Paper short abstract:

Forest Rights Act (2006) brought the local communities closer than ever to their forests. Both individual and collective forest rights are issued to promote environmental justice and equity. It is observed that the CFR are in peril, while the IFR have become safe havens for the populist policies.

Paper long abstract:

The paper analyses the changing pattern of community participation in forest management amidst the Forest Rights Act implementation in India. The Forest Rights Act (2006) of India initiated granting forest

user rights to the deserving forest dependent communities, intending to undo the historical injustice they were facing since the colonial

times. This has direct implications to the overall mission for achieving environmental justice and equity. The ownership of the forestlands nevertheless remains with the local government and the forest department while only the user rights are granted to the deserving communities under FRA.

There are majorly two types of rights conferred under FRA, viz., the

community forest rights (CFR) and the individual forest rights (IFR).

Across our research locales we found that the CFR were sparingly

allocated, whereas the number of IFR were phenomenally large and were also the preferred (informally) mode of FRA implementation for the local governments to suit their populist strategies. It was observed that the low number of CFR was directly impacting the equitable development in the communities involved, further diluting the possibility of promoting environmental justice among these historically marginalized communities. This paper uses the findings of a comparative qualitative and ethnographic case study of two states of India (Gujarat, and Telangana), with an aim to assess the implications for the future of forest governance in India. The field data collected during the recently completed ICSSR sponsored major research project (File No:02/252/2016-17/ICSSR/RP) is used for framing the major arguments of the paper.