GAKUVED letter to Union Tribal Affairs Minister on laws protecting tribes in Goa

To,
Hon’ble Tribal Minister,
Ministry of Tribal Affairs,
New Delhi.

29/10/2010

Sub: Non-implementation of The Scheduled Tribes and other
Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forests Rights)
Act, 2006 by Goa Government

Sir,

We wish to bring to your urgent attention the following:-
The inclusion of Tribes in the Scheduled List for the State of Goa was notified by the Goa Govt. in 2004 but till date they have not implemented the Tribal Sub Plan and declare the scheduled areas nor included them in V Schedule. As a result the land originally belonging to the tribes of Goa is acquired and sold in the name of development for the Corporate Sectors in mining, industries and real estates.

Goa Government has not yet constituted Forest Rights Committees in all the Panchayats of Goa (only 91 are constituted and remaining are pending). Also the Goa Government has not yet constituted mandatory Sub-Divisional Level Committees and District Level Committees anywhere in Goa as required under The Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forests Rights) Act, 2006. This has caused great hardships to Scheduled Tribes people of Goa as they are not able to file claims with the sub-divisional and district level committees.

On the other hand, Goa government is attempting to evict people from all Wildlife Sanctuaries, in Goa – even before implementing Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forests Rights) Act, 2006 - by declaring them as Critical Wildlife Habitats. This has caused Scheduled tribes of Goa great hardships. Due to this, people from the forest areas are currently revolting against the snatching away of their habitats and livelihoods by blocking access to forest to and their cattle by forest department by barbed wire fencing and dug trenches around the dwelling houses.

We urge you to urgently intervene in this matter and direct the Goa Government to undertake the following immediately:
1. To prepare, publish and implement Tribal Sub-Plan as per Schedule Castes & Schedule Tribes Order (Amendment) Act 2002.
2. To notify Schedule Areas as per the Schedule Castes & Schedule Tribes Order (Amendment) Act 2002.
To include Goa tribes viz Gawda, Kunbi & Velip in V Schedule.
To constitute Forest Rights committees in all the Panchayats of Goa State of The Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forests Rights) Act, 2006.
To constitute Sub-Divisional Committees and District level committee in North Goa and South Goa districts.
To dismantle barbed wire fencing and filling up of trenches in forest areas around the dwelling houses.

Thanking you,
Yours Faithfully,

(Durgadas G. Gaonkar)
PRESIDENT
C.C. to: 1) Campaign for Survival & Dignity, New Delhi
2) Bharat Mukti Morcha, Goa

Non-implimentation of Tribal Act

To,
The Chairman,
Parliamentary Committee
for Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribe,
New Delhi.

29/10/2010

Sub: Non-implementation of The Scheduled Tribes and other
Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forests Rights)
Act, 2006 by Goa Government

Sir,

We wish to bring to your urgent attention the following:-

The inclusion of Tribes in the Scheduled List for the State of Goa was notified by the Goa Govt. in 2004 but till date they have not implemented the Tribal Sub Plan and declare the scheduled areas nor included them in V Schedule. As a result the land originally belonging to the tribes of Goa is acquired and sold in the name of development for the Corporate Sectors in mining, industries and real estates.

Goa Government has not yet constituted Forest Rights committees in all the Panchayats of Goa (only 91 are constituted and remaining are pending). Also the Goa Government has not yet constituted mandatory sub-divisional level committees and District level committees anywhere in Goa as required under The Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forests Rights) Act, 2006. This has caused great hardships to Scheduled Tribes people of Goa as they are not able to file claims with the sub-divisional and district level committees.

On the other hand, Goa government is attempting to evict people from all Wildlife Sanctuaries, in Goa – even before implementing Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forests Rights) Act, 2006 - by declaring them as Critical Wildlife Habitats. This has caused Scheduled tribes of Goa great hardships. Due to this, people from the forest areas are currently revolting against the snatching away of their habitats and livelihoods by blocking access to forest and their cattle by forest department by barbed wire fencing and dug trenches around the dwelling houses.


