Forest Governance Question Who is in and out? Who, how and at what level participates? 1. Ownership, Access, Use and Distribution of Resource 2. Conservation, Protection and Regeneration

1. The Forest Governance Question
After Ten Years of FRA Implementation
Geetanjoy Sahu
Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS)
Mumbai

2. Forest Governance Question
Who is in and out?
Who, how and at what level participates?
1. Ownership, Access, Use and Distribution of Resource
2. Conservation, Protection and Regeneration

3. Two Phases
Pre­Forest Rights Act 2006
Post­Forest Rights Act 2006

4. Governance Framework
Largely if not exclusively driven by three principles:
* Exclusion
* Extraction
* Centralisation

5. Factors Triggered­ Evolution of FRA
Judicial Excessivism (T N Godavarman Order­ 1996)
Tribal Rights Movements
Political Culture

6. FRA 2006
* Addresses historical injustice
* Recognition of Rights and Not Creation
* IFR and CFR
* Tribal and OTFDs
* 13th December 2005
* Mimimum Potential Areas: 40 million hactares,
173000 villages, 150 million (Source­ MoTA)
* After Ten Years: 3% of potential area has been
recognised

7. Performance So Far­ January 2017 (MoTA)
Sl.
No
Activity Status
1 Number of Claims received/ filed 44,71,788 claims (40,35,513
individual and 1,36,275
community claims)
2 Number of titles distributed/
ready
17,83,262 titles (17,20,742
individual and 62,520
community claims) have been
distributed
3 Total number of claims disposed of 36,22,628 (86.84%)
4 Extent of forest land for
which titles distributed (in
acres)
40, 67, 535 (IFR Areas) and
95,45,386 (CFR Areas). Total
= 136,12, 921.16 Acres

8. How the states have performed
Categories States
1 Laggard states
No or extremely poor performance
Assam, Bihar, Goa,
Himachal Pradesh, Tamil
Nadu, Uttarakhand,
Haryana, Punjab, Sikkim
2 Low performing states
Achieved less than 2% of minimum
potential
Rajasthan, West Bengal,
Karnataka, Jharkhand
3 States with only IFR Implementation Tripura, Uttar Pradesh
4 States which have ignored CFRs but
implemented CRs and IFRs
Telangana, Andhra
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh
5 States with both IFR and CFR
implementation
Maharashtra, Odisha,
Kerala, Gujarat

9. Shift in Forest Governance
No exclusion from forest areas without consent and
settlement of rights
No extraction of resource without GS consent
Decentralised Forest Governance System
(Owneship, Access, Use and Disposal Rights)

10. Implementation Challenges
Institutional & Policy Challenges
Operational Bottlenecks

11. Key Observations
Forest Governance debate­ Two Opposite Positions
Conventional Answer
­ No trade­off, Highly centralised
Alternative/Radical Answer
­ GS as a sacrosanct institution
­ Emphasis on local interests

12. Need to Think Beyond Binary Positions
Multilayered Governance Structure
­ Operational Role
­ Regulatory Role
­ Policy Making Role
Focus needs to be both on efficiency and sustainability