While conservationists in Uttarakhand are preparing to file a case in the National Green Tribunal against a recent State Government order allowing nomadic livestock herders within reserve forests in the Terai region to carry on cultivation on forest land, the department officials stress that the law has not been violated and that the order will actually help facilitate action against land mafia.
It will be recalled that activists headed by PFA Uttarakhand have decided to approach the NGT within a week against a recent Government order removing restrictions on cultivation in demarcated got-khattas which were traditional grazing camps of nomadic pastoralists during the British Era who slowly started settling down in these areas and started permanent grazing, followed by cultivation of fodder and subsequently crops. The activists said that this is a violation of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 which prohibits any non-forest activity like cultivation in reserve forests, except for work relating to conservation.
However, the department officers said that the law has not been violated. According to the Forest and Environment additional secretary Manoj Chandran, the order does not talk of allowing cultivation in areas other than demarcated got-khattas, which have been farmed since before the Forest Conservation Act was promulgated in 1980.
According to Chandran, there were allegations of rampant agriculture taking place in Terai forests as reported by newspapers after which Dr Ajay Rawat filed a petition before the Supreme Court.
The SC's Central Empowered Committee made a query about alleged rampant agriculture and violation of Forest Conservation Act. On receiving the query, instead of replying to the query, the forest officials immediately stopped all seed sowing operations in forest areas including those on these designated and demarcated got-khattas, who have been cultivating crops for many years.
The phasing out of lease farming has led to acute food shortage and has forced people living in the got-khattas to rely on cultivation on their demarcated land. The sudden stop of sowing even in such demarcated lands has ripped them off their livelihood. Any delay in sowing would result in failure of crops and result not only in loss of livelihood and poverty so the Government acted without delay.
The matter has to be settled after proper survey and inventory of all alleged illegal cultivation and encroachments and differentiate the encroachers from traditional dwellers. All environment and forest laws have been superseded by the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006.
There are differing opinions on whether the present dwellers in the forests of the Terai are eligible or not for forest rights conferred by this act. Hence the process of settling of forest rights need to be undertaken at a war footing so that the claims to land and community rights of these communities are settled, said Chandran.
However, PFA Uttarakhand member secretary Gauri Maulekhi has rejected this explanation, stating that the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act does not apply to the settlers here as they are neither scheduled tribes nor have they been living in the area for the past 75 years.
The department should be protecting environment and wildlife instead of helping politicians play vote bank politics, she added.