Forest Rights Act axe on JFM committees

Siba Mohanty

http://expressbuzz.com/states/orissa/forest-rights-act-axe-on-jfm-committees/257601.html
18 Mar 2011

BHUBANESWAR: Orissa's 11,000-odd Joint Forest Management (JFM) committees, vested with the responsibility of protection of forests through a community-based approach, may soon cease to exist.

If these bodies are not made compliant to Forest Rights Act (FRA) that is.

Since the Forest Rights Act, 2006 gives gram sabhas the ultimate power to settle tenurial rights of community forest resources on tribals and other traditional forest-dwellers (OTFD), JFMs, which are non-statute bodies, are facing a virtual extinction.

JFMs, created in 1988, were based on a care-and-share spirit but gram sabhas do not recognise them since the bodies were formulated through an administrative resolution in 1988.

Now that the FRA has taken over, it would have a conflict of interest with the JFMs since both cover rights over forest and community resources. Only that FRA, a Central legislation, will have to prevail. The Orissa Government, the first in the country to start JFMs and Vana Samrakshana Samitis (VSS), is busy looking for the options.

The Forest Department, if sources are to be believed, has also stared ground work on the issue because this is going to be a national problem given its nature.

The JFMs are created through constitution of a council or samiti (VSS) which is represented by all the adult members of a village or a group of villages abutting forests. The council elects an executive body which has a forest official and an NGO as members.

Since 1988, when this community forest management started, the groups have been vested with protection of forests in return for rights over minor forest produce, traditional practices and other similar rights. The concept was a hit and even found place in the curriculum in the UK.

However, things are set to change with FRA. "As per the FRA, community forest resource rights can be settled with tribals and OTFDs, none else. This excludes the JFMs which has a mixed representation. Besides, the JFMs have no statutory power," said a senior officer of the Panchayati Raj Department.

The conflict came to the fore when forest rights under the FRA were settled. The State Government has so far settled 2.5 lakh individual claims but when it came to community rights, the problems cropped up.

Experts also point out that JFM was based on a concept of protection, while FRA's platform is livelihood rights. "One must understand that forest rights will make no sense if forests do not exist or deplete," a researcher said.

Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Suresh Chandra Mohanty believes that both can co-exist. "Both JFMs and FRA have roles to play and can supplement each other but the former has to be compliant to the new law," he said.

The answer could be in making JFMs an entity of gram sabha so that they get a statutory protection.