Recently the Indian government notified the draft Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) Rules, 2018 to facilitate utilisation of over Rs50,000 crore among states to expand India’s forest cover. They specify the activities that would be allowed or restricted in a forest area.

How CAF act and draft rules are Anti forest:-

• CAF fund’s growth over the past decade is a measure of the forest destruction under way in India.
• Evidence establishes that CA plantations destroy natural forests, harm biodiversity, undermine the rights and nutrition of local communities, and disguise rampant misuse of public funds.
• Subverts forest rights act and PESA:- By allocating more than Rs50,000 crore, the Act enables the forest bureaucracy to entrench its control over forests and subvert democratic forest governance established by the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 and Panchayats (Extension to Schedule Areas) Act (Pesa), 1996.
• Places a huge fund at the unilateral disposal of the forest bureaucracy, giving it unchecked powers to undertake plantations on private and common property resources when corruption allegations are rampant.
• Provide no meaningful safeguards against the forest bureaucracy implementing compensatory plantations on dense forests, and where FRA claims have been issued, are pending or have to be filed.
• Consultations are not stipulated for all afforestation projects, and need not even involve the affected gram sabhas. This indicates a blindness to conflicts under way across forested landscapes. Since the CAF Bill was floated, forest rights advocates report that over 2,500 gram sabhas across India have opposed it.
• An ongoing study of 2,479 compensatory afforestation projects across 10 States by forest rights groups has shown that over 70% were on existing forest land, including dense forests.
• Forest departments are taking over village resources, which includes existing old-growth forests, because there is a severe paucity of land to service the thousands of afforestation projects that have been floated.
• The draft rules state that compensatory afforestation work can be carried out in consultation with a gram sabha or Van Sanrakshan Samiti, but Van Sanrakshan Samiti is not a legal body and cannot be equated with Gram Sabha

How CAF act and draft rules are Anti forest dweller:-

• It is also a potent indicator of the scale of resource appropriation from some of India’s most marginalised citizens, namely Adivasis and other communities, living in and around forests.
• The act reduces these communities displacement, hardship and loss of livelihood and food sources to a monetary value to be paid to the state.
• The law and now its draft rules spells further capture of Adivasi lands in the name of compensatory afforestation.
• The rules provide for mere “consultation” with communities in the planning of compensatory afforestation which is a step backward from the consent provisions in the FRA and the 2014 Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act.
• Expert study chronicled multiple forms of state violence against villagers protesting against such plantations (including beatings, arrests, criminal cases, food insecurity and forcible takeover of land).

Conclusion:-

The CAF Act needs to be integrated with the FRA and PESA by centering the role of gram sabhas and incorporating land and forest rights guarantees. Only then India’s target of 33% forest cover would be achieved.