.
• But none of the Northeast States have implemented FRA except for Assam and Tripura.

FRA compliance under FCA

• States can formulate and take legal measures to ensure mandatory fulfillment of the FRA before recommending a forest diversion proposal, and ensuring Gram Sabha consent before handing over forest land.
• The Ministry of Tribal Affairs can also issue legally enforceable directions under the FRA, or even enact a separate law, to recognise and settle forest rights when forests are diverted for other purposes and forest-dwellers are relocated, as forest rights fall squarely within its Business Rules.

For details of Forest conservation amendment bill 2023: https://optimizeias.com/objections-overruled-forest-bill-goes-to-house-unchanged/