Govt. mulling easing of restrictions in private forests

State Forest Minister Ramachandran to hold a meeting to discuss exemptions from the Act 

The Tamil Nadu government is mulling easing of restrictions that may allow felling of trees in private forests, spread within an area of five acres. Informed sources said State Forest Minister K. Ramachandran would, on Thursday, hold a meeting with the Chief Wildlife Warden, heads of departments and officials to discuss, among other things, whether private lands measuring less than five acres could be exempted from the applicability of provisions of the Tamil Nadu Preservation of Private Forests (TNPPF) Act, 1949.

The original legislation was enacted to prevent the destruction of “forests”, which lie in private lands. Conservationists are apprehensive that any such exemption from the Act could jeopardise crucial wildlife habitats across the State, including parts of the notified Sigur elephant corridor in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve.

“Areas notified under the TNPPF Act are also identified as eco-sensitive areas in the Western Ghats. To tinker with or dilute this act will result in serious environmental degradation to habitats and wildlife corridors located across the State, including areas in the Western and Eastern Ghats in Tamil Nadu,” said a senior conservationist. Eventually, if the TNPPF Act is amended, owners of a property that is covered under the Act could easily bifurcate their lands so that they fall under the five-acre threshold, which would render the Act inapplicable.

Nilgiris-based conservationist, N. Mohanraj, said while he did agree that some areas have wrongly been classified as “private forests,” the removal of the TNPPF Act for lands measuring less than five acres should only be applied to areas outside eco-sensitive zones and protected areas.

Tarsh Thekaekara, founder of the Shola Trust, said there needed to be a consolidation and re-mapping of the lands covered under the Act, overcoming the age-old colonial bias towards trees. “Many patches of tea plantation with silver oak are notified under the Act, while natural habitats and other ecologically important areas are left out and open to development, “vayals”– swampy grasslands being the best example. Across Gudalur, people are building in ‘vayals’, since the neighbouring tea slopes are notified and protected despite the swamps being infinitely more valuable than tea or silver oak. The same is true for grasslands.” said Mr. Thekaekara.

Another point on the agenda of the Thursday’s meeting is to loosen regulations on private landowners, seeking permission to cut trees located in their properties. N. Sadiq Ali, founder of the Wildlife and Nature Conservation Trust (WNCT), said as things stand, tree-cutting permissions were already being used to unlawfully cut down forest trees. “Dilution of rules will only make it easier for these large estate owners to get away with unrestricted tree-felling. Moreover, the State government’s stated goal of increasing forest cover will be scuppered if these rules are diluted,” said Mr. Sadiq.

The Minister will also discuss culling of wild boar that raid agricultural fields. Conservationists feared, if allowed, this could lead to an increase in poaching in forest areas, potentially decreasing the prey-base for carnivores living outside protected areas like in the Nilgiris, where a high population of tigers and leopards are known to live in small patches of forest.