The Forest Conservation Amendment Bill, 2023 (FCAB) if it becomes a law is likely to leave whole swaths of the Northeastern region’s already shrinking forests without the protective cover of the existing Forest Conservation Act, 1980 (FCA 1980), as it seeks to remove many categories of land from under the protective provisions of the FC Act 1980.
The entire length and breadth of the highly sensitive states of Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Manipur will be removed from under the FC Act 1980’s vigilance in specified cases by clauses of the new bill, if it is accepted by the Parliament.
The FC Act 1980 has stringent clearance regulations before forests are permitted to be diverted for non-forest activities. But the bill seeks to loosen the restrictions on selected kinds of lands.
Experts point out that the FCAB as the preamble suggests, is aimed to pave the way for corporate and open the forests lands for commercial use.
But nowhere is it going to have more blanket impact than in the Northeastern region which is bounded by five foreign countries and has the largest area under the unclassed forest category. The region is a recognized bio-diversity hotspot. Allowing projects and infrastructure creation on these delicate mountains without strict clearance regulations will endanger the fragile existing ecosystem even more than it is now, say conservation voices.
They said that while FCAB will impact the entire country, the Northeastern states will bear the major brunt as the clause proposes to remove from the FC Act 1980.
“Forest lands if chosen they are chosen as sites for building any infrastructure related to “national security” and “national importance’’ within 100 kms of the international borders. These are sought to be exempted from the purview of the existing FC Act 1980. This means that entire states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura will be affected as the geographical sizes of these states is not more about 100 kms calculated from any point on the international border.
Large parts of Arunachal Pradesh will come under this security blanket because all these states fall along the international borders, while Assam which shares small portions of its borders with the countries of Bangladesh and Bhutan.
The bill’s exact words are that it removes from the purview of the FC Act 1980 “such forest land,— as is situated within a distance of one hundred kilo meters along international borders or Line of Control or Line of Actual Control, as the case may be, proposed to be used for construction of strategic linear project of national importance and concerning national security.”
Every inch of the tiny states of Mizoram, Tripura and Nagaland will fall under this category many times over as they are surrounded by foreign countries—Mizoram by Myanmar and Bangladesh on both the eastern and western borders respectively, Tripura surrounded by Bangladesh on all sides except a portion of linking it with Assam, and Nagaland with Myanmar. 100 kms from the international boundary covers the entire area of these states.
Meghalaya which shares its entire southern boundary with Bangladesh will also be covered by the 100 kms clause, while Manipur sharing international boundary with Myanmar will be mostly covered within 100 kms.
Arunachal Pradesh sharing its entire northern border with Tibetan-China with a highly volatile line of actual control will have large areas of its land under the 100 kms clause.
As it is, massive and numerous projects are already underway in the near the international borders areas in which whole Himalayan forests have been felled without much compliance to the regulations on existing tree-felling, infrastructure in border outposts, strategic roads etc.
Observers and activists said that this means that this kind of open-ended clause would leave all these states’ forests across its length and breadth open for exploitation without any clearances required under the FC Act 1980, even though the bill explains that these exemptions “shall be subject to such terms and conditions, including the conditions of planting trees to compensate felling of trees undertaken on the lands, as the Central Government may, by guidelines, specify.’
How this clause will impact the sensitive region with its multiple security issues needs to be widely discussed before made into a law, said concerned observers.
Also land proposed for security related infrastructure; and defence-related projects within 5 hectares in a Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected area and forest lands alongside rail line or public road providing access to a habitation, a rail and roadside amenity within 10 hectares will not need forest clearance under this bill.
Being close to the international border and with its history of armed movements the region has always been heavily militarized with authorities seeking more defence infrastructure, even including border roads in sensitive forest lands. These will be allowed without forest clearance if the bill comes through.
Secondly, experts say that the bill provides for the FC Act 1980 to cover only mainly Reserved Forests and Protected Forests notified under the Indian Forest Act 1927 along with those forests notified by various bodies but largely leaves out the unnotified forests.
Experts point out that the Northeastern region has one of the largest areas with forests still unclassified. So long these forests were covered under the FC Act 1980 by order of the Landmark Godavarman Supreme Court 1996 judgment. They point out that the judgement had widened the definition of forests to come under protection of the FC Act 1980 after widespread unregulated felling had decimated forests across the country.
There were petitioners even from Meghalaya where the notified forests are less than five per cent of the total forest areas, they point out. With the provisions envisaged by the new bill, these large tracts of lands of unclassified forests of the North East will again be left open for exploitation for the expanded ‘non-forest’ purposes without going through the process of seeking clearance which includes setting up zoos, safaris, silviculture etc.
Many activists feel that setting up for plantations such as oil palm replacing the natural forests of the north east region will also be facilitated by this bill if it is passed.
It is also pointed that the people of the region are campaigning against the implementation of several projects as they violate environment and human rights norms causing displacement of tribal communities as most of these hills are inhabited mainly by various tribes who have ancestral and traditional claims on these lands. Even with the stringent requirements of the existing FC Act 1980 affected people have struggled and are struggling in various places across the region to get their views to the Government’s notice. If the Bill removes these lands from the jurisdiction of the FC Act 1980, the people will have no more law which will stand with them and their rights, said observers.
It is also pointed out that the proposal in the Bill to rename “Forest Conservation Act” “Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam” is a blatant move to impose the Sanskritsation agenda on the unwilling people of the country. As an observer said the people of the region can barely pronounce the term proposed.
