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Following is the text of the opening remarks, made by the Minister of Environment and Forests, Thiru. A. Raja, at the 5th Editors’ Conference on Social Sectors Issues here today:
"I welcome all of you to the interaction with the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) on the occasion of the 5th Social Editors' Conference. The impact of environmental degradation and loss of forest cover on the well being of the people of the country in particular the poor is now well understood. Accordingly, the current development paradigm of the country spelt out in the 10th Plan seeks to realise sustainable development. Sustainable development in turn has three components of economic growth, environmental protection and poverty alleviation.
The Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the UPA government has cast a number of responsibilities on the Ministry particularly in relation to the interface between livelihoods of the poor in particular forest tribals. There are a number of other priority actions also which we have taken up with due seriousness. I shall briefly enumerate these.
First, the CMP has identified the following actions in respect of the poverty, forest interface:
Legislation by States conferring ownership rights in respect of non-timber forest produce for weaker sections working in the forests.
Discontinuation of eviction of tribal communities and other forests dwelling communities from forest areas.
Reconciliation of environmental problems as soon as possible for faster economic growth.
Cooperation of tribal communities and protection of forests and social afforestation.
Safeguarding legal rights of tribal communities over mineral and water resources etc.
We convened a meeting of State Ministers of Forests on 5th August, 2004 to reach a consensus on these proposed actions. I am glad to say that the response of the State Forest Ministers was overwhelming in respect of the proposals. Accordingly, we are preparing a model legislation to be adopted by States conferring rights in respect of the non-timber forest produce for weaker sections working in the forests; the specific rights to be identified by the concerned States. The legislation will also safeguards the legal rights of tribal communities over mineral and water resources etc. It will also distinguish between ineligible encroachers on forests on one hand and tribal communities and other forest dwelling communities who are in occupation of forests in exercise of their traditional rights on the other. The later will not be subject to eviction.
By this approach we expect that the forest dwelling communities in particular tribals will be able to safeguard their livelihoods and also develop long term stakes in conservation of the forest resources.
Earlier the National Forest Policy, 1988 had envisaged the legal recognition to the traditional rights of tribals with respect to forests in their jurisdiction. This was reiterated in several directives to the States since 1988. The last such directive to the States was issued in the form of guidelines on 05.02.2004 which apart from enjoying upon the States to give legal recognition to the traditional rights of tribals with respect to the forests within the State jurisdiction, State Governments would follow such notification, send proposals to the Central Government for diversion of the forest lands occupied by these tribals in exercise of the traditional rights for which there is evidence of continuous occupation for, at least, the last 10 years.
These guidelines were stayed by the Supreme Court on 23.2.2004 without notice to the Government of India. Since Amiscus Curie contended that these guidelines were politically motivated, this issue was also discussed in the Conference of State Forest Ministers to follow a national political consensus on the issue. I am happy to inform that all the Ministers without exception, supported this proposal. Accordingly, MoEF has filed an affidavit refuting political motivation.
Some other significant steps taken by the MoEF in the last six months are as follows:
The Draft National Environment Policy (NEP) has been formulated and made available for public comments. The draft NEP was discussed with the State Environment Ministers in September, 2004 and this has been followed by further discussions with State Government officials, Central Government Departments, the industrial associations, research institutions and voluntary organizations. The NEP is intended to be a guide to environment protection through out the country to reconcile the objectives of environmental protection and development, taking care of the poor particularly livelihoods of the poor.
The Ministry also has a number of regulatory functions. With a view to making regulatory functions more effective in the management of environment protection and also for procedural streamlining, the Ministry has embarked upon a very detailed exercise with respect to re-engineering each of these regulatory functions. These systems include processes relating to Environmental Clearance, Coastal Regulation Zone, Genetic Engineering etc.
A number of generic procedural issues were identified common to all regulatory systems and a set of good practices in regulation with operational guidelines which are enforceable have been adopted and are being implemented by the Ministry. In addition, reengineering of each of the other regulatory systems is at an advanced stage. These include Environment Clearance, Coastal Regulatory Zone, Genetic Engineering partners etc. The reengineering has been completed in respect of forest clearance process but the implementation of these revised guidelines have also been stayed by the Supreme Court.
The Ministry has resolved the long standing conflict between animal welfare activists and scientific community in respect of use of animals for scientific exercises. A Joint Task Forces has identified a set of principles and specific operational norms to address the different situations. In the past, the activists and the scientists have been in contradiction. They mutually agreed principle norms, which are now under implementation.
The Ministry is also developing an Action Plan for increase of the country's forest and tree cover from about 23% of the land area to 33% by 2012. This Action Plan would require only marginal increase in the fiscal outlays and seeks accomplish the targets (the increase in the forest area is equal to the area of Maharashtra) through development of partnership models between the forest departments, local communities and investors; rationalization of transit and felling rules with respect to farm and agro-forestry on private land; and Universalization of the Joint Forest Management System to all the 170,000 forest fringe villages in the country.
The Ministry has also the mandatory target of clean up of all major river systems of the country by 2012. The fiscal resources available in the National River Conservation Programme (NRCP) are much below the requirements to address the task. The NRCP has addressed to a significant extent the problem of pollution of rivers and other water bodies. However, this is a moving target as due to the increased urbanization and industrialization, the pollution flow into the rivers continues to increase. Nevertheless, there is clear evidence of gradual improvement in water quality at a number of monitoring points along major rivers.
We are undertaking an in-depth review of the problems in implementation of the NRCP so far and we will adopt these measures in future phase of implementation of the scheme. We are also augmenting an independent post evaluation study of the implementation and accomplishment of the NRCP. The lessons learnt will be implemented in further implementation to the scheme. In order to enhance the resources available for addressing river pollution, we are formulating public private partnership involving municipalities, local communities and investors for investment in infrastructure for abatement of water pollution."
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