India, March 21 -- To protect traditional forest dwellers, the Forest Rights Act, 2006, needs to be enforced properly and not be used against them
Ever since its inception, conservationists, the forest department and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) have opposed the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA), for vesting forest land rights with communities. According to them, forests belong to the government and the communities living there are encroachers who must be evicted. "They believe forests should remain undisturbed by people so that wildlife and biodiversity remains protected. But the model seems highly impractical as the rights of people living on forest land and cultivating it for centuries remains unrecognise...