Kohima: Following an emergency general body meeting of the Nagaland Community Conserved Area Forum (NCCAF), the forum opposed the Forest Conservation Amendment Act 2023 on Thursday.
As per a release, the meeting was held at Tourist Lodge Dimapur and was presided over by NCCAF Chairman Heirang Lungalang.
The forum maintained that the Act is not in the interest of the indigenous tribal communities of Nagaland as it challenges the land and forest rights of the people who have been its custodian since time immemorial.
“There is huge ambiguity over the definitions and provisions of the Act, putting the rights and security of the people at stake,” it said.
It said that communities in Nagaland have voluntarily come forward to take up conservation practices in their traditional ancestral lands to sustain and preserve the rich biodiversity resulting in the recognition and documentation of over 407 Community Conserved Areas in Nagaland, making it one of the world’s top biodiversity hotspots.
NCCAF said that the provisions of the Act could jeopardise the traditional land ownership, threaten biodiversity and ecological security of the region.
As the Act allows all forest areas within 100 kms from “Borders”, “or line of control,” or “line of actual control” for strategic projects of National importance and concerning National security, it observed that Nagaland directly falls under these categories.
“The murky agenda of the FCA act is that