Comment
Forest justice movements
MANY significant changes are currently under way across forest areas in India. These have important implications, not only for the forest workers but also those engaged in conservation. They also open up new questions as to just where and how the forests are to be part of a new and more just social order, in particular after the passage of the Forest Rights Act of 2006.
Though the act has been much debated, few are aware of just how it opens up new possibilities for justice and for protecting nature. Since the 1980s, people’s struggles around forest, land and water issues have intensified with the expansion of capitalist interests in these areas. These struggles take the form not only of resisting companies, but also of asserting people’s right to a role in the larger political process. Though essentially democratic and led by local leaders, many of these struggles are today being branded as ‘Maoist’. Simultaneously, there is an equally impressive growth of independent mass struggles, possibly much larger than the Maoist struggle, in various parts of the country. These latter stories, however, rarely catch the attention of either the media or researchers.
The history of the forest struggle in India goes back at least a couple of centuries. Struggles under Tilka Majhi (Jabra Pahadia), Sidhu Kanhu, and Birsa Munda not only forced the British to keep off the forests, but led to legislations for community governance. Laws such as the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act and Van Panchayat Rules of 1931 are a few such examples. Unfortunately, these remained piecemeal measures even as the Indian Forest Act of 1927 was further strengthened. Post 1947, the Forest Department (FD) became the biggest landlord in independent India.
The expansion of forest estate is ignored by many who are critical of forest movements. Even before the promulgation of land reform laws, vast forests of princes, zamindars and talukdars were transferred to the Forest Department, but without any process for settlement of rights. Consequently, those who lived in the forests found that their presence became ‘illegal’. In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, for instance, such forests were first vested with the Forest Department by bringing in the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh Private Forest Acts 1948. In 1955, these lands were again notified as Protected Forests as per the Indian Forest Act of 1927. Though the Land Reform Act had been promulgated in 1952, its enforcement took another eight to ten years in these states.
Chhotanagpur provides another such instance. Khunti district is in the ‘Khuttkatti’ area, where the Chota Nagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act has been applicable since 1908. At that time around 450 villages had control over forest land and forests, according to this act. The land records, the khatiyan are with the tribal Munda. But in 1955 the Forest Department demarcated its own boundary in this very area without any verification of rights and demarcation.
The enactment of ‘The Scheduled Tribes and other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, popularly known as ‘Forest Rights Act’ (FRA), for the first time talks about addressing the ‘historical injustices’ committed on the forest people since the colonial times. Munnilal, a forest village settler argues, ‘We, the forest people have attained independence, not on 15 August 1947 but on 15 December 2006, when the FRA was enacted by the Indian Parliament.’
Evictions led to resistance. In 2002, following a FD order, incidentally supported by the Supreme Court, large-scale evictions took place inside forest areas across the country. Tribals and other forest dwellers, however, reclaimed 4000 acres of land in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh. Many were arrested or had police cases registered against them. Although the new act was enacted in 2006, it took more than a year to frame the rules under the act. Local people here and elsewhere acted before the formal notification. Similarly, women led the struggle for rights in Kaimur. When challenged, they displayed copies of the Forest Rights Act. Around 20,000 acres of land were reclaimed under the leadership of dalit and adivasi women in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. They even told forest officials that the forest belonged to them, and that the Indian Parliament had given them a certificate!
The High Court judgment in Uttarakhand in February 2007 was path-breaking. Nomadic Van Gujjar tribes and the forest village community known as Taungya cultivators were at the forefront. The former mostly keep buffaloes while the latter were brought in as forest labour by the department in colonial times, but given no land rights. Van Gujjars had been given notice of eviction from the Rajaji National Park without a proper rehabilitation package. They challenged the order in the Nainital High Court. The latter ordered that Van Gujjar rights be settled according to the provisions of the FRA, implying that no eviction can now take place without such prior settlement. This is perhaps the first judgment by any court in the country directing the state government to settle rights inside any national park according to the new act. It will have far reaching consequences.
