Dr. VK Bahuguna

  Assessing the Amendments in Forest Conservation Act 1980 By: Dr VK Bahuguna (The writer is former IFS officer and was the Director-General in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India) The Parliament during the just concluded Monsoon session had passed the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill 2023 to pave way for modification of its regulatory regime in conservation of forest resources in the country based on the experience gained during last forty years or so of existence of Forest Conservation Act 1980. The beauty of the Forest Conservation Act is it is not a prohibitory Act but is a regulatory mechanism for the use of forest lands for the non-forest purposes. According to an estimate since 1980 in the last 42 years around 10 lakh hectares of government forest land had been diverted for developmental, the annual rate of diversion since 1950 was 1.5 lakh hectares with a total of 4.5 million hectares of forests were diverted for agriculture...