Concern over Gujarat govt survey of Banni grasslands
NEW DELHI: The Gujarat government has issued a notification asking the revenue department to conduct a revenue survey of the Banni grasslands in Kutch to demarcate private land from forest land and accordingly settle rights.
The move will affect the traditional lifestyle of pastoralists, who use the grasslands as “common land” for grazing sheep or cattle and for access to ponds and streams, and could lead to fragmentation of the grasslands, say local leaders and experts.
The Banni grasslands have a unique and biodiverse ecology, and were earlier recommended for a cheetah reintroduction project by the Wildlife Institute of India. It is inhabited mostly by the Maldharis, the local term for pastoralists who migrated from Sindh and neighbouring areas of Pakistan at least a century ago.
In 2012, the Banni pastoralists had applied to the government for community forest resource (CFR) rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, to get common rights to the entire grasslands.
In 2015, the district-level committee on forest rights accepted 48 CFR claims by the Maldharis, recognising their right to conserve the grasslands as well as use it for their common needs. But before these CFR claims could be formally settled, the Gujarat government notified the initiation of a revenue survey in Sep under the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Declared a “protected forest” in 1955, Banni has been managed by the forest department for at least two decades now. The Gujarat government now plans to delineate the revenue area in grasslands and hand over the rest to the forest department for management.
The move to demarcate revenue areas in the “protected” Banni grasslands, covering more than 24 lakh hectares, is likely to affect the livelihood of the pastoralists. It is also likely to fragment the grassland ecosystem by breaking its jurisdiction in parts, experts said. “The revenue survey of the area is long pending. The idea is to see what is grassland and what is not, and settle rights accordingly. Forest rights can be recognised even after that,” said Pravin Dhandukia, under secretary, Gujarat government.
But locals say this will destroy the grassland’s character as a common resource. “In Banni, there is no demarcation; it is used by Maldharis for grazing, there are streams and ponds which are used and conserved by pastoralists.
Why didn’t the government recognise our rights under the Forest Rights Act which gives us common rights? The revenue survey doesn’t even mention the community’s attempt to get CFR rights recognised,” said Ramesh Bhatti of Sahjeevan, a Kutch based NGO.
“The Banni revenue survey is inconsistent with the Forest Rights Act provisions because gram sabhas here have already claimed CFR.