Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, November 05:
Tribal organisations have called upon the State Government to uphold community rights over forest following a controversial forest policy being mulled by the Centre.
At a meeting at Embicy Hotel, Chingmeirong today, tribal students' organisations, the United Naga Council, the Naga Women's Union, Naga Peoples' Movement for Human Rights, the Zomi Human Rights Foundation and the Campaign for Survival and Dignity along with human rights lawyers and concerned citizens called upon both the State and Central Governments to cease undermining community control over forest lands in the hill areas.
The participants protested the Forest Department's use of ambiguous extra-legal term like unclassed State forests when descrbing community forest lands.
After the Supreme Court's rulings in recent cases, these terms can be used to claim that community forest are actually Government forests and hence are subject to the Central Government control under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, Shankar Gopalakrishnan stated on behalf of the congregation after the meeting.
This would mean that any non-forest activity such as jhum cultivation would need permission from the Central forest empowerment committee, he added.
He cited the recent demand of afforestation funds by the Forest Department from the BRTF for the two lane Imphal-Ukhrul road to establish the imposing danger.
Such developments are of particular concern in the wake of the recent moves by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to institute a legal definition of the term 'forest', for the purpose of the forest Conservation Act, that would also include community forests and unclassed forests.