Opinion Ravi Chellam writes: Why protecting India’s forests should be a part of national security

The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 along with the Supreme Court’s 1996 order in T N Godavarman vs Union of India have provided a strong basis for the protection of natural ecosystems. What is required is better and more effective implementation. Why try to fix something that is not broken? Especially when this legal framework has served us well.

My broad concerns are: Reclassification of forest areas; exemptions for projects near border areas and for security purposes; exemptions for zoos, safari parks and ecotourism activities, and disempowering local communities.

Let me explain these briefly. By stating that the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) will only apply to areas recorded as “forest” in government records, as on or after October 25, 1980, I fear that the amendment will invalidate the SC’s 1996 judgment in T N Godavarman. The Court has interpreted the meaning of forest as its dictionary definition, expanding the purview of the FCA over all forests and not restricting it to only officially declared tracts. If these areas are declassified, it will result in thousands of sq km of forests losing legal protection. The scale of the potential disaster is humungous, as 1,97,159 sq km of our forests lie outside Recorded Forest Areas, implying that 27.62 per cent of our total forest cover of 7,13,789 sq km is at risk of losing legal protection.

It is proposed to remove the necessity of forest clearances for security-related infrastructure within 100 km of international borders. These areas are home to some of the most ecologically important ecosystems, including the forests of the Northeast, the high-altitude deserts of Ladakh and Spiti, the alpine forests and grasslands of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and the open scrub and desert ecosystems in the west. While recognising the need for military security, it is equally if not more important to recognise that ecological security is a critical part of national security and central to the well-being of our citizens. Hence, the need for fast-tracking should not result in the complete elimination of the need for environmental appraisal and taking informed and balanced decisions.

Our natural ecosystems play a crucial role in buffering against increasingly unpredictable weather patterns caused by climate change. The loss of natural ecosystems will result in greater human displacement and heightened internal security risks.

A zoo or a safari park is not a forest. Natural ecosystems are complex functional units and once destroyed, it is very difficult to restore them. Science is still trying to understand how these function. Zoos and safari parks are built by humans with the objectives of ex-situ conservation, education and recreation. It is absolutely inappropriate to clear and by implication destroy natural ecosystems to build them. Instead, we should aim to establish science-based and world-class conservation centres away from forested sites. While eco-tourism can be an important ancillary activity to generate employment, it is not correct to exempt it from clearances as it indicates that tourism will take priority over nature. In many cases, ecotourism projects have resulted in large-scale construction, which has negatively impacted natural ecosystems.

A provision allowing the central government to exempt clearance for “any other purposes”, could have disastrous consequences, as this could open the door to a whole host of activities on forest land that will no longer require clearances.

Exempting such a large number of projects from the clearance process will mean that forest-dwelling people will no longer be consulted. This is an extremely important way that forest-dwelling people are given a voice. The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, has made it mandatory to get free, prior and informed consent of local communities through their gram sabhas — a right that they have won through years of struggle. This proposed amendment to FCA will likely ride roughshod over the rights of forest-dwelling tribal persons and other people.

In conclusion, laudable goals and objectives are laid out in the preamb le. However, the rest of the proposed amendments are at odds with what has been outlined in it. This does raise questions related to the intent of this amendment. By significantly reducing the geographical scope of the FCA, increasing the types of projects which can be exempted and drastically reducing the role of local communities in decision-making, the Act takes a step backwards, which should be avoided at all costs.

The writer is CEO, Metastring Foundation and Coordinator, Biodiversity Collaborative