A word of caution is in order. There is a strong tendency by observers to equate all mass struggles with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) controlled political movements. In many cases, the sites of Maoist politics and independent mass movements overlap. But there is a central difference in that mass movements reflect local aspirations for rights to resources. In contrast, the Maoist’s have no clear-cut position on these issues and rarely raise the vital issue of people’s control of resources, of forests, land and water. The party and its armed militias control all activity. That is why – unlike the people’s movements – Maoist struggles often focus on violent conflict with the state; alienation of Scheduled Tribes is a secondary concern. Significantly, many of those movements critical of the government’s policies also often challenge Maoist methods. For instance, in the Adhoura block of Kaimur district (Bihar), villagers were deeply upset when Maoists bombed school buildings. No one there is any more willing to feed, shelter or assist the Maoists.
It is such mass struggles that impelled the first UPA government to enact a new law and they continue in the new context. The recent Dehradun declaration, involving representatives of more than 200 forest struggles summed up the situation: ‘Before demanding individual rights we will collectively struggle for claiming community rights. We will constantly engage with the government and responsible officials for the implementation of the Forest Rights Act. We have an inalienable right over our forest land.’
It is only the consolidation of such rights that can halt commercialization of forests and wildlife habitats. This writer has extensively written about the ivory poachers in Rajaji National Park and diversion of forest protection money to private purposes. Unfortunately, many of those committed to nature sometimes oppose recognition of rights, not realizing that in the long-term, the successful vesting of community forest rights alone can check corporate interests and corruption in the Forest Department.
Forest workers and their allies still face major challenges in creating a sound base for community management. It is vital that those engaged in scientific ecological studies come forward and work in close association with them. Ecological justice movements offer hope for the underprivileged and equally so for nature and its secure future.
Roma
Securing private forests
THE Western Ghats is one amongst 34 global biodiversity hotspots. Between 1920 and 1990, this region has experienced close to a 40 per cent reduction in forest cover. Although agricultural expansion and infrastructure development resulting from economic pressures and government policies have been important factors behind landscape-level forest loss, at local scales, forest loss is often related in complex ways to land tenure and land use, local and regional energy demands, as well as forest-based livelihoods.
The northern Western Ghats of Maharashtra form a complex matrix, not only of vegetation types but also of land tenure and use. The landscape comprises privately-owned forest areas, community-owned sacred groves, as well as forest and meadows owned by the state that are used by local people for grazing and forest produce extraction. In this landscape of mixed uses, the remaining forests that are mostly under private control play a very important role as watershed areas and also help reduce soil erosion in the upper reaches. Beyond providing such ecosystem services in a region that has few protected areas, these forests also harbour high biodiversity values: several large mammals including the tiger and threatened avifauna including the great hornbill and endangered amphibians like Malabar gliding frog, continue to persist in them.
Our work has focused on these private forests, not only because of their biodiversity values, but also because they experience a variety of threats. Earlier, these lands were used for shifting cultivation, but the practice has been stopped for close to three decades, allowing the fallows to regenerate. Owned by smallholder and poor peasant families, these private forests have not yet been distributed to individual members. As a result, ownership rights are complex and these lands have remained difficult to sell. Also, parts of the families have migrated away from their villages and family members that stay back use these lands for small-time gathering or cultivation to supplement their incomes. The inaccessible location of these lands in the steep and high reaches of the ghats also makes them unattractive for alternative means of land use such as tourism as well.
Over time, through government schemes for rural development, some of the private forests in the more accessible areas have been converted to cashew and mango plantations. In other cases, local owners of forests in the higher, inaccessible areas (which are classified as wastelands), have been selling logging contracts for small sums between Rs 4000 and Rs 9000 per acre, based on the size of trees in each patch. Logging provides the owners short-term benefits, but they are forced to overlook long-term impacts of the loss of healthy watersheds and consequent soil erosion. Due to such degradation of habitats, the local communities themselves suffer the most, as the depletion of forests has over time reduced stream flow from these forests and soil erosion has increased manifold, thereby affecting local agricultural yields seriously.
Once clear felled, the land is left to regenerate. Within a period of five to six years, secondary vegetation develops, which is sufficient to meet the fuelwood demands from urban centres in the neighbouring districts of Kolhapur and Satara. In the process of periodical clearing of these fragile slopes, in two to three cycles over 15-20 years, the land loses the capacity to regenerate. The value of these habitats to biodiversity, as well as the services it provides to downstream communities is thus lost completely, as the marginal land owners are seldom able to invest the time and resources to manage the lands better.
