Dear Friend
You may be aware that a new act on forest rights and forest management, titled "The Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006" has been passed by the Parliament of India on 18th December 2006. It is a watershed event in the hard-fought and prolonged struggle of adivasis and other forest dwellers of the country.
For the first time in the history of Indian forests, the state formally admits that rights have so long been denied to forest dwelling people who had to suffer ever since their forests were taken over by the State.
Forest communities since long had been harassed, tortured, and persecuted by the state forest administration. The new forest law attempts not only to right that 'historic injustice' but also give forest communities' role primacy in forest management.
The Government of India, however, has been trying to systematically sabotage the Act.
First it dropped crucial recommendations made by the Joint Parliamentary Committee. Then the Rules are being framed in such a manner so that the positive aspects of the Act gets diluted. The State Government, too, is ignoring the Act.
Some so-called wild life NGOs being run largely by the country's elite, launched a malicious propaganda against the Forest Rights Act. These groups, and also mining/paper lobbies interested in control of forest resources, have been pressurizing the Government of India to withhold the Act, and not to notify it.
National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW) has started a Campaign in the forest areas of North Bengal, to demand immediate implementation of the Forest Rights Act.
On 16th January 2007, people belonging to various forest communities of North Bengal will participate in a Rally in thousands. In each Forest Range and Sub-Division in the forest areas of North Bengal, demonstrations are being held right now.
How long will a Government that talks about people's rights keep on betraying the interests of more than a crore of forest-dwellers? How long tribals and other forest dwellers will be treated as intruders, thieves and destroyer of national property in their own forests? We solicit your support in this Campaign which seeks to find an answer to these and many other questions.
We feel that there is an urgent need to broaden the social and political base of the forest movement. It is time that the civil society groups and mass organisations join hands with the forest movements in the Campaign.
We invite you to a meeting at the Calcutta Press Club on Wednesday 9 January 2007 between 3pm and 5pm to discuss these issues, and to develop a strategy for a broader campaign for forest people's rights.
With regards
Shibo Sunuwar, National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW)
Soumitra Ghosh, North Eastern Society for Preservation of Nature and Wild Life
Naba Dutta, General Secretary, Nagarik Mancha
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134 Raja Rajendra Lal Mitra Road
Room 7; Block B; First Floor
Kolkata 700085 India
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