{"id":293556,"date":"2024-04-30T14:28:30","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T08:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=293556"},"modified":"2024-04-30T16:19:59","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T10:49:59","slug":"missing-unclassed-forests-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/missing-unclassed-forests-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Unclassed Forests in India"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Source-<\/strong>This post on ‘Missing’ Unclassed forests in India<\/strong>\u00a0is based on the article \u201cChunk of India\u2019s forests \u2018missing\u2019 after 27-year-delay to file reports\u201d<\/a> <\/strong>published in \u201cThe Hindu\u201d on 29th March 2024.<\/p>\n

Why in the News?<\/h2>\n

In response to a Supreme Court order, the MoEFCC has uploaded State Expert Committee reports on its website in April. It was done following a PIL challenging the Forest (Conservation) Act Amendment 2023 which raised concerns over the identification of unclassed forests.<\/p>\n

About unclassed forests<\/h2>\n

\"1. About unclassed forests: <\/strong>The term \u201cunclassed forests\u201d<\/strong> refers to forest areas that fall outside the categories of reserved<\/strong> and protected forests<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

2. Unclassed forests are not officially notified: <\/strong>These unclassified forests include both government-owned and privately held lands, as well as community forests. Unlike reserved and protected forests, unclassed forests are not officially notified<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Why these unclassed forests have been a point of concern?<\/h2>\n

1. Legal Safeguard:<\/strong> Traditionally, unclassed forests benefited from legal protection, as per the T.N. Godavarman Thirumalpad case of 1996<\/span>. This safeguard prevented their use for non-forest purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Forest (Conservation) Act Amendment (FCA) 2023:<\/strong> The FCAA’s amendment in 2023 endangered the legal shield of unclassed forests and making them vulnerable to diversion for non-forest activities.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

3. Delayed State Expert Committee (SEC) Reports:<\/strong> The SECs were assigned the task of identifying unclassed forests across India. However, a significant delay of 27 years in submitting these reports left the status of unclassed forests ambiguous.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change (MoEFCC) Assurances<\/strong>: The MoEFCC assured that the amended FCAA would apply to SEC-identified unclassed forests, aligning with the Godavarman judgment. However,<\/span> <\/span>an RTI inquiry uncovered the lack of necessary reports.<\/p>\n

5. Missed Conservation Goals:<\/strong> The failure to identify and protect unclassed forests represents a lost opportunity to fulfil the objectives<\/span> outlined in the Indian Forest Policy, which aims for 33.3% forest cover in plains and 66.6% in hills.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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UPSC Syllabus: Polity and nation, Environment<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source-This post on ‘Missing’ Unclassed forests in India\u00a0is based on the article \u201cChunk of India\u2019s forests \u2018missing\u2019 after 27-year-delay to file reports\u201d published in \u201cThe Hindu\u201d on 29th March 2024. Why in the News? In response to a Supreme Court order, the MoEFCC has uploaded State Expert Committee reports on its website in April. It… Continue reading Unclassed Forests in India<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10366,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,4182,1760],"tags":[11872,10498],"class_list":["post-293556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-environment","category-polity-and-nation","tag-9pm-daily-factly","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}