‘Death knell’ for India’s forests — experts submit objections to JPC on changes to forest law (New Delhi)
‘Death knell’ for India’s forests — experts submit objections to JPC on
changes to forest law (New Delhi)
Simrin Sirur, The Print
May 25, 2023
Conservationists, environmental experts, as well as former and sitting
forest officers have decried the government’s proposal to change the
application of a key law protecting India’s forests, arguing it will “open
the floodgates” to unchecked mining and commercial activity.
Several experts have submitted their objections to a Joint Parliamentary
Committee, which is reviewing the proposed changes.
Earlier this year, environment minister Bhupender Yadav had introduced the
Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill — which carries the proposed changes —
in Parliament amid loud protests.
The Bill seeks to loosen the rigidity of the prevailing Forest
(Conservation) Act — which bans non-forest activity within forests without
clearance from the central government — in order to “fast track strategic
and security-related projects of national importance”. ThePrint had
detailed the proposed changes in this report.
But several publicly available submissions made to the joint committee
point out that projects of national and strategic importance have already
been granted clearances and exemptions in the past, and that changing the
existing law could have wide ranging impacts on wildlife and biodiversity
conservation.
Apart from exempting projects of “strategic importance,” that fall within
100 kilometers of international borders, the Bill also exempts tracts of
land along railway lines, zoos/safaris and ecotourism activities, while
restricting which forests the law would apply to.
“In its present form the Bill will be a death knell for India’s forests,”
conservationist Prerna Singh Bindra and Kerala’s Chief Conservator of
Forests, Prakriti Srivastava, wrote in their 60-page submission, adding,
“In limiting the scope and ambit of the original Forest (Conservation) Act,
the proposed Bill removes crucial safeguards from a vast majority of
India’s biodiverse rich forests.”
The Joint Parliamentary Committee, comprising 19 Lok Sabha members and 10
Rajya Sabha members, is expected to submit its report to Parliament within
the first week of the next session.