Editorial 1 : How the PESA has boosted forest conservation in India
Introduction
The policy approach to conservation in India has long grappled with two kinds of conflicts: conservation versus resource extraction by local communities, and conservation versus ‘economic development’.
The approach
- The state has tended to follow a piecemeal approach, at times leaning one way, at other times the other, with the direction determined by competition between sections of the political elite at the national, state, and local levels.
- In such a scenario, it goes without saying that greater the centralisation of political power, the greater the say of the national and/or state elites, which, predictably, would foster a privileging of the interests of big capital over that of local communities.
- In other words, deforestation driven by mining, power projects, commercial timber, big dams etc. could prevail over conservation and/or livelihoods of forest communities — a noticeable phenomenon in India.
- Where conservation initiatives do take off, they often follow a top-down approach, leading to situations where local communities lose access to traditional forest lands critical for their sustenance.
The PESA Act
- The Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) passed in 1996, extends local government councils to Scheduled Areas.
- Under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution, regions with predominantly tribal populations are categorised as ‘Scheduled Areas’, a territorial designation thatrecognises the customary rights of the Scheduled Tribes (ST).
- Though the 73rd Amendment, passed in 1992, formalised local self-government through the three-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) in the non-Scheduled Areas, it did so without mandated representation for STs.
- PESA, however, took it a step further. It introduced an electoral quota that requires all chairperson positions, as well as at least half the seats on each local government councils to be reserved for ST individuals.
- Incidentally, in States where PESA has not been implemented well, as in Gujarat, for instance, the most common failure has been the absence of mandated ST representation in gram sabha committees.
- This variegated governance landscape has one virtue. It offers comparable data sets of local self-governance and forest cover that differ in geography and over time for villages: with local self-government in Scheduled Areas (with mandated ST representation); for villages with local self-government without mandated ST representation; and also, villages which adopted PESA earlier, and those that did so later.
Equitable representation
- Tracking the increase and decrease of tree and vegetation cover over time and across the forested areas around these different sets of villages, they found that boosting formal representation for ST led to an average increase in tree canopy by 3% per year as well as a reduction in the rate of deforestation.
- The effects were also larger for areas that had more forest cover at the start of the study period.
- The study also showed that the rise in tree canopy and fall in deforestation only began to happen after the introduction of PESA elections that mandate quotas for ST.
- In other words, the mere presence of PRIs or local self-government — which were introduced from 1993 — without mandated representation for the ST, had no conservation effects.
On democratic decentralisation
- The study further compares the impacts of PESA with that of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA), a legislation that aimed to bolster ST rights to forest lands.
- It found that FRA had no discernible additional impacts on conservation beyond those caused by PESA.
- The paper makes a key theoretical distinction between administrative decentralisation (where the priority is efficient execution) and democratic decentralisation.
- It is possible to have village-level governing councils empowered with budgets for execution but lacking discretionary power on resource management.
- Unlike administrative decentralisation, democratic decentralisation ‘refers to representative and downwardly accountable local actors who have autonomous, discretionary decision-making spheres, with the power and resources to make significant decisions pertaining to people’s lives.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if mandated political representation for marginalised communities is one institutional mechanism that can yield better results in conservation, a second, one, according to the study, is vesting powers in a single umbrella institution — for instance, a political institution that empowers marginalised voices. A single institution — rather than multiple ones vested with different mandates is critical because it would be better at recognising how to balance the dual policy objectives of development and conservation and it can consolidate power into a more substantive and meaningful democratic authority.
Editorial 2 : The NITI Aayog’s project in Great Nicobar
Context
Recently , the opposition party demanded an immediate suspension of all clearances granted to NITI Aayog’s mega project on Great Nicobar island in the light of violations of due process, legal and constitutional provisions protecting tribal communities, and the project’s disproportionate ecological and human cost.
Where is Great Nicobar and which are the communities living there?
- The island of Great Nicobar is the southernmost tip of India and a part of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago that comprises 600-odd islands.
