Plans to denotify 20% of all land protected by TNPPF Act in the Nilgiris

The district committee formed under the Tamil Nadu Preservation of Private Forests (TNPPF) Act, 1949, has recommended that a fifth of all land protected under the Act in the Nilgiris be de-notified and exempt from its purview.

The district committee formed under the Tamil Nadu Preservation of Private Forests (TNPPF) Act, 1949, has recommended that a fifth of all land protected under the Act in the Nilgiris be de-notified and exempt from its purview.

The Act is aimed at protecting forests lying in crucial wildlife corridors adjoining the forests. In the Nilgiris, it applies to land in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) and the Gudalur forest divisions.

The Act specifies that people enjoying possession of land notified under the Act must approach the district-level committee, headed by the Collector, to obtain permission before transferring land ownership. It also prohibits any non-forest activity without the permission of the district-level committee. Five villages in Udhagamandalam taluk and 10 in Gudalur taluk are covered by the Act.

The TNPPF Act is “to prevent the indiscriminate destruction of private forests” and applies to “private forests...having a contiguous area exceeding 2 hectares which may be declared by the district gazette to be forests”.

Some of the land notified under the Act falls within the notified Segur Elephant Corridor, which is home to wildlife such as elephants, tigers, vultures, leopards, striped hyenas and other rare and endangered species. In 2022, the district-level committee, headed by the Collector, recommended to the high-level committee that around 5,218 hectares out of the total extent of 26,603 hectares notified under the Act be exempted.

The committee stated that there were a total of 15,273 survey fields having less than 2 hectares in area, as since the notification, various land transactions have taken place and land been sub-divided till the law began to be strictly enforced after 2009, when the Tamil Nadu government, under then Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, notified the Segur Elephant Corridor.

Conservationists argued that the land adjoining the boundary of a reserve forest, having a contiguous forest area of two hectares and above, are covered by the Act.