Urgent Action: forest rights under threat

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Published on Friday, 26 September 2014 10:40
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Urgent Action: forest rights under threat

The legal right of tribal peoples to give, or withhold, their consent before their forests are cut down is under threat: there are reports that India’s new government is investigating ways of removing this vital protection.

This right is enshrined in the Forest Rights Act 2006 and under international law, but the Prime Minister’s office and the Ministry of Environment are examining ways that this right can be removed. Without this protection India’s tribal peoples will be powerless to stop the forests that they rely on, manage and protect, from being destroyed.

Not only is the Minister for Environment trying to deny India’s tribal people their right to say no to development they don’t want, he’s pretending he’s doing it for their own good, stating ‘tribals have every right to development and cannot be turned into anthropological showpieces’.

Please send a message to the Minister of Environment asking him not to remove tribal peoples’ rights to protect their forests.

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Dear Minister Prakash Javadekar,

I am extremely concerned at reports that the Indian government is seeking to remove the right for tribal people to give, or withhold, their consent before their forests are cut down. This would be devastating for the millions of tribal people who rely on their forests in order to survive and who have managed and protected these forests for countless generations.

I am also alarmed that, in defence of this move, you have been quoted as saying ‘tribals have every right to development and cannot be turned into anthropological showpieces’. Under the Forest Rights Act India’s tribal peoples still have the ‘right to development’, but they also have the right to say no to the wrong sort of development – the sort that will destroy their land and their way of life – leaving them with nothing.

Tribal peoples’ rights to make their own choices about their lands and way of life are enshrined in the Forest Rights Act and in international law. Please do not deny this right to the tribal people of India.

Yours sincerely,

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