The challenges to conservation in such a scenario are many. Chief among them is a means of engaging poor farmers to conserve biodiversity on their own forests, and alongside, to generate awareness about these forests and their importance for ecosystem services. Second, it is also important to provide viable energy alternatives to the low-quality fuelwood sourced from these forests to domestic and industrial end-users. Third, there is no policy on how these forests may be managed better, both for their biodiversity values and for their provisioning values without resorting to state control. Together, addressing these challenges is essential to help build the resilience of the private forests to low-intensity use, while retaining their biological values.
At the Advanced Economic Research Foundation (AERF), we recognized that selling of logging contracts was a sign of dire need for cash. We, therefore, felt that any conservation measure in this region would need to address the economic needs of the landowners. Consequently, we decided to use an incentive-based mechanism by forging conservation agreements with local landowners. The Conservation Agreement Model developed by Conservation International was tested by AERF, covering an area of 100 acres in Ratnagiri district and 75 acres in Sindhudurg district.
During the course of this work, since 2007, detailed participatory work has been carried out in the region to identify potential sites for such conservation agreements. Once the sites are identified, AERF negotiates with the landowners and offers direct or in-kind incentive for not logging the patch and involve them in better management of biodiversity. The ingredients of the agreements are variable and include both restrictive clauses such as the complete ban on logging and restrictions on grazing, as well as provisioning clauses to support plantations of indigenous species and developing part of the area for sustainable production. This includes the plantation of biofuel species, cultivation of perennial legume crop like pigeon pea, fruit trees and fast growing timber trees.
Other conditions include co-management during the agreement period for enhancement of biodiversity and quality of forest, and collective responsibility for patrolling. Once the forest patch is under agreement, the owner may not sell the land or lease it to any other party for any other purpose.
Interestingly, in Sindhudurg district, the driving force for local people to participate in conservation agreements is the immediate threat posed by proposed mining projects in their areas. Such mining threatens not only the region’s biodiversity but also farm livelihoods that depend on surface water. Local people are aware that the biodiversity values of these lands, as well as the presence of endangered species like the tiger, can strengthen their case against mining. The local landowners have received part of their incentive for conserving their lands in the form of technical and legal support to fight the proposed mining projects. Having fully grasped the importance of local biodiversity for their survival, communities here have accepted the conditions of the agreement, including logging and hunting bans, collaborative management for better protection and ending further conversion of forests to cash crop plantations.
Both in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg, the communities had initial apprehensions about the ownership of the land under these conservation agreements. Another important concern was whether AERF would sub-lease the land or use it as collateral to raise funds. However, once these concerns were addressed and terms stating that AERF would not have any rights on the land and would neither sub-lease not mortgage it were incorporated into the agreement, landowners have found the arrangements acceptable.
The major challenges in setting up conservation agreements are the long negotiations with community on conditions acceptable to both parties, the creation of rules and regulations, selection of forest patches for protection and management, and keeping the landowners interested in the arrangement for the entire period. AERF has consciously decided against imposition of fines or sanctions in case of breach of agreement. However, such a breach is yet to occur and if it does, will pose a challenge to existing arrangements.
Generation of funding for such incentive-based mechanisms has been another critical area of concern. AERF has developed a web-based marketing initiative called Sponsor a Forest to raise funds by engaging well-to-do urban citizens in our on-ground conservation initiatives. Through such sponsorship, individuals can protect a small forest as a gift to their loved ones, as a commemoration, or simply out of individual concern. There is also enormous potential for corporate houses to participate in the sponsorship as a means of carbon offsetting.
Scaling the initiative across larger tracts in the two districts is yet another challenge we face. It is clear that lessons learned and processes developed from our current sites cannot be applied uniformly across the landscape and that we will instead have to deal with each opportunity individually to achieve our goals. However, given the ingredients of our community-based conservation model – long-term involvement in the area based on a solid understanding of the local ecology and society – we remain hopeful of taking this major next step.
Archana Godbole, Jayant Sarnaik and Sameer Punde
