Ecologists fear Amendments to Forest Conservation Act will leave it a hollow shell

The recent Forest Conservation Amendment Bill will leave the Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA) a hollowed-out shell, said Dr. Sharachchandra Lele, distinguished fellow at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru.

The recent Forest Conservation Amendment Bill will leave the Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA) a hollowed-out shell, said Dr. Sharachchandra Lele, distinguished fellow at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru.

“We are sitting today here when the amendments to FCA which makes it a hollowed-out shell of what the Supreme Court thought it should be, have been passed in the Lok Sabha. We need to recognise that the developmental lobby and the control of the State through which the lobby implements its developmental agenda are the biggest source of destruction of forests,” said Dr. Lele speaking at the recently held Sinhasi Social Impact Conference.

The controversial bill passed in Lok Sabha in June states that only those lands notified as ‘forest’ under the Indian Forest Act 1927 or recorded as ‘forest’ in government records will be acknowledged as forests. This is in contradiction to a Supreme Court’s judgement in 1996 which said any land that satisfied the dictionary meaning of the word should be counted as a forest even if they were not officially classified as one.

The much-diluted bill also removes the need for clearance permissions and consent of the local community to strip forest lands alongside railway tracks or public roads, or for the construction of defence or public utility projects in ‘Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected’ areas.

“FCA combined with Forest Rights Act (FRA) would have given teeth to getting local consent and bringing local voice into the decision making on our forests along with central and state voices. The Centre has abrogated its responsibility. So, we have to fight bottom up once again and the local communities are our allies,” Dr. Lele said.

At the event which was conducted in memory of conservationist M.A Partha Sarathy, ecologists like Dr. Lele and Dr. Nitin D. Rai and ethnobotanist Dr. Siddappa Setty emphasized the need for democratic conservation.

Renowned ecologist Madhav Gadgil and herpetologist Romulus Whitaker who founded the Madras Crocodile Bank and Agumbe Rainforest Research Station took part virtually and echoed similar sentiments.