India's forests: Whose land is it anyway?

The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill was passed by Parliament amid intense debate over how best India can conserve its forests

Why were the Congress, the Left and tribal activists, including some RSS-affiliated bodies, against the Bill in its present shape?
They wanted that the money not be spent on traditional forest lands without the consent of tribals and other forest dwellers.

Why did they want so??
India has at least 400 million people directly or indirectly dependent on forests for their livelihood. However, their rights and the benefits generated are often not recorded in government records. The Forest Rights Act of 2006 tries to do so. It requires that everyone, including the forest department, take the consent of tribal gram sabhas before doing anything on their land. They wanted this veto power to be imposed for plantations and utilisation of the CAF as well.

Is this so important when plantations are being done or enhancement of existing forests?
Yes. People use multiple forest resources, unlike forest departments which prefer soft wood or hard wood timber, also needed by wood-based industry. Forest communities have previously been displaced to secure tenure for plantations, controlled by forest bureaucracy management plans.

What happens once the CAF Bill becomes law?
The Centre has a kitty of a little over Rs 40,000 crore already under the the Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF), collected since 2006 under a Supreme Court order from industries and others which have built projects on forest land. Ninety per cent of this will be returned to states. The Centre would use the rest in overall management of forests and afforestation.

In future, annually, the states should collectively get between Rs 2,000 crore and Rs 6,000 crore. Those which permit more forests to be cut will get more cash in return to grow plantations.

Why should states get money to cut their forests?
The logic behind CAF was to levy a cost on use of forest land. Unlike other land parcels, forests are largely under government control and there was no mechanism before this to evaluate the cost of land or the resources being diverted. The hope was that charging a price for forest land, and for the economic and ecological services of forests, would help draw a better cost/benefit analysis of alternative project sites.

That has largely not happened. The diversion of forests for industries and projects has not seen a decline since the fund was created.

Another purpose of the fund was to help restore the health of other forest patches and to grow plantations to compensate for the green cover lost to development activity. However, critiques and environmental experts are clear that plantations are no replacement for natural forests.

Has the government agreed to this veto power being given to forest-based communities?
No. It has only agreed to a consultative process, through the rules. It has not agreed to a veto-empowering free prior consent clause.

What happens next?
The rules to the law are now the key and will decide how the money will get spent by states and Centre, and what activities of the forest department will get funded from this source. The devil would lie in the details of these rules.