Political Economy of Community Forest Rights

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (hereafter FRA) was a landmark legislation that sought to restore the rights of forest dwellers over land (for cultivation and habitation), community forest resources and habitats, and the governance and management of forests. In many cases, the governor's office, especially in the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA), has to intervene to rectify the decisions of DLCs and SDLCs when claims are rejected or pending for several years.1 Active Obstruction The proposed shift in forest governance from a highly centralised and bureaucratic structure to decentralised gram sabha control and management-which is what CFRs would bring about-has not gone down well with the state forest departments and the forest officers in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). Many forest rights groups in Maharashtra are of the opinion that powerful vested interests within the bureaucracy and political class have pushed for VFRs as a core strategy to maintain their control over forests, and forestall the transfer of jurisdiction of these forests to gram sabhas.2 Similarly, in Madhya Pradesh, a set of VFRs was issued on 4 July 2015 through which the government has sought to declare wooded areas, traditionally used by forest dwellers, as "village forests" instead of giving communities titles over such land under the FRA. Many wildlife groups even before the enactment of the FRA formed the opinion that the act would threaten forest conservation.3 Several strategies including public interest litigations have been filed by these groups in different high courts and in the Supreme Court questioning the constitutional validity of the act.