KOCHI: If the tribal community in Pankumooppan Kattunayka Colony at Poothadi in Wayanad is ever going to get the much touted Community Forest Rights (CFR), they would be having the rights over just two acres of land for collecting forest resources, burial ground, grazing, fishing and for worshiping their gods- all bundled together! But theirs is not an isolated case.
When the district-level committee approved nearly 100 applications for Community Forest Rights (CFR) in Wayanad, many of the group of applicants, as per the mapping carried out by the forest officials, were entitled to a paltry stretch of land just about two acres. It is against the fact that these communities could legitimately claim rights over 4,000 hactares of land that fall within their traditional boundary as per the Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006. To put it in another way, members of a tribal community is actually entitled for rights in the entire area of forest which they traditionally roamed for collecting forest resources and for grazing cattle etc.
The glaring cut in the area of forest coming under community rights is only one among many discrepancies that crept in to the implementation of the FRA in the state which promised to undo the ‘historic injustice’ done to the tribals and other forest dwellers. With the slow pace in distributing titles under FRA and the serious flaws that crept into the process, the state has made it into the list of poor performers in the FRA implementation.
“Members of a tribe must be walking kilometres to collect honey and other forest resources. So, the tribe is entitled to the CFR in the entire area, that might stretch to many hactres.
By limiting the CFR to two hactares would amount to denial of their rights,” said Dr K H Amitha Bachan, research director of Western Ghats Hornbill Foundation.
Limiting the CFR to small pieces of land in Wayanad is blamed to the mapping done by the Forest Department. “It is a clear violation of the principles and spirit of the FRA. The mapping in Wayanad was done arbitrarily by the Forest officials and I don’t think the civil socieity organisations or Gramasabhas had any role in that,” said M Geethanandan of Adivasi Gotra Mahasabha.
“Without imbibing the spirit of the FRA, the officials are implementing it and limiting its scope as just another land assignment scheme with regard to the individual forest rights while the larger scope of community and habitat rights are not really taken into account, he criticised. In Thrissur the DFO is sitting on the issuance of CFR titles even after the district level committee passed the rights of 52 ‘Oorukoottams’ over one lakh hactres of forest land in the district, forest rights activists point out.The implementation of the FRA in the state is progressing at a slow pace while many districts have not even started the initial process. Kasargod has not even constituted district-level committee and many eligible communities have not even formed forest rights committees.
Except for Kadars in Chalakkudy, no initiatives have been taken in asserting habitat rights under the FRA for five primitive tribal groups and pre-agriculture communities.