Category Archives: Forest Rights Act (FRA)

“Our forests are ours again. In 2006, the government finally accepted the historical injustice meted out to Adivasis and passed the Forest Rights Act thus recognizing our rights to forests.” – Adivasi Munnetra Sangam (photo caption, 2017 calendar)
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=21811

“Some 150 years ago, the first Indian Forest Act in 1865, promulgated by the British government, had usurped the traditional ownership and management power of forest-dwelling communities. […] The taskforce [in its final report 2020] found that there are 27,000 villages where private and common land was wrongly taken over by the forest department and never returned to the revenue department. What this means is that the fate of the residents of these 27,000 villages is dependent on an endless bureaucratic exercise. […] In a country which boasts of one of the top 10 forest covers in the world, it is ironic that the forest departments and the Union government have not followed its own law for over 90 years.” – Ishan Kukreti in “Inside ad hoc forests: Government failure, both at the Centre and the states, is hurting communities and forests alike” (Down To Earth, 18 January 2021)
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/forests/inside-ad-hoc-forests-75051

“The British established mode of forest governance imposed restrictions on local forest-dwelling communities. In 1860, the Company withdrew all access rights for using the forests (food, fuel, medicine and selling forest products) since the forests and forest-dwelling communities provided refuge to the rebels during the Sepoy Mutiny.” – Research team (Sayantani Satpathi, Shambhavi Singh & Subhodeep Basu) in “Revisiting the Forest Rights Act: Status of Implementation with respect to Land Tenures and Collection of Minor Forest Produce), Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation (New Delhi, 12 July 2019), p. 4
https://www.academia.edu/41756309
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=14402

“The forests were ‘wastelands’ that needed to be tamed, settled and developed [according to the official 1960s plan by the Government of India to ‘colonize’ the Andaman and Nicobar Islands]. It did not matter that these forests were the home of myriads of plants and animals that had evolved over aeons. It did not matter that ancient tribal peoples were living here for centuries, neither that they were physically and spiritually sustained by these forests. The idea that forests could mean more than just the timber the trees provided had not even taken seed in the national consciousness.” – Pankaj Sekhsaria in Islands in Flux: The Andaman and Nicobar Story (Harper Litmus, 2017), pp. 4-5
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=10151

“The passage of the Scheduled Tribes and other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (2006), recognizing both the individual and community rights over forest and forest resources is an attempt to redress the “historical injustice” meted out to [200 million] tribals and OTFDs [other forest dwelling communities].” – Research team (Sayantani Satpathi, Shambhavi Singh & Subhodeep Basu) in “Revisiting the Forest Rights Act: Status of Implementation with respect to Land Tenures and Collection of Minor Forest Produce), Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation (New Delhi, 12 July 2019)
https://www.academia.edu/41756309
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=10151

“Under the [FRA] law, forest dwellers can apply to state governments for either individual or community forest rights – which means they can take ownership of the process of protecting and conserving forests in their areas. They can also gather and sell minor forest produce such as tendu leaves or bamboo, which was an illegal activity before the law was enacted. However, states have not been particularly proactive about implementing these rights. [E]ven as Maharashtra is foremost in implementing community forest rights, it is also slowly attempting to reverse this with new forms of forest management.” – Mridula Chari in (Scroll.in, 9 July 2017)
https://scroll.in/article/843046/ten-years-of-forest-rights-act-maharashtra-tops-in-implementation-but-credit-goes-to-one-district
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=23920

“The Act makes concrete provisions to allow adivasis to enter the forest and continue using forest produce, on which they have depended for generations [like] the basket that was once woven in bamboo that was collected from the forest is now being replaced by plastic ones bought from the market.” – Priyashri Mani in “Home is where the forest is”, illustrated story for Accord (Gudalur)
https://cultureandconservation.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/home-is-where-the-forest-is/
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=12436

“There are three important stakeholders on whom rests the successful implementation of the Act [Forest Rights Act (2006)]. This includes the Gram Sabha itself, the Forest Department and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (Tribal Department in various states); the Tribal Departments are the nodal agencies responsible for the implementation of the Act. Revenue officers at the District and Block level also have a role to play in the finalization of titles, making changes in the official revenue maps etc. Apart from this an institutional framework has been created at different levels of checks and balances, management and redressed structures from the village to the state level. This involves the Forest Rights Committee at the village level, the Sub-Divisional and District level Committees and a final appellate authority of the State Level Monitoring Committee.” – Rebecca S . David in “An analysis of the impact of the Forest Rights Act (2006) in three states of India” (MPhil University of Cambridge, UK, 2014), p. 1
Websites:
CG-Net Swara: http://cgnetswara.org/
The Forest Right Act: https://www.forestrightsact.com/home
Forest Rights Act: https://www.fra.org.in
Ministry of Environment and Forests: http://envfor.nic.in/
https://www.academia.edu/30648733/
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=28027

“[I]ncome security of tribal peoples has been adversely affected by losses and access to productive resources (rights to forest or agricultural lands coupled with poor compensation).” – Programme report on Tribal nutrition: “UNICEF’s efforts to support the tribal population, especially children who suffer from malnourishment”
https://www.unicef.org/india/what-we-do/tribal-nutrition
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=11674

“Though the institution of Forest Rights Act is a policy action on the part of governments, local mobilisation among Tribal population, and non-governmental organisations have played an important role in its effective implementation. This area [the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra] has witnessed different forms of social mobilization under leaders coming from tribal communities.” – V. Santhakumar (Azim Premji University in “It is possible to have a better life for Scheduled Tribes in India!”, 4 May 2018)
https://vsanthakumar.wordpress.com/2018/05/04/it-is-possible-to-have-a-better-life-for-scheduled-tribes-in-india/
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=24803

“[We need] a change in the colonial outlook that has existed from the pre-Independence period towards forests, tribal forest dwellers and life forms living in forests.” – Minister Anil Madhav Dave while inaugurating a conference; quoted in “Forests, tribals and wildlife are not rivals, says environment minister” (Down To Earth,  21 October 2016)
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=21343

“There are indigenous people who have lived in the forests for a long time. They have managed to use the forests sustainably while practicing shifting cultivation or hunting and gathering. Some of them still live in relative isolation in the forests. Human kind should protect their rights and preserve their cultures. They should be models for sustainability in the future. Indigenous people can show us what forest products to use and how to use them properly. They deserve to continue their ways of life.” – Manoj Kumar Hazarika in “Deforestation in Garo Hills and its impact”, The Echo: An Online Journal of Humanities & Social Science, Volume I, Issue IV, April 2013 (Karimganj College, Assam)
https://www.thecho.in/files/Deforestation-in-Garo-Hills-and-its-impact.pdf
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=14246