The joint forest
management (JFM) regime being enforced “in a massive manner” in the
North East is brewing discontent in hill states with tribal groups in
Manipur seeking a halt to the seizure of community-held lands.
The groups want modification in the Supreme Court order of 1996, which
says that state forest departments should take over community-held
lands and convert them into reserve forests.
The groups allege that the JFM order is suddenly being pushed as more
funds are coming to the forest departments as part of the UPA
government’s Look East policy.
Under the 1996 interim order by the Supreme Court in the TM Godavarman
versus Union of India case, the state governments are supposed to set
up joint forest management committees at village level and take over
community-held forest lands and convert them into reserve forests in
order to conserve them.
According to a statement made by the tribal groups a few days ago at a
conference organised by All Tribal Lawyers’ Association, Manipur, and
Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights in Imphal, they were “anguished
by the imposition of developmental projects that are detrimental to our
society and ecology in the name of ‘national and public interests’ and
in the name of the Look East policy.’’
The organisations said they would go to the Supreme Court to seek
modification of the interim order of 1996 as it is not in the interest
of conservation in its true sense, and the tribal peoples of India and
Manipur in particular. They also demanded that the JFM programme should
be immediately withdrawn and rejected by all.
According to Maniratan Mai, the independent Member of Parliament from
Manipur, the committees headed by a forest official and village members
have been so far allowing villagers to continue with plantation
activities in these lands. But they have been stopping short of taking
over plantations and converting them into reserve forests, he said.
The Manipur government has set up JFM committees in the villages in the
five hill districts. If there is a takeover, there will be resistance,
he added.
Says Mai: “The court should just modify the clause in the order by
saying that forest should be reserved by villagers rather than saying
that government will take over land.”
He supports the idea of seeking a court intervention, but recalls that
Meghalaya had initially sought strengthening of its local method of
forest protection but was rejected by the court.
Where is the need for rigidity? The spirit of the court’s ruling was to
conserve forests. It cannot, however, be done unless the villagers
cooperate, he says.
The Manipur groups say that “the state forest department has already
surreptitiously claimed that the state forest constitutes 78 per cent
in Manipur (a quantum jump from 9 per cent). Following this order and
the claim over the community forest, the forest department has claimed
crores of rupees from the Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) for trees that
are felled for the construction of roads in hills.’’
The groups say that the forest department has been taking tax on
various forest products and enforcing permits on plantations of cane
and bamboo. It has also expressed dislike of the programme taken up by
the Union Agriculture Ministry under the bamboo mission which shifts
ownership rights of tribals to the state.
Says Mai: “A middle path can be found by forming forest committees
within existing village councils rather than superimposing something on
them.”
Once you convert community-held land into reserve forests the people of
village will not be able to touch the trees they themselves have
planted.
Says Shankar Gopalakrishnan of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity
which works for tribal rights: “North East remains the last bastion of
community control of land in India having retained control over their
resources unlike in other states where there is a private and
state-owned property driven system. That is also the reason why it is
prosperous unlike the other tribal tracts in the country.”
He adds that the conversion of community land to reserve forests is
with the intention of bringing land first in the control of the forest
department and then to divert it to other uses leading to the kind of
conflict and blood shed that is being witnessed elsewhere.
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