We urge you to urgently intervene in this matter and direct the Goa Government to undertake the following immediately:

To prepare, publish and implement Tribal Sub-Plan as per Schedule Castes & Schedule Tribes Order (Amendment) Act 2002.

To notify Schedule Areas as per the Schedule Castes & Schedule Tribes Order (Amendment) Act 2002.

To include Goa tribes viz Gawda, Kunbi & Velip in V Schedule.

To constitute Forest Rights committees in all the Panchayats of Goa State of The Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forests Rights) Act, 2006.

To constitute Sub-Divisional Committees and District level committee in North Goa and South Goa districts.

To dismantle barbed wire fencing and filling up of trenches in forest areas around the dwelling houses.

Thanking you,

Yours Faithfully,
Sd/-
(Durgadas G. Gaonkar)
PRESIDENT
Gawda, Kunbi, Velip and Dhangar Federation (GAKUVED)

Forest Rights: Poigunim MLA Tawadkar pressurise GAKUVED

According to the just received reports Poinguinim MLA Ramesh Tawadkar has been trying to exert pressure on Devidas Gaonkar of Gawda Kunbi Velip and Dhangar Federation (GAKUVED) over the Forest Rights Act 2006 implimetation.

Goa Government has sabotaged the implimentation of FRA 2006 by ignoring to constitute mandatory Sub-divisional Committees as well as District level committees. MLA Tawadkar instead of forcing the State Government to constitute them is turning the heat on those working to impliment the same.

MLA Tawadkar few hours ago has threatened to march to the house of Devidas Gaonkar with his BJP party workers to end end the process of implimetation of Forest Rights Act within Khotigaon wildlife sancturay jurisdictions. Villagers - mostly tribals here face routine harrsment from forest department. forest departeemtn also involved in regula timber trade.

Please intervene at this stage and support Devidas Gaonkar. Please call him up at his mobile number 00 91 9373210686. Also please call up MLA Ramesh Tawadkar and ask him to stop pressurizing Devidas Gaonkar. MLA's contact mobile is 00 91 94224416000, 9325901049. His Landline contact: 0832 - 2639069.

GAKUVED objects to proposal to declare Khotigao WLS as Critical Wildlife Habitat

30-09-2010

To,

The Chief Conservator of Forest,

Directorate of Forest,

Panaji, Goa

Sub: Adivasi Right to Recognition and Declaration of their Land Rights under Forest Rights Act, 2006.

Sir,

GAKUVED Federation strongly objects the decision of of the government to declare Khotigao Wildlife Sanctuary as 'Critical Wildlife Habitat' without settling claims of the Adivasi tribes and other forest dwellers under Forest Rights Act 2006 as it will be the total violation of Article 21 of the constitution of India. Article 21 of the Constitution assures the Adivasi tribes the right to their livelihood, right to their homes, right to their environment, right to their life and to live with human dignity.

Further to bring to your notice that in order to highlight problems related to land belonging to the tribal people in Goa GAKUVED has organized "People's Tribunal" with the theme "Restoration of Adivasi Homelands in Goa" on 30th & 31st May, 2009 at Menezes Braganza Hall, Panaji, Goa.

I am enclosing herewith the 'Interim Observations' of the said "People's Tribunal" for your kind information and request you to take necessary action on the recommendations made by the Panel of Jury.

Hope the above request will be considered and the land and resource rights of Adivasi tribes are not denied.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully,

Sd/-

(Durgadas G. Gaonkar)

PRESIDENT

No CWH status to Cotigao

Click here for the story.

Forests' cry

Yesterday evening and today morning I witnessed forest in Khotigao, Canacona being imprisoned in barbed wires of Forest department. Forest voiced its cry for freedom and liberation.

Sebastian Rodrigues

A Formula for More Land and Resource Grabbing: Dangers of the Green India Mission

Forest Movements' Joint Statement

As national platforms of forest dwellers' movements and struggle organisations, we strongly oppose the “Green India Mission” recently announced by the Ministry of Environment and as part of the National Action Plan for Climate Change. This Mission, in its current form, will lead to increased land grabbing, violation of people's rights, environmental destruction, and loss of common lands and livelihoods based on them, without in any way genuinely responding to the burning problem of climate change.