- It is hilly and covered with lush rainforests that are sustained by around 3,500 mm of annual rainfall.
- The rainforests and beaches host numerous endangered and endemic species including the giant leatherback turtle, the Nicobar megapode, the Great Nicobar crake, the Nicobar crab-eating macaque, and the Nicobar tree shrew.
- It has an area of 910 sq km with mangroves and Pandan forests along its coast.
- The island is home to two tribal communities — the Shompen and the Nicobarese.
- The Shompen, around 250 in total, mostly live in the interior forests and are relatively isolated from the rest of the population.
- They are predominantly hunter-gatherers and are classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group within the list of Scheduled Tribes.
- The Nicobarese community practises farming and fishing. It has two groups: the Great Nicobarese and the Little Nicobarese.
- They use different dialects of the Nicobarese language (the Shompen have their own unique language).
- The Great Nicobarese lived along the island’s southeast and west coast until the tsunami in 2004, after which the government resettled them in Campbell Bay.
- Today, there are around 450 Great Nicobarese on the island. Little Nicobarese, numbering around 850, mostly live in Afra Bay in Great Nicobar and also in two other islands in the archipelago, Pulomilo and Little Nicobar.
- The majority on Great Nicobar comprises people who settled on the island from mainland India.
- Between 1968 and 1975, the Indian government settled retired military servicemen and their families from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, among a few others, here.
- Campbell Bay is also an administrative hub that includes local offices of the Andaman and Nicobar administration and the panchayat.
- There were also short-term and long-term migrations of fisherfolk, agricultural and construction labourers, businesspersons, and administrative staff comprising foresters, engineers, teachers, etc. from both the mainland and the Andaman Islands.
What is the NITI Aayog project?
- NITI Aayog unveiled a ₹72,000 crore plan called ‘Holistic Development of Great Nicobar Island at Andaman and Nicobar Islands’.
- It includes the construction of an international transshipment terminal, an international airport, a power plant, and a township.
- The project is to be implemented by a government undertaking called the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation (ANIIDCO).
- The plan states that the proposed port will allow Great Nicobar to participate in the regional and global maritime economy by becoming a major player in cargo transshipment.
- The proposed airport will support the growth of maritime services and enable Great Nicobar Island to attract international and national visitors to experience the outstanding natural environment and participate in sustainable tourism activity.
The Criticism
- The mega project has been heavily criticised for its ecological costs and for potential violations of tribal rights.
- The project requires the diversion of about 130 sq km of forest land and the felling of around 10 lakh trees.
- In January, 2021 the Indian government denotified two wildlife sanctuaries — the Galathea Bay wildlife sanctuary and the Megapode wildlife sanctuary — to make way for the project.
- In the same month, the government released a ‘National Marine Turtle Action Plan’ that lists Galathea Bay as a marine turtle habitat in India.
- The transshipment terminal is expected to be developed at Galathea Bay, one of the world’s largest nesting sites for the giant leatherback turtle.
- Both this species and the Nicobar megapode are listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection Act), 1972 — the highest level of protection for wild animals under Indian law.
- In November 2022, the Tribal Council of Great Nicobar and Little Nicobar withdrew the no-objection certificate (NOC) it had provided for the project stating the administration had concealed important information about the use of tribal reserve lands and that they had obtained tribal communities’ consent in a rushed process.
- As for the Shompen, one of the biggest threats is disease. Since the Shompen have had little contact with the outside world, they haven’t yet developed immunity to infectious diseases that affect India’s general population.
- Some Shompen settlements also overlap with the areas the NITI Aayog has proposed to be used for the transshipment terminal.
Conclusion
Researchers who work on disaster management have also raised concerns that proponents of the mega project have failed to adequately assess earthquake risk. The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago is located in the “ring of fire”: a seismically active region that experiences several earthquakes throughout the year. The area is in category V: the geographical zone with the most seismic hazard.
