Environmentalists sound alarm over Forest Bill

New Delhi: As the Lok Sabha prepares for a crucial vote on the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023 during the ongoing Monsoon session, environmentalists, activists and other stakeholders across the Himalayas are sounding the alarm over the potential ramifications of the Bill in its current form.

Key amendments proposed to The Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA), 1980 include adding a preamble, renaming the Act to ‘Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam’, limiting its applicability to lands recorded as forest in government records, and exempting certain categories of land from its purview. Key amendments proposed to The Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA), 1980 include adding a preamble, renaming the Act to ‘Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam’, limiting its applicability to lands recorded as forest in government records, and exempting certain categories of land from its purview.

Conservationists argue that limiting the applicability of the FCA to land recorded as forest in government records would effectively invalidate the Supreme Court’s 1996 judgment in the TN Godavarman case, which said the Act was applicable to land covered under the “dictionary meaning of forests” or “deemed forests” (forests not officially recorded as forests).

The environment ministry says the application of the Act on land covered under dictionary meaning of forests (or deemed forests) has resulted in a “declining tendency in plantations in non-forest lands owing to the apprehension among individuals, organisations and authorities regarding such plantations being considered forests”.

“This misapprehension is becoming a hindrance in enhancing green cover to fulfil the Nationally Determined Contribution targets of creating additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent,” it says.

The amended bill also exempts forest land up to 10 hectares for constructing security-related infrastructure and the area falling within 100 km of international borders, Line of Control (LoC) and Line of Actual Control (LAC) for “strategic and security-related projects of national importance”.