• India's forests and forest lands are the homelands of millions of people, the adivasis and other forest dwellers. Huge areas of land officially classified as “forest” are in fact being lived in, cultivated or otherwise used and depended upon by forest dwellers. Despite the Forest Rights Act of 2006, however, their community rights to common forests, lands etc. are still being trampled upon and ignored.

• The Forest Department's main “green” activity is tree plantations. Such “afforestation” programmes often take place on cultivated lands (including shifting cultivation fallows), village commons, community pasture lands etc. that actually belong to people; they also destroy biodiversity rich natural open forests and grasslands, reducing people's access to forest produce and animal fodder. In October 2008, the Standing Committee on Environment and Forests sharply criticised such programs¹, saying “afforestation ... deprives forest dwellers and adivasis of some or all of their lands and impacts their livelihoods and basic needs – for which they are neither informed, nor consulted, nor compensated.”

This is what the Green India Mission seeks to promote, despite lip service to the contrary. The true impact of any policy is shaped not by its rhetoric but by its institutional structure:

1. Despite much talk of gram sabha and village based management, all the Mission's bodies above the village – the Division and State Forest Development Agencies etc. - are controlled by the Forest Department (Paragraph E). How is the gram sabha to manage anything if funds, policies and coordination are controlled by the Forest Department?
2. Within the village, the non-statutory Joint Forest Management Committee is slipped in as a “sub committee of the gram sabha”, when it is, once again, controlled by the Forest Department and not accountable to the village. There is even talk of twisting the Forest Rights Act – which explicitly provides for gram sabha control over forests – to legitimise JFM Committees and vest them with legal status (Paragraph 5.4.1.(b)). Thus, the undermining of local control begins in the policy text itself. Instead of replacing Joint Forest Management, the document is promoting it.
3. So-called “community agents” are to be hired and trained, but once again we find that they are to be under the Forest Department, and the document even says they can be used to “augment Forest Department staff” (i.e. presumably serve as departmental contract labour). This appears to be a further extension of Forest Department control over village decision making, thereby undermining the decision making authority of the gram sabha.
4. The Forest Department has neither the expertise nor the skill to implement “restoration of ecosystems and habitat diversity,” nor is there space for such expertise. Within the document itself, the old Department line shows through: forest restoration is almost equated with plantations (Para 5.2.2) and grassland restoration with grazing reduction (5.2.3). The document totally ignores indigenous and local knowledge about ecosystems and eco-restoration.
5. The only really measurable targets given are for plantations and some schemes such as stove distribution. As funding is largely target driven in the government system, this indicates where the money will go. The draft talks of 20 million hectares being afforested, but this is effectively impossible, as such a huge area of land will have myriad existing uses and rights. The draft also refers to 44,000 crores being spent. Such enormous targets, with such an institutional structure, will only result in more land grabbing and corruption.

What will this actually lead to? We can expect the following consequences:

1. Industrial monocultures as a result of plantation programs – while expressing the point that monocultures are “more vulnerable”, the draft document nowhere rules them out, and they would be the natural result of this process. These would be harmful to the environment and dangerous for people's rights and livelihoods (lip service on these issues notwithstanding).
2. A commoditisation of forests, converting people's homelands and livelihood resources, without even consulting them, into tradable commodities through the system of carbon trading. This will likely involve private companies as well, triggering even more land grabbing. The carbon storage figures that are given are clearly aimed at establishing a basis for such a system. In reality, such figures are usually hogwash. Forests do not consist of just standing trees – trees grow, fires and other disasters take place, people and wildlife consume non-timber forest produce, etc. Forests are constantly changing. An obsession with carbon storage and incentives in the form of trading will lead companies and the government to shut off forests from all use by people, on the one hand, and on the other will encourage fictional carbon storage figures.
3. Conversion of areas such as pastures, grazing areas, shifting cultivation fallows, and other common lands into plantations for the purpose of meeting targets and earning profits through carbon trading.

