Chhattisgarh forest dept withdraws community forest rights order after backlash

RAipur: The Chhattisgarh woodland section has withdrawn its directive blackball other regime departments, NGOs, and buck private entities from undertaking any work related to Community Forest Resource Rights (CFRR), following growing protests across tribal regions of the state.“Forest minister Kedar Kashyap had ordered the advisory’s withdrawal. The directive, issued on May 15, had stirred intense opposition from tribal communities and civil society groups, who claimed it undermined their legal rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA),” an official statement issued by the department on Thursday said.The Forest Rights Act empowers gram sabhas with the authority to conserve and manage community forest resources and to block any activity that could harm wildlife, biodiversity, or the forest ecosystem.According to the May 15 order, the forest department would oversee the land granted to forest dwellers under FRA provisions, until the central government provided model management plans.Principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) and head of forest force V Sreenivasa Rao, who had signed the directive, cited a 2020 central communication to justify naming the forest department as the nodal agency for CFRR implementation.Protests erupted in Chhattisgarh districts including Nagri, Ambikapur, Kanker, Gaurela, Narayanpur, Gariaband, Pithora, Balod, and Bastar. Demonstrators submitted memorandums, calling the order unconstitutional and contrary to the FRA’s spirit.The department has clarified that the May order was an interim measure to ensure only approved CFRR management plans were implemented until formal models were released. It said that referring to the forest department as the “nodal agency” was a typographical error, which had been corrected through a corrigendum on June 23. However, due to the confusion and unrest that followed, both the original letter and the corrigendum have now been formally withdrawn.The forest department’s statement also states that the “state has distributed 4,78,641 individual titles and 4,349 community forest resource rights titles, covering over 20 lakh hectares—benefiting millions of forest-dwellers.”The department further explained that, in the absence of central guidelines and a model CFRR plan, the May advisory aimed only to harmonise community management plans with the National Working Plan Code (NWPC) 2023.To address the gaps, it has now requested the ministry of tribal affairs and the ministry of environment, forest and climate change to urgently release detailed CFRR model plans, implementation guidelines, and training modules for all stakeholders.