The Government of India has enacted the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016 (CAF) and in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has drafted the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Rules 2018. The CAF Act emerges out of Supreme Court direction to manage the funds earn out of payment to compensate deforestation and its related impact under the Forest Conservation Act 1980. The act has created a fund and national and State level Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority.
Odisha is one among India’s top most five States with maximum forest coverage and one of the major beneficiaries of CAF because of its continued rapid deforestation for a number of reasons, including mining, industrialisation and urbanisation. The effective utilisation of this huge fund available with the Forest Department without violating the rights of the local people has been a matter of concern from people’s rights point of view, especially in the interest of STs, PVTG and other forest dwellers who are inhabitants of forest areas and forest fringe villages and whose primary sources of livelihood is forest.
The CAFR 2018 has made provision of spending of 80 per cent of the fund by the State on activities that includes natural regeneration and artificial regeneration by plantation, protection of plantation and forest, soil and moisture conservation work in forest, planting and rejuvenation of forest cover on non-forest land falling in wildlife corridors etc. under complete control of the Forest Department.
The Government of Odisha has been implementing plantation projects and the volume will be more with CAF in the coming days. The State Government also engaged in building land bank of 1 lakh acre to make available land to meet various commercial purposes of the Government, including plantation. There is a plan of Rs 563 crore to be spent out of the CAF in the State in the current year. Poor people in forest area have been experiencing this move of the Government as a major effort of Government to alienate them from forest land and other forest based resources through the ambitious plantation drive out of CA fund.
Now, the forest areas which are also tribal areas of the State are filled with para military forces and police which cause inconveniences to local communities and there is also plan to deploy police forces to protect the forest along with forest guards, anti-poaching squad and special tiger protection force etc. for conservation.
It is a fact that the liberal corporate friendly economic policy of the Government has been the major reason of increasing deforestation in the State. The State Government has allowed illegal mining in a big way along with illegal timber trade and saw mills, in spite of restriction by the Supreme Court. Reckless conversion of forest land for housing and urbanisation and over allocation of land to industries more than their requirement have largely contributed to the destruction of forest.
The democratisation of access to forest resources need to be built up by recognising rights of people who have been part of the forest since generations which has not yet happened due to lack of political will in support of the poor. The natural rights of the poor forest dwellers are arbitrarily controlled from the colonial period and after continuous people’s movement for rights over forest land and other resources, the Forest Rights Act was enacted to ensure the rights of people over forest for survival and livelihood. But it is most unfortunate that the CAFA is contradicting the basic principles of FRA and PESA by overriding the rights of the people and on the contrary empowering the Forest Department.
The activities of the Forest Department contradicts the rights of STs and OTFD in forest and forest fringe villages in enjoyment of rights over land and making free access to forest based resources for livelihood. The families having individual forest rights and community forest rights under FRA have not yet realized their possession due lack of demarcation. The FRA has also not been extended to OTFD which deprives a major chunk of landless poor in forest areas.
It is found that there are assigned land for distribution to the landless poor under the category of such as ceiling surplus land, Bhoodan land, waste land and non-demarcated land. But these lands are illegally given to the corporates and now also recorded in the land bank violating the land reform laws of the State.
A major chuck of rural population in the State continues to be homestead less and lack of basic land holding for agricultural livelihood. Many poor families depend on so called forest land and Government land for survival since generations and their traditional right over natural resources, land, forest and water near their historical habitations has been denied even after constitutional governance of last 70 years. The land reform agenda of the State Government remains in the backseat and there is lack of concern of the Government for the landless poor.
It is reported that in many places the Forest Department has been arbitrarily planting trees without consultation with the local communities and even the traditional rights for livelihood of these communities are denied by restricting their access to forest and collection of NTFP which is a major source of livelihood of the local communities.
It is observed that the plant species being planted by the Forest
Department is not of the local indigenous variety. Rather, they are commercial plant species unsuitable for local climate. Ideally, it is expected that fruit bearing tree of local variety and other such traditional plants must be encouraged considering the need of the local community but this is blatantly ignored.
This is largely contributing to change the local ecology, food chain, and eco-system. The unplanned plantation everywhere, to spend the fund, over the so- called Government land and forest land deprives the local communities of access to the available space. It restricts the space of grazing land, food, fuel and fodder need of the landless poor in forest areas and also restricts them from collecting NTFP and fruits from the locality. lack of access/restricted access to locally available resources affects food security and encourages distress migration in the absence of adequate alternative employment and livelihood sources of the poor. There has been huge migration of STs and Dalit, OTFD from forest areas to urban slums and industrial corridors as causal workers. Therefore, it is the demand of the people, STs, PVTG and OTFW, Dalit, in forest areas that the Government should ensure forest land rights to the landless poor communities before going for any activities in the name of forest conservation.
The local people as a major stakeholder must be taken into confidence for protection, management and regeneration of the forest because the people need the forest more for their survival. The plantation activities must be planned in such a manner where the interest of the poor communities can be creatively addressed while ensuring the regeneration of the forest.