Forest Rights vs Forest Conservation: The Forest Rights Act, 2006 and Conservation Laws

India's forests are home to millions of Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers. Colonial and post-independence forest laws treated them as encroachers, extinguishing their rights in the name of conservation. The Forest Rights Act, 2006 sought to correct this 'historical injustice' by recognising their rights to land, forest produce and community resources, and by making them partners in conservation. The relationship between forest rights and forest conservation is sometimes presented as a conflict, but the law increasingly treats them as complementary.

1. Forest Rights

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA) recognises and vests forest rights in forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers (those who have resided in forests for three generations, that is, seventy-five years). Under Section 3, the rights include: individual rights to hold and live on forest land under occupation (up to four hectares); community rights such as nistar, grazing, fishing and access to water bodies; ownership of minor forest produce; rights of habitat for particularly vulnerable tribal groups; and the right to protect, regenerate, conserve and manage any community forest resource. Rights are determined through a process initiated by the gram sabha (Section 6), with sub-divisional and district-level committees. Section 4(5) bars eviction until the recognition process is complete.

2. Forest Conservation

Forest conservation laws aim to protect forests from destruction and diversion. The principal ones are the Indian Forest Act, 1927 (reserved and protected forests), the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980 (Central approval for diversion, compensatory afforestation), the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 (protected areas), and the Supreme Court's continuing mandamus in T.N. Godavarman (since 1996). Conservation law has traditionally relied on State control and restrictions on human use.

3. Points of Tension

• Evictions: in Wildlife First v. Ministry of Environment and Forest, the Supreme Court in February 2019 ordered eviction of forest dwellers whose claims had been rejected, but stayed its own order weeks later after objections that rejections were often wrongful; the challenge to the FRA remains pending.
• Inviolate areas: creation of critical wildlife habitats (Section 4(2) of the FRA) and core tiger habitats (Section 38V of the Wild Life Act) may require relocation, which the FRA permits only with scientific justification, a finding that co-existence is impossible, a resettlement package and the free informed consent of the gram sabha.
• Forest diversion: the Ministry's 2009 circular required FRA compliance and gram sabha consent before forest clearance, upheld in principle in Orissa Mining Corporation v. Ministry of Environment and Forest (Niyamgiri), (2013) 6 SCC 476; later rules and the 2023 amendment have been criticised for diluting the prior consent requirement.
• Compensatory afforestation on community land has sometimes displaced traditional use.

4. Points of Convergence

The FRA itself is a conservation law. Its preamble states that forest dwellers are integral to the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem. Section 5 empowers rights holders and the gram sabha to protect wildlife, forest, biodiversity, water catchments and sources, and to stop destructive activities. Recognition of community forest resource rights has enabled villages such as Mendha-Lekha (Maharashtra) to manage and protect their forests sustainably. Joint Forest Management, community reserves under the Wild Life Act, and Biodiversity Management Committees reflect the same idea. Global biodiversity policy (the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework) recognises indigenous peoples' rights as essential to conservation.

5. Related Topics and Provisions