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Forest Conservation: Why 'Deemed Forest' Tag May Not Save Rajasthan's Orans

The amended forest conservation rules of 2023 may effectively defang any protection afforded to the sacred groves by the deemed forest status, and restrict communities access to their traditional grazing lands

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Forest Conservation

Forest Conservation: Why 'Deemed Forest' Tag May Not Save Rajasthan's Orans | Photo courtesy: Prabhjits

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Forest Conservation

Twenty-seven years after the Supreme Court first directed states to identify and classify unique ecologies as “forests”, the Rajasthan government finally notified its sacred groves, known as Orans, as “deemed forest”, on February 1, 2024.

Orans are a vital part of community life in Rajasthan--community forests that are sometimes centuries old, traditionally seen as sacred, preserved and managed by rural communities, with local laws and rules governing their use. Pastoralists take their livestock to the Orans for grazing; these also serve as places for the communities to congregate for social events and festivals. They are also the natural habitat for the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB).

For years, the Rajasthan government has allotted Orans to numerous development projects, as we explain below, without much oversight. A legal loophole had allowed authorities to categorise Orans as wasteland, enabling their decimation.

While conservationists and environmentalists welcomed the added layer of protection to the Orans, several legal and environmental experts cautioned that the new categorisation may not be enough to safeguard the groves. This is because the Forest Conservation (Amendment) Act of 2023--a legal tool that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government brought in to regulate chopping of forestlands for non-forestry purposes--has diluted the restrictions on clearing deemed forests.

“Deemed forest status doesn’t mean protection. Even earlier, the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) laws didn’t act as a barrier but more as a speed breaker,” said environmental lawyer Ritwick Dutta, adding that the dilutions in the amended FCA allowed for faster and easier diversions.

The Forest Conservation Act of 1980 had certain restrictive provisions, wherein the Centre’s approval was required to convert the status of forest to non-forest land. But in the amended FCA, the clearance of deemed, unclassed and private forests can be done by the state government itself.

Experts say that the new amendment would exclude deemed, unclassed and private forests from requiring forest clearance, i.e., that the government can divert these forests for non-forest purposes without following the pre-existing process. In a Suprem

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