By : A Staff Reporter 11/6/2007 1:07:55 AM
IMPHAL, Nov 5: A meeting of the tribal students, civil and human rights bodies in Manipur Monday called upon the Central government and the Manipur government to cease undermining community control over forest lands in the hill areas.
They also unanimously decided to extend their support to the ongoing struggle for the scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers (Recognition of forest rights) Act, 2006, and called on the government to explain the repeated efforts to dilute and delay this key legislation.
Apart from the United Naga Council, the Naga Women’s Union, Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights, the Human Rights Lawyers and other interested citizens participated in the meeting which was held at the Centenary Hall of the Manipur Baptists Convention, Imphal.
Participants raised their protest against forest department’s use of ambiguous and extra-legal terms like “unclassed state forests” when describing community forest lands, according to a joint statement of the leaders of the organizations after the meeting.
After the Supreme Court’s rulings in recent cases, these terms can be used to claim that these lands are actually government forests, and hence are subject to the Central government’s control under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, they observed.
This would mean that any “non-forest” activity, such as jhum cultivation, would need permission from Delhi and all activities would need to pay money for compensatory aforestation, that is planting trees to replace those felled, Shanker Goplakrishnan, a member of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity said.
The state forest department has, as for instance, demanded afforestation funds from the BRTF for the two-lane road from Imphal to Ukhrul, when even the communities who own the land are not asking for any compensation, the meeting revealed.
Such developments are of particular concern in the wake of recent moves by the ministry of environment and forests to institute a legal definition of the term ‘forest’, for the purposes of the forest conservation act, that would also include community forests and “unclassed forest”, the speakers observed.
The participants also condemned the extension of joint forest management schemes in the hill areas of Manipur and other areas of the northeast.
“Such schemes in the hill areas of Manipur and other areas of the northeast seek to bring community forests under the forest department’s management through the JFM committees and constitute back-door method of taking control of community land,” they observed.
All these policies are illegal, the participants stressed, since the community’s right to control, manage and protect forests is enshrined in customary law and in the Constitution and cannot be taken away by official fiat.
IMPHAL, Nov 5: A meeting of the tribal students, civil and human rights bodies in Manipur Monday called upon the Central government and the Manipur government to cease undermining community control over forest lands in the hill areas.
They also unanimously decided to extend their support to the ongoing struggle for the scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers (Recognition of forest rights) Act, 2006, and called on the government to explain the repeated efforts to dilute and delay this key legislation.
Apart from the United Naga Council, the Naga Women’s Union, Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights, the Human Rights Lawyers and other interested citizens participated in the meeting which was held at the Centenary Hall of the Manipur Baptists Convention, Imphal.
Participants raised their protest against forest department’s use of ambiguous and extra-legal terms like “unclassed state forests” when describing community forest lands, according to a joint statement of the leaders of the organizations after the meeting.
After the Supreme Court’s rulings in recent cases, these terms can be used to claim that these lands are actually government forests, and hence are subject to the Central government’s control under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, they observed.
This would mean that any “non-forest” activity, such as jhum cultivation, would need permission from Delhi and all activities would need to pay money for compensatory aforestation, that is planting trees to replace those felled, Shanker Goplakrishnan, a member of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity said.
The state forest department has, as for instance, demanded afforestation funds from the BRTF for the two-lane road from Imphal to Ukhrul, when even the communities who own the land are not asking for any compensation, the meeting revealed.
Such developments are of particular concern in the wake of recent moves by the ministry of environment and forests to institute a legal definition of the term ‘forest’, for the purposes of the forest conservation act, that would also include community forests and “unclassed forest”, the speakers observed.
The participants also condemned the extension of joint forest management schemes in the hill areas of Manipur and other areas of the northeast.
“Such schemes in the hill areas of Manipur and other areas of the northeast seek to bring community forests under the forest department’s management through the JFM committees and constitute back-door method of taking control of community land,” they observed.
All these policies are illegal, the participants stressed, since the community’s right to control, manage and protect forests is enshrined in customary law and in the Constitution and cannot be taken away by official fiat.
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