National Research Study on Implementation of Forest Rights Act in Neighboring States of Odisha

Abstract

The Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 has been the most progressive and path-breaking legislation in the history of forest governance in India. It potentially seeks to transform the structure and nature of forest governance by allowing legal recognition of variety of pre-existing rights of Scheduled Tribes and other sections who have been traditionally depending on forests for sustaining their life and livelihoods. The types of rights recognized by FRA include individual rights over land, communal rights over forest and forest produce, habitat rights of Particularly / indicates that, the implementation has by and large focused on individual rights and that to majorly of Schedule Tribes, relatively ignoring large sections of other traditional forest dwellers and various other types of rights like community forest resource rights and habitat rights. The rules were amended and notified in September, 2012 and guidelines were issued to address some of the key issues of implementation such as recognition of community forest resources rights, identification and conversion of forest villages into revenue villages, disposal and transit of minor forest produce, rejection of claims, mechanisms for post-claim support and prescribing mandatory reporting and monitoring system. Crucially, the FRA empowers the Gram Sabhas (Village Councils) for initiating and facilitating the process of determination of forest rights. As a vital component of FRA community forest resources (CFR) rights provides scope for formal recognition of rights over forest conserved by local communities and also supporting provisions for community's right to conserve biodiversity. Sustenance of forest resource base livelihood through conservation of schemes for the title holding forest dwellers also taken care of by the FRA.