Deregulation as Disempowerment: Dispossessing Local Forest-dwelling Communities in India

Recent changes in India’s Forest Conservation Act and environment impact assessment procedures, already problematic for community rights and environmental conservation, further undermine both. These changes violate other hard-won constitutional and legal rights of traditional forest dwellers (Adivasis) to own, use, and conserve forest resources. The barely disguised aim is deregulation to open up further forests for plunder by capitalists and the consequent dispossession of local communities, amongst the most deprived and exploited sections of society who have historically borne the brunt of large development works. Underlying the government approach is an acceptance of unscientific, unrealistic, and unfair carbon sink and afforestation targets. Adherents of an exclusionary approach to conservation as well as those arguing for people-centric co-existence are perhaps for the first time in decades in agreement on the harm that these changes will cause for forests and their people. Changes are required to democratize and respect Adivasi forest rights and decentralize forest management, not to allow plunder and degradation.