New Delhi: Amidst din by opposition parties demanding a discussion on the situation unfolding in Manipur, the Lok Sabha Wednesday passed The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023 with a voice vote.
The Bill introduces a number of important changes to the original Forest Conservation Act, 1980. Among them is redefining the purview of the Act, exempting forest land up to 100 km along India’s borders from its purview, and allowing the central government to define and allow activities for ‘non-forest purposes’ on forest land.
The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023 was first introduced in Parliament in March amid protests, including by Congress MP and former environment minister Jairam Ramesh. It was then referred to a 31-member Joint Parliamentary Committee chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Rajendra Agrawal and comprising 14 BJP MPs.
Having approved all proposed changes, the committee presented its report on 20 July, along with dissent notes submitted by four opposition MPs.
On Wednesday, The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023 was reintroduced in the Lower House by Union Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change Bhupender Yadav and passed after a brief debate. In his reply to the discussion on the Bill in Parliament, Bhupender Yadav said that to “fulfil India’s Nationally Determined Contributions, we need agro-forestry and tree cover and this Bill is necessary for the objective”.
He asserted that this Bill is important not just for the country, but for the world.
Critics point to three main concerns with the Bill: legal issues to do with a 1996 Supreme Court judgement, ecological issues owing to fear of dilution of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and a federal issue concerning the Centre’s scope of powers over its decision to exempt certain kinds of infrastructure projects from the need for forest clearance.
ThePrint explains the purview and challenges posed by the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023.
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Legal issues
The Supreme Court in its 1996 judgement in the Godavarman Case clarified the scope of the 1980 Act, ruling that since the law was enacted to “check deforestation which results in ecological imbalance”, its provisions must apply to all forests, irrespective of whether they are classified as forests.
Forests, the top court said, must be considered as one per the ‘dictionary definition’, rather than its legal status.
In addition to preventing the use of forest land for ‘non-forest purposes’, the original 1980 Act protected forest land — even if it was not officially notified to be a forest — from being cleared or being allocated to private parties, unless they had explicit forest clearance.
According to one dissent note by a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, the proposed amendment will mitigate the 1996 judgement since it redefines the scope of the Act to include land notified as forests under the Indian Forest Act, 1927 or under any other law, in addition to land recorded as a forest on or after 25 October, 1980.
The India State of Forest Report 2021 says that around 15 percent of forest cover in India is made up of unclassed forests — these lands will no longer be protected by the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.
Ecological issues
The Bill was opposed by environmentalists when it was first introduced, on the grounds that it would be a “death knell” for Indian forests since it would “vastly limit the scope and ambit of the original Act”.
ThePrint reported earlier how conservationists had written to the JPC about their concerns over the proposed Bill. They had said how, by limiting the definition of forests, ecosystems in the Aravallis, mangroves and forests in the Western and Eastern Ghats could be “diverted, felled, cleared without any regulatory oversight”.
Further, the Bill proposes to allow activities such as “zoo and safaris” or “eco-tourism facilities” without prior approval from the central government.
Even within recorded forest land, certain kinds of land have been exempted from clearances. These include land for “linear projects” within 100 km of India’s borders, land up to 10 hectares for “non-linear” security projects and land up to 5 hectares for “defence” infrastructure in Left Wing Extremism-affected areas. The Bill claims to provide these exemptions with an aim to “fast track” strategic projects of “national importance”.
In July this year, a group of more than a hundred former civil servants wrote to Parliament to express their concerns over “the tendency to liberally give away forest land for non-forest purposes”, which they feared would be “strengthened by the passing of the Bill”.
Signatories to the letter said it is “unrealistic” for the Bill to rely on “compensatory afforestation” to help India achieve its goal of creating a carbon sink of an additional 2.5 to 3.0 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030.
Compensatory afforestation involves identification of non-forest land or degraded forest land and restoration of forest cover to compensate for the loss of another forested area.
The Bill was most vehemently opposed by border states who feared that their forests would be vastly impacted by the proposed amendments. Among these were Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Nagaland, Tripura and Assam, who submitted separate reports to the Joint Parliamentary Committee. Tapka Tenzin of the Spiti Civil Society, a group of Himachal-based environmental activists had told news agency PTI that “there have been so many disasters” in the state and that “the Bill opens the floodgates for more destruction”.
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Federal issues
Another issue critics have with the Bill is that it raises questions about the federal structure since it clearly states that the Centre can now decide whether a certain activity can be classified as ‘non-forest purpose’ or not. This would allow the central government to allow certain activities to be carried out on forest land without its approval. These may include “reconnaissance, prospecting, investigation or exploration, and seismic surveys”.
In his dissent note, DMK MP R. Girirajan wrote that forests fall under the concurrent list, and “giving all powers” to the Centre “infringes on the rights of the state governments”. He emphasised the need to discuss forest clearance issues with the state governments, who he said should have administrative control over the forests in their respective states.
Dissenting TMC MP Jawhar Sircar too recommended to the Joint Parliamentary Committee that the central government guidelines should frame guidelines in this regard “in consultation with the state government”.
‘Diluting regulations’
The 201-page report submitted by the Joint Parliamentary Committee stated that the 100 km provision was not a blanket exemption, and would only apply to national security purposes.
The Bill in its statement of objects and reasons also says that it would provide for “conditions of planting trees to compensate for felling of trees undertaken” due to relaxations provided by the proposed amendments. However, concerns persist.
Sharachchandra Lele, distinguished fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, told ThePrint, “By excluding different areas from the ambit of FCA 1980, the government is diluting regulations for conservation of forests in the country, which started last year with the Forest Conservation Rules of 2022 which sidelined local consent.”
The Forest (Conservation) Rules, 2022, which were notified by the central government last year, remove the need to gain gram sabha consent before clearing forests in a region.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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