The true threats to the climate and India's environment arise from resource grabbing, unequal resource use and expropriation by corporates and elites. These are not being addressed at all, and instead such sham programs – whose benefits are grossly exaggerated and almost impossible to actually calculate – are being proposed as an eyewash. The Green India Mission is likely only to result in conflict, resistance, impoverishment and displacement, while itself causing environmental damage.

Any such Mission has to begin with a democratic framework that, in particular, disempowers the Forest Department and creates the space for genuine people's empowerment. This document does the opposite. Hence, we oppose this program and call instead for the Environment Ministry and the Central government to respect people's rights, indigenous knowledge and democratic control over forest and land resources, which will do far more to tackle climate change than such dangerous programs.

1194^th report of the Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests, on the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill 2008.

Dangers of Proposed Amendments to the Wild Life Act

Dear all,

At a time when adivasi and forest dwelling communities across central India are facing brutality and devastation as a result of Operation Green Hunt, the Environment Ministry has proposed a set of amendments that will only increase the repression that forest dwellers face. In the name of giving the Wild Life (Protection) Act more "teeth", the Ministry has proposed amendments that will intensify the reign of fear that the wildlife authorities already exercise against forest dwellers in protected areas.

The proposed amendment will:

• Greatly enhance penalties under the Wild Life Act, which already has some of the most draconian provisions of any law in existence - including on bail, presumption of guilt and probation. Despite these provisions the fate of India's wild life is well known. Meanwhile, thousands of people across the country face false cases every year on the basis of these draconian provisions, many of them spending years in jail.
• Incorporate a dangerous and confusing provision on the Forest Rights Act, which will be read as a way to exclude the Act from most protected areas - a total violation of justice and the law.
• Totally fail to really address the problems with the current "wildlife conservation" model in the country - its use as a cover for land and resource grabbing by the forest authorities; its encouragement to corruption and brutality against people; and its obsession with autocratic extractive models of resource control that have nothing to do with "conservation."

The problem with the Wild Life Act is not that it does not give the wildlife authorities enough power; it is that it gives them too much.

Want to know more? See our note at:

http://www.forestrightsact.com/forest-conservation/item/download/42

Campaign for Survival and Dignity

9873657844, www.forestrightsact.com

Forest Tribes Lose Rights

Goa’s Velip tribal people are battling the Forest Department for the right to use their ancestral lands. The Forest Department has claimed Velip land as a wildlife sanctuary. But the Velip people have used the land, which they see as sacred, for as long as living memory.

Locals claim the Forest Department has named the area as a wildlife sanctuary so it can move the tribal people out and eventually hand the land over to rich mining companies. There are robust deposits of valuable minerals in the area. Mining companies operating in Goa are highly interested in expanding their operations. Many claim the Forest Department hands over protected lands in exchange for large sums of money.

The Forest Department is in the process of removing Velip rights to use the land. They have issued restrictions on Velip people’s movements, built 3-metre stone fences around the area and dug deep trenches along the Velip’s footpaths to prevent them from crossing into the area.

Velips depend on the land to cultivate cashews—a primary source of income for the tribe. Without access to these harvests, the Velips will be robbed of their ability to support their families as they have for so long. Khotigaon is a sacred worship center for Velips, where they honor their deities. To them, it is an irreplaceable space.

In this video, Devidas reports on the Velip people’s situation in Khotigaon.

Land Grabbing by MOEF?

Friends,

The press is filled with debates about Operation Green Hunt, corporate resource grabbing and displacement issues. But there's an elephant in the room, a larger process of seizing lands, forests and resources on a huge scale, that has so far been totally ignored. Behind this process lies one Central government agency: the Environment Ministry. Most people associate displacement with land acquisition, but that is only one way of displacing people. The Environment Ministry's control over forest land gives it far more power over people's homes, livelihoods and lives – and lakhs are facing brutality, impoverishment and injustice as a result. Consider this:

• Under the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980, the Environment Ministry has the final say over the use of 23% of India's land area – areas recorded as forest land in government records. From 2006 (when the Forest Rights Act was passed) till date, in MP and Chhattisgarh alone, the Ministry has illegally handed over (through “in principle” and final clearances) 15,411 hectares of forest land to various projects. The Ministry did not consult or even inform the people who lived on, used and depended on this huge area of land. And that’s just in two States. On August 3^rd, 2009, the Ministry admitted this was illegal and issued a circular ostensibly to stop it – but has gone on in the same fashion since.

