The Supreme Court on Monday, February 19 passed an interim order staying another move by the government - the Forest Conservation Amendment Act- which would have reclaimed about 15 per cent of total forest cover in the name of ease of doing business and mining by the corporations.
The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill (FCA), 2023 was passed in the Parliament against stiff resistance from the opposition. It was alleged by them that the Centre was taking the path of least resistance by referring the Bill to a JPC, bypassing the Standing Committee.
What's a forest? How do you define it? Defining 'forest' is the solution to many conservation-related problems. Even in the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) of October 25, 1980. The resolution came when in 1995 T N Godavarman filed a writ petition to protect the Nilgiris forest land from unlawful timber operations.
Realising the importance of the petition, the Court, however, decided to go into all aspects of the National Forest Policy on an issue of immense environmental concern. The Supreme Court passed an interim order on December 12, 1996, which clarified certain clauses of the FCA and emphasised the wider scope of its implementation. The Court was of the view that the word "forest” must be understood according to the dictionary meaning, and the term "forest land" should be understood as any area that is recorded as forest in the government records.
This case, known as the Godavarman case, also led to the Supreme Court’s continued engagement with forest conservation issues like restraining all state governments from de-reserving national parks, sanctuaries and forests. The Court’s intervention also prohibited the state governments from changing the status of forests designated as "reserved" to be used for non-forest purposes without prior approval of the Union Government.
The 1996 verdict proved to be momentous for forest conservation in the country. With the Act's enforcement, all non-forest activities throughout the country, including in mining and sawmills, etc. unless approved by the Centre, the felling of all trees in all forests also remained suspended. The misuse of forest land for non-forestry purposes is reported to have minimised to about 40,000 hectares of forest land from a humongous loss of 4.3 million hectares from 1951 to 1980. Movement of cut trees and timber from any northeastern state, either by rail, road or waterways, was also banned. Railways and Defense establishments were forced to look out for non-wood-based products.
With the amendment of the Act attempted by the government in 2023, it sought to make major changes in the previous court-preferred norm for the definition of forest. The FCA-2023 goes for the jugular, in a very subtle way, to defeat the very purpose of the provisions of the original FCA that provided legislative support for the preservation of forest land and its resources.
Previously, once the land that has been notified as a forest, it comes under the purview of the Act. These lands are usually reserved forests or protected forests. The new Act of 2023 exempted forest land up to 10 hectares, or five hectares in areas of active political extremism. It also allows the forest land to be used for building security-related infrastructure, defence projects, paramilitary camps or public utility projects.
The FCA-2023 also allows the forest land alongside a rail track or public road (up to 0.10 hectares), tree plantation, or 100 km along the international border and line of control will be exempted. The FCA-2023 may impact many portions of the forests in the northeast region not far from the international borders. The new amendment also says that those areas, as per the government record declared as a forest on or after October 25, 1980, will be exempted from the purview of the Act.
All these exemptions make the Supreme Court’s 1996 verdict that ensures legal protection for every forest type, as mentioned in government records, ineffective. To cite a possible scenario, by enforcing the FCA-2023, the forest in Meghalaya, situated within 100 km along the international border can be used for whatever purpose that the government deems appropriate.
The environmentalists and experts had warned that FCA-2023 diluted the original purpose of the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 and it also conflicts with the Forest Rights Act of 2006, which comes under gram sabhas.
The Court’s decision on February 19 requires the authorities to go by the definition of forests given under the Godavarman ruling – that includes any forest land that can be defined under the dictionary meaning. Further, the Court has also ordered all the states and the union territories to provide the record of forest land by March 31 so that the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate can convert it into digitised data and make it public by April 15.
The Bench has also directed the government not to establish a zoo or safari in a forest area without prior approval of the Court. The final hearing of the case that questions the constitutional validity of the FCA-2023 is adjourned until 19 July.
Trees and forests offer the most widely accepted and proven method to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This strong motivation drives the global community to expand the protected areas for forests to thrive. In 2017, the UN General Assembly endorsed the UN Strategic Plan for Forests 2030.
India is also a party to the pledge at the Climate Summit to end deforestation by 2030. At the plan’s core is reversing the forest cover loss through sustainable forest management, including protection, restoration, afforestation and reforestation. The FCA-2023 goes against this goal. The Supreme Court’s interim order generates hope for forest conservation. As Desmond Tutu said, "Hope is able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness".
