NGO moves court to protect forests

NGO moves court to protect forests
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, JULY 17
In a bid to stop Forest Department from allowing open forest land being diverted to non-forest use — Goa Foundation (GF), an NGO pursuing environmental issues, has moved High Court.
In a petition filed before Bombay High Court at Goa the NGO has sought to quash one of the criteria adopted by forest department for determining “what is forest” and also prayed for an order restraining the department from granting any NOC for conversion of any plot having natural vegetation with tree canopy density of more than 0.1 per cent.
The expert committee adopted three criteria to identify areas as forests such as 75 per cent of the species composition must be forestry species, the area should be contiguous to government forest and if in isolation, should be more than 5 hectors and thirdly, the canopy density should not be less than 0.4 per cent (40 per cent).
The petitioner has objected to the third criteria which is in relation to tree cower density as it has no basis as there are several forest areas in the State which are presently degraded and having canopy density of less than 0.4 per cent but they were originally dense or medium dense forest and must be accordingly identified.
“Such land cannot be unilaterally diverted to non-forest purpose except with prior approval under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980,” says the petitioner.
Moreover, it has pointed out that the Forest Conservation Act being Central legislation, any criteria adopted for defining any land as forest or non-forest need to be approved by Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).
However, in this case the State Government has not obtained sanction for third criteria from MoEF.
The petition also says that the Forest Conservation Act does not grant any power to any State government to set arbitrary criteria that have bearing on determination of forests under the Act. Also, the State government should accept any criteria that would have bearing on the implementation of the existing orders of the Supreme Court.
The adoption of the criteria in question has lead to large-scale diversion of forested areas to non-forestry purposes thereby effectively bypassing the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act and 1996 order and subsequent orders of the Supreme Court, it complaint.
The petition also highlights that all the authorities including the Supreme Court have not come to a conclusion that forest with tree canopy density below 0.4 per cent are not to be considered as forest for purposes of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.
To make its case stronger, Goa Foundation has also submitted extracts from the latest report of the Forest Survey (2009) about extend and nature of forests in Goa. According to the survey, extend of open forest areas are almost the same extend as both categories – very dense forest and moderately dense forest put together. The open forest area as shown in the survey report is 1016 sq kms, 511 sq kms is very dense forest and moderately dense forest is 624 sq kms.
This means, 1016 sq kms of open forests area in the State could be easily diverted to non–forest area by virtue of criteria three.
At present, only 67 sq kms of private forest has been identified in the State but identification was carried out based on objectionable criteria that exclude all open forests.
Therefore, criteria three is violative of the objectives and provisions of the FCA, 1980, as it is leading to active destruction of forest areas in the State, says Goa Foundation.