Government bans tribal rights in tiger zones

Cites its own failure to put wildlife protection rules in place over last 10 yrs as reason for ban

After failing to frame a particular set of rules for wildlife protection over 10 years, the government has banned recognition of tribal rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in all key tiger-bearing areas, owing to the lack of such regulation.

The environment ministry’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has told states the rights of tribals and other forest-dwellers over their traditional forest lands should not be recognised in these key areas (known as critical tiger habitats under the wildlife law) as the government hadn’t formulated rules since 2007 to declare these tiger-bearing lands as “critical wildlife habitat” under the FRA.

The decision would impact more than 400,000 people living inside tiger reserves across the country who could have potentially laid claim to rights over these forest lands. This estimate by the government’s Tiger Task Force dates back to 2005 and is for only 28 tiger reserves that had been identified by then. So far, over a decade, the government has recognised the rights of tribals and others in only a handful of the 50 critical tiger-bearing forest areas.

While the FRA is regulated by the tribal affairs ministry, the environment ministry’s NTCA has sent this directive. Contrary to the NTCA’s directive sent in March, the tribal affairs ministry had earlier asked states to expedite recognition of tribal rights.

The declaration of a tiger-bearing or other biodiverse areas as “critical wildlife habitat” permits the government to relocate tribals as a last resort to conserve biodiversity. But relocation is provided as step two of the process. Step one, which is unconditional under the law and mandatory before relocation, is settling the rights of the tribals and other forest-dwellers.

The NTCA, the apex body to regulate all matters pertaining to protection of tigers and their habitat, is staffed with forest service officers. It has now made settling of tribal rights conditional on the passage of critical wildlife habitat rules which the government has failed to do since promulgation of the FRA by Parliament.

The FRA was passed in 2007 to hand back rights to tribals and other forest-dwellers over forest lands they had traditionally lived in. It was done in recognition of the fact that forests had been declared as protected under various forest and wildlife laws ignoring the fact that tribals and others had inhabited those lands and held rights in these forests before these laws were passed in the colonial era as well as in independent India. This included the tiger-bearing lands declared as national parks and sanctuaries. Till the passage of the FRA, many of these tribals and forest-dwellers were treated as “encroachers” under the green laws or liable to be forcefully relocated.

The FRA provides that claims of all tribals and forest-dwellers over forest lands, regardless of their legal classification under different green laws, including tiger reserves, national parks and sanctuaries would be first recognised. Then, through a scientific process and in consultation with the people, it would be determined if it was essential to relocate people from some areas to conserve biodiversity. If it is so decided, prior informed consent of the tribals would be taken to relocate them. The areas would then be declared “critical wildlife areas”. This need for unconditional settlement of rights of tribals was also incorporated into the amended wildlife Act to bring it in consonance with the FRA in 2007.

In order to do this, the environment ministry did issue guidelines in 2007 and then revised them in 2011 as an advisory note to states, noting they had failed to notify the critical wildlife habitats over three years. These were later withdrawn. No formal rules were ever notified.

In 10 years, the rights of tribals had so far been recognised only in a handful of tiger-bearing specially protected areas of the total 50. This included one in Karnataka where the population of tigers continued to increase even after tribals were given rights instead of being displaced.