KEY TRENDS 

• The Lok Sabha on 13 December, 2006 passed by voice vote the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005, seeking to recognise and vest the forest rights and occupation in forest land of forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest-dwellers
• The law provides for recognition and vesting of forest  rights to Scheduled Tribes in occupation of forest land prior to 13 December 2005 and to other traditional forest dwellers who are in occupation of forest land for at least three generations, i.e. 75 years, up to a maximum of 4 hectares. These rights are heritable but not alienable or transferable. Forest rights include among other things, right to hold and live in the forest land under individual or common occupation for habitation, selfcultivation for livelihood, etc**
• One of the most crucial aspects of the Forest Rights Act is the realization of forest rights within a protected area through declaration and demarcation of the “critical wildlife habitat” (CWLH)**
• The present law has only diluted the interests of the forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes with that of the “Other Traditional Forest Dwellers”. The forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes no longer remain the focus of the law contrary to what it originally envisaged*
• There is no provision in the Forest Dwelling Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act, 2006 providing that cases under the Forest Conservation Act of 1980 against the forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes for accessing minor forest produce would be dropped or closed*
• The British established a mode of forest governance that imposed restrictions on local forest dwelling communities through a definition of forests as national property for colonial objectives, which tried to acquire control of forests for commerce and national development at the cost of local forest-based livelihoods**
• Known as the Panchayats Extension to Schedule Areas (PESA), 1996, it decentralized existing approaches to forest governance by bringing the Gram Sabha center stage and recognized the traditional rights of tribals over “community resources”—meaning land, water, and forests**

* Asian Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Network, http://www.aitpn.org/Issues/II-09-06-Forest.pdf
** Patnaik, Sanjoy, PESA, the Forest Rights Act, and Tribal Rights in India, Proceedings: International Conference on Poverty Reduction and Forests, Bangkok, September 2007, http://www.recoftc.org/site/fileadmin/docs/Events/RRI_Conference/Proceedings/Paper_18_Patnaik.pdf

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