What can the amended Forest (Conservation) Act change?

Source: The post is based on the article “What can the amended Forest (Conservation) Act change?”  published in The Hindu on 2nd August 2023.

What is the News?

Lok Sabha has passed the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023.

How does the Bill restrict the scope of the Act?

The Bill stipulates that only those lands that were notified as ‘forest’ under the Indian Forest Act 1927, any other relevant law or were recorded as ‘forests’ in government records will be acknowledged as ‘forests’ under this Act as well. 

This revision stands in stark contrast to the wide applicability of the extant Act at present. 

A Supreme Court judgment in 1996 had reiterated such a broad application. It said that a ‘forest’ includes all land recorded as such in government records regardless of ownership as well as “deemed forests”, which are not officially classified as ‘forests’ but satisfy the dictionary meaning of the word: any large area with significant tree cover and undergrowth.

What is the exemption for border Infrastructure provided in the bill?

The Bill seeks to exempt linear infrastructure projects like roads and highways from seeking forest clearance permissions if they are located within 100 km of the national border. 

Experts have raised concerns because “strategic linear projects of national importance” is an undefined term and can thus be misused to push through infrastructure projects that are devastating for the local ecology.

Did the Joint Parliamentary Committee(JPC) raise any concerns with the Bill?

The JPC did not propose a single change to the Bill in its report despite receiving objections from tribal groups, conservationists, environmental lawyers, activists, and citizen groups.

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs also raised concerns about the amendment’s implications on community rights enshrined in the Forest Rights Act 2006.