The Center’s ambitious attempt to modify India’s Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, which was enacted to prevent the further clearing of forests for “non-forestry uses,” has been placed on hold by the Supreme Court of India. The Centre estimates that between 1951 and 1975, four million hectares of forest area were diverted. Forests could no longer be redirected without following a Center-mandated regulatory system, according to the Act’s requirements. The Centre measures its effectiveness by estimating that, between 1981 and 2022, the average yearly diversion of forest area decreased to around 22,000 hectares, or roughly a tenth of what it was between 1951 and 1975. The Indiana Forest Act and other State laws that identify forest tracts as such are exempt from the majority of this legislation’s requirements. Illegal timber-felling in Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, led to the historic T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad ruling, in which the Court expanded the definition of forest tracts that were protected. It further declared that woods must be preserved regardless of who owned them or how they were classified. This introduced the idea of “deemed forests,” or areas that were not officially designated as such in official government or tax records. To identify such “deemed forests,” states were requested to form expert groups. In the twenty-eight years that have elapsed since the ruling, very few States have established such committees or disclosed the size of these “deemed forests” on their grounds.
With the consent of the State governments, the Centre attempted to alter the Forest (Conservation) Act in an attempt to provide “clarity” to the several areas of documented forest land that had previously been transferred to non-forestry uses.
The Centre reports that despite the significant ecological benefits of private plantings and orchards, there appears to be a reluctance among private residents to cultivate them out of concern that they may be classified as “forest,” nullifying their ownership. Forest regulations have to be “dynamic” in order to fulfil India’s net-zero targets, which include creating a carbon sink of 2.5–3 billion tonnes. As a result, the rules have attempted to remove “deemed forest,” which has not yet been documented as such, from the protected domain.
Abhishek Verma