• But the land grab doesn’t stop with forest diversion. Under the FC Act, for every hectare diverted, one hectare of revenue land or two hectares of degraded forest land has to be planted with trees. While this looks good on paper, it makes no environmental sense – a tree plantation is no replacement for a natural forest and often results in biodiversity loss and damage to water tables. But plantations do allow for yet more land grabbing – this time by the Forest Department rather than by projects. The plantations take place on lands that often actually belong to individual forest dwellers or that are village common lands. Thus people lose their lands at both ends – to the projects at the diversion site and to plantations at the afforestation site. The intentions are made clear by a 2003 circular of the Ministry, which explicitly recommends that various types of community forest lands be used for compensatory afforestation. It then requires them to be notified as reserved or protected forests and transferred to the Forest Department – meaning people lose all rights to cultivate, collect firewood or forest produce, or graze their livestock in lands that were in fact their own ¹. Between 1980 and 2009, such 'compensatory' plantations took place on 11,83,472 hectares of land – of which 5,54,635 hectares was revenue land which was now brought under Forest Department control.² If the compensatory afforestation required for the illegal diversion in MP and Chhattisgarh were to take place on degraded forest land, the diversion and the afforestation together would require 46,235 hectares of land – larger than the area of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, all illegally grabbed in the space of three years and in just two States.

• More land grabbing goes on through plantation programmes and “Joint Forest Management”(JFM). JFM has become a way for the Forest Department to extend its control over more lands and to divide villages in the process. The village committees set up under JFM are controlled by the forest guard, who is their member secretary / joint account holder. Their “participatory” plans for forest protection have to fit entirely within existing Forest Department plans. They are not given any rights but instead promised a share in timber and other revenues in exchange for free labour; and the share is often never paid. As a result, JFM Committees often consist entirely of contractors, traders, elites and others close to the Forest Department, and function as proxies for the Department, to the extent of attacking and evicting other members of villages on the Department's instructions. Enormous sums of money are then pumped into these “participatory” committees by the National Afforestation Programme (Rs. 1056.74 crores was given between 2008 and 2010³). The money is routed through Forest Development Agencies, which once again have forest officials in all key positions. In 2008, the Standing Committee on Environment and Forests condemned the current form of afforestation policies as“afforestation ... deprives forest dwellers and tribals / adivasis of some or all of their lands and adversely impact their livelihoods and basic needs – for which they are neither informed, nor consulted, nor compensated.”

And this is not the end. Even as illegal diversion continues, even more money is being funnelled into plantation and afforesation programs:

• 5,000 crores of international loans were taken by State governments in 2009 for forestry projects, mostly to be implemented through JFM.

• More than 11,000 crores of compensatory afforestation funds are being gradually released for spending in the same manner since July 2009 – despite an explicit recommendation from the Parliamentary Standing Committee to overhaul the entire structure.

• Another 44,000 crores has now been proposed to be allocated to the supposed afforestation of a staggering 10 million hectares of land under the Green India Mission. Internationally, the government is seeking even more money under the climate change agreement REDD – Reducing Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation – once again in the name of plantations and JFM; private companies may also get involved in more plantation activities.

We call upon the government to respect the law and justice and halt the Environment Ministry's land grabbing. We demand:

• Full implementation and respect for the provisions of the Forest Rights Act

• An end to Joint Forest Management

• Afforestation programmes to be under the transparent control of the gram sabha and not under the Forest Department

• Full respect for the democratic and legal rights of communities to protect and manage their forests

1.See MoEF letter F.No.2-l/2003-FC dated 20.10.2003.

2. Answer to Unstarred Question No. 2494 to Ministry of Environment and Forests, Lok Sabha, on 22.07.2009.

3. Answer to Unstarred Question No. 4221 to Ministry of Environment and Forests, Lok Sabha, on 21.04.2010.

Campaign for Survival and Dignity
www.forestrightsact.com, 9873657844