REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON FOREST AND TRIBALS IN INDIA

Abstract

The forest area in the country is reported to be 74.74 million hectares which works out to 0.109 hectares per capita which is far below the world average of 1.04 hectares. The consequence of destruction of tree groves from the forest area well as outside has created a situation like there may be now enough food but not energy future to cook it with, there may be large number of cattle and sheep but not enough fodder to feed them, river waters are loaded with silt eroding away millions of tons of top soil every year reducing fertility of the crop land and mountains have become sensitive and prone to landslides at the slightest disturbance causing untold misery and loss to the local residents and the plains are in constant danger of devastating floods. In the committee therefore recommended that for the existing 10% stocked forest area of the country, measures for protection, conservation and regulated working should be stringent, restocking of the existing 13% degraded forest area should be taken up quickly and at a rapid pace and the symbiosis between the tribal community and the forest management should be established through imaginative forestry programmes and conservation and reservation and reorganization of traditional skills of the tribals. Tribal communities in India largely occupy forested regions, where for long periods in their history they have lived in isolation. They draw their sustenance from forests. The significant role that forests play in tribal economy has to be clearly recognized and forest policy under formation should have appropriate orientation. The committee recommended that the forest policy and forest system should be direct towards managing a renewable endowment of potential for subserving national, regional as well as local development goals, forest policy must fulfil three sets of needs etc. The report also discussed the forestry and tribal development programmes and shifting cultivation, forest villages, social forestry, forest-based industries, forest labour cooperative society, biosphere reserve and management system.