Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
Commons or common pool resources form critical components that supplement
and support rural communities dependent on agriculture, livestock and forests
in large parts of India, but especially the dryland and tribal areas. Access to
the commons provides stability and security in an unpredictable environment,
especially critical for landless households. The extent of common lands in India
is estimated at 23.97 percent of the total land mass by the Department of Land
Resources. Despite the important contribution of the commons to the rural
livelihood complex, a significant decline in their extent and quality has been
registered over a period of time. This decline has been recorded by several studies.
Poor families are usually at the losing end, either by denial of access to these
resources mainly because of privatization of the common pool resources by a few,
or by diversion of these resources to alternative uses.
THE FOREST RIGHTS ACT AND NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest
Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA) recognises and grants rights to Scheduled Tribes and other
communities, who have traditionally been living in or depending on forest land
for their legitimate livelihoods. The Forest Rights Act confers several rights on
communities, the Gram Sabha 2 and even individuals.
It broadly provides for two sets of rights – land rights, both private and common,
and community rights over forest resources. The former include the ‘right to hold
and live in forest land under individual or common occupation for habitation
or for self-cultivation for livelihoods’. The latter include rights for collective
management of community forest resources, rights over common property
resources such as water bodies, grazing rights for both settled and nomadic
communities, and ownership rights over NTFPs (Springate-Baginski et al., 2008;
also see Annexure 1).
2 The Forest Rights Act uses a very expansive definition of `village’, ranging from what is defined as `village’ in any State law
related to Panchayats in non-Schedule V states, to “habitation or a group of habitations or a hamlet or a group of hamlets comprising
a community and managing its affairs in accordance with traditions and customs ” in Schedule V areas; the traditional village, by
whatever name called, in states that do not have Panchayats; and “forest villages, old habitation or settlements and unsurveyed villages,
whether notified as village or not”. Following from this, the Gram Sabha means a village assembly which shall consist of all adult members
of a village (MoTA & UNDP, 2014).
Annexures
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