The contentious Forest Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2023 (FCAA), became operational on December 1, 2023, amidst widespread criticism from citizens, scientists, non-profits, andeven legislators. Undeterred by the protests, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has started implementing the act now, allowing State governments to clear forest diversions that were deemed illegal under the original legislation, the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 (FCA). The FCAA was passed by Parliament on July 26, 2023, and received Presidential assent on August 4, 2023. In November 2023, the MoEFCC published the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Rules, 2023, further solidifying the act and giving a free hand to States to regularise encroachments and decide on diversions of forestlands.
The FCAA dramatically alters forest governance in India. It undermines seminal judgments of the Supreme Court; lifts protections from natural forestlands that were secured under the parent legislation (FCA), thus facilitating their commercial exploitation; and exempts a host of infrastructural projects in forest areas from environmental scrutiny. Let us examine all these shortcomings one by one here.
The shortcomings
The FCAA subverts two landmark Supreme Court judgments: T.N. Godavarman Thirumulkpad vs Union Of India & Ors. of 1996, and Lafarge Umiam Mining Pvt. Ltd. Vs Union of India and Ors., of 2011. In the Godavarman judgment, the Supreme Court directed States to identify all unclassified forest areas that meet the dictionary definition of forests, besides what is already protected by the government, and set up State Expert Committees (SECs) to carry out the exercise.
The fate of the SEC reports remains unknown till date. They are not in the public domain, and it is anybody’s guess how many States have actually conducted the exercise. The only report I was able to access—one from Kerala—is vague, and prepared without ground-truthing, mapping, and cadastral surveys. The State argued that the time of one month given by the court was not enough to complete the surveys.
