Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 5 Num 1082 Sun. June 17, 2007  
   
Front Page


Laws, role of locals must to conserve forest
Observes regional workshop


Participation of local community and amendment to laws of colonial times are essential for efficient management and conservation of forests, said conversation and legal experts and social activists of South Asian region in the capital yesterday.

It is time the governments and policymakers take into account the rights of the indigenous people and forest dwellers for sustainable extraction of forest recourses and participatory management of forests.

Conservationists, legal experts and social activists of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal made the recommendations at a two-day South Asian regional workshop on Protecting Forests and Forest Dwellers: Role of Law. The workshop was organised by Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela) with support from Oxfam Novib at the Brac Centre in Mohakhali.

Raja Devasish Roy, a lawyer of the Supreme Court (SC), said that the Forest Act of 1927, inherited from the colonial era, is more a police-oriented legal instrument and colonial in nature than a pro-people document of forest management.

"The act must duly be amended to reorganise the forest department freeing it from its virtual role of law enforcers," Roy said, adding, "It must be updated to provide different types of management mechanisms of forests."

The provision of handing over private land ownership to the government in the case of social forestation has to be reviewed, he said, adding that logging provision in the forestry master plan has to be checked too.

Former adviser to a caretaker government Sultana Kamal, who chaired the second session of the workshop, said, "The forest laws and policies are related to policing rather than protecting the forests and forest dwellers."

Under the repressing laws, government often tend to harass the indigenous people integrally related to and dependent on the forests in the name of protecting the forests, said Fazlous Satter, coordinator of Global Network for the Prevention of Torture (GNPT).

Ritwick Dutta, a lawyer of the SC of India, said one of the major flaws in the forest related colonial laws is and has been that it puts absolute power in the hands of the forest department officials in managing the forests.

He said India enacted Forest Conservation Act in 1980 and Forest Rights Act in January 2007.

Editor of the daily New Age Nurul Kabir said most of the forest related laws are unjust to the people living on forests.

Social ownership is crucial in the case of forest management, said Ronald Halder, a Bangladeshi documentary filmmaker of nature.

Coordinator of Nijera Kori, Bangladesh, Khushi Kabir, said there has always been a conflict between the dependents and traditional users of the forests and implementers of laws.

"It is the local people who have so far protected whatever forests we have today," said Kabir, who chaired the inaugural session.

Executive Director of The Ecological Foundation, India, Sudhirendar Sharma said all countries in the region have laws for conservation of forests but perhaps they do not enforce them properly.

"All the ongoing physical developments may go wrong unless we conserve the very basic environment and forests," Sudhirendar said.

Community forestry has been a significant intervention in the conservation of forests in Nepal, contrary to the government management with bad laws and policies that ultimately is responsible for the destruction of forests, said Ghanashyam Pandey, chairperson of Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal.

Neither forests nor the dependent tribal people have been protected despite various laws, institutions and movements, said Director of Bela Syeda Rizwana Hasan.

Conservator of Forest, Social Forestry Circle Abdul Motalib admitted that forest related laws of colonial era were aimed at exploiting the people and is inadequate in addressing the needs of today's management.

He said the forest department has no hard documents of land ownership for protecting particularly the Sal forests of Tangail, Mymensingh and Gazipur, except for a number of notifications.

AHM Rezaul Kabir, secretary to the ministry of environment and forest, said due importance has not been given for conservation of precious and irreplaceable forests in the region.

Terming the recent catastrophe caused by mudslides in Chittagong man-made, the secretary said unplanned urbanisation is the foremost reason behind deforestation.