Morung Express News
Kohima | September 11
While the 14th Nagaland Legislative Assembly resolved to seek exemption from the purview of the Forest Conservation (Amendment) Act 2023 for the state of Nagaland, the Chief Minister however said that the people should be ready to provide their cooperation to the Government of India for any development activities.
This he said even as the CM acknowledged the concerns raised by the people of the state. Meanwhile, he assured that as practiced for transfer of government owned forests, in the event of community and private owned forests being required for such purposes, the state should be suitably compensated for the loss of forest cover, in addition to the compensation of land.
Chief Minister, Neiphiu Rio while calling for a resolution to be passed seeking Nagaland’s exemption from the purview of the FCA Act, also said that the state needs an appropriate legislation to claim its dues on the loss of its forest areas.
In his remarks, Rio maintained that though for tribal Nagas, land and forests belong to the people, which was recognised by both the British colonial administration and the subsequent Government of India, Nagas could not do what needed to be done at home for a long time because of the Naga political movement.
Stating that many forest areas are disputed, totalling to 1,56,711.53 hectares, Rio impressed on the need to immediately re-draw the map and update a record of all the forest areas. "We are losing all the best lands that is ours," stated Rio.
He also reminded the house of the State Government mandate in 1986 that the provision of FCA be applicable only to government-reserved forests and such other forest and wildlife sanctuaries which are under the control of the State Government. The provision, he said never became applicable to private and community-owned forests, which account for about 95% of the total forest in the state.
On the Supreme Court’s order on this Act, Rio said “whatever interpretation the Court may say, I feel that Article 371 (A) is a political agreement and I trust the GoI will not go back from their political agreement.”
While the Forest Amendment Act 2023 is now only applicable to notified government forests or areas recorded as government forest, Rio said there is need to verify which areas are coming under its purview and which are not. To this, he said it is the job of the Forest Department to identify and verify which comes under the purview of the Act and which are outside.
“We have to identify which one is in which category, we cannot take everything together and then quarrel among ourselves and have apprehensions,” stated Rio.
