Land Tenure and Forest Conservation in the Dooars of the Eastern Himalaya

Reser­va­tion of for­est land led to the loss of com­mu­nity rights and im­pov­er­ish­ment of for­est com­mu­ni­ties in the Dooars of East­ern Hi­malaya. The For­est Rights Act 2006 is the first piece of leg­is­la­tion meant to undo the his­tor­i­cal in­jus­tice done to for­est com­mu­ni­ties. How­ever, the man­ner in which the For­est Rights Act has been im­ple­mented raises ques­tions about its role in pro­tect­ing the liveli­hood se­cu­rity of for­est dwellers. In the Dooars of Jal­paig­uri, an ar­gu­ment made for deny­ing com­mu­nity rights is that these forests were re­served from waste land and hence no prior com­mu­nity for­est rights ex­isted. This paper ar­gues that a vi­brant for­est com­mu­nity ex­isted prior to ac­qui­si­tion of these forests, and that “re­serv­ing from waste” is a colo­nial con­struct. In the Hi­malayan re­gion, the liveli­hood needs of for­est com­mu­ni­ties can­not be met from agri­cul­ture alone, but also re­quire ac­cess to for­est com­mons. Ex­trac­tion of nat­ural re­sources may be un­sus­tain­able if forests are made an open ac­cess re­source. We argue that recog­ni­tion of com­mu­nity prop­erty rights in forests can en­sure con­ser­va­tion of the re­source and also en­hance liveli­hood se­cu­rity among the poor.