GUWAHATI, April 20 – Requesting Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to rescind or replace the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, Early Birds, an NGO from the State, submitted a memorandum to the PMO.
The environmental NGO has requested the PM to bring forward-thinking legislations in place of the above Act, which can provide forest usufruct rights, as well as, alternative livelihoods to the forest-dependant poor, without making the mistake of land grants.
Expressing their deep concern, the organization has requested that the recently operationalised STOTFD (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, will have enormous negative impact on India’s environment, including its water security and bio-diversity.
“We also believe that the Act will worsen the lives of forest dwellers – the very people it has been designed to assist,” stated the memorandum.
“Specifically, the Forest Rights Act mandates that each nuclear family of a forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribe, and other traditional forest dwellers, receive up to four hectares of forest land. India’s human population now occupies more than 95 percent of the landmass set aside for forests and wilderness. The Forest Rights Act could end up transferring over 60 percent of India’s forests into the hands of 8.2 percent of its population,” mentioned the president of Early Birds, Moloy Barua in the memorandum.
The Forest Rights Act will certainly accelerate climate change and the loss of bio-diversity by pushing India’s forests to a point of no return.
“India has implemented some of the finest and most forward-thinking environmental legislations that the world has ever seen. This includes the Wildlife (Protection) Act (WPA) 1972, the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), 1980, the National Forest Policy,1988 and the Supreme Court’s 2000 order banning de-reservation of forests. All these would be weakened or overridden by the Forest Rights Act,” the memorandum stressed.
