Amid protests from forest dwellers and activists, the Chhattisgarh forest department Thursday has withdrawn its directive barring all other departments, NGOs and private organisations from carrying out any work concerning Community Forest Resource Rights (CFRR) until the Centre passes a plan.
The advisory was withdrawn on the directions of state Forest Minister Kedar Kashyap, the forest department said in a press statement.
The department has written to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of India (MoEF&CC), to issue model CFR management plans, detailed guidelines and a training module for the master trainers and all stakeholders.
The press statement said: “The forest department had only issued an advisory to its field officers in light of the absence of model Community Forest Resource (CFR) management plans and corresponding guidelines.”
It was necessary because of inconsistency in field-level implementation of CFRR due to the lack of clarity on how to integrate CFR management plans with the National Working Plan Code, 2023, the statement said. There was also confusion regarding coordination between Gram Sabhas, NGOs, and forest officials.
The statement said the absence of this advisory would have resulted in ad hoc management plans being implemented without the working plan prescriptions. “This would have jeopardized the ecological integrity of forests… and created inter-departmental and community-level disputes.”
IFS officer V Sreenivasa Rao, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests & Head of Forest Force (PCCF & HoFF), Chhattisgarh, said, “The department has played a commendable role in the distribution Individual and CFR rights. Till now a total of 4,78,641 of Individual Rights and 4,349 of CFRR (20,06,224 hectares) have been given under the Forest Rights Act (FRA). As a result… Chhattisgarh has emerged as one of the leading states in the country in terms of CFRR recognition.”
