Forest Rights Act may come in handy to stop mining in green areas

News Courtsey: TNN( Delhi)
Photo Courtsey:Self

The wildlife lobby and many environmentalists disliked it but now the Forest Rights Act could become a tool for them to prevent mining in
important forest areas.

With the environment and coal ministries deciding to fast-track environment clearance in degraded forest lands, the government has admitted it will have to look into the provisions of Forest Rights Act before it can allow mining.

Forest Rights Act, opposed by the environment ministry and the wildlife lobby alike when it was being put in place, has a clause that disallows removing forest-dwellers till their rights have been recognised under the Act.

Another section of the Act requires project proponents or the government to seek permission of gram sabhas involved if the forest land has been claimed as "community forests".

While the environment ministry has made it clear that mining would be kept out of dense and moderately dense forests, most of the rights, it is predicted, lie in degraded forest lands though claims have made for lands in some tiger reserves as well.

While the government on Thursday expressed its intention to reduce the time taken at the state level for clearances under the Forest Conservation Act, the new legislation is being seen as a separate issue to deal with.

On Thursday, the environment minister admitted as much, saying in a press conference that the provisions of Forest Rights Act would have to be followed though he demurred from answering if clearances would be given in the coming months even as the rights process under the Act continues across the country. The government has committed to finish handing over rights under the Act by 2009-end. He also suggested that if the coal ministry thought so, it could go to Parliament for an amendment to the Act.

In UPA's earlier tenure, a section of Congress had warned that clearances were being given in violation of its own much-touted pro-tribal populist legislation.

In what is being seen as a move to shake off the onus, the environment ministry has already given clearances with the caveat that forest clearance is "subject to" compliance with the Forest Rights Act, for which the tribal affairs ministry is the nodal agency.

With FRA being a fresh piece of legislation, questions about how and when the process of distributing rights in a forest area is concluded and who is empowered to declare so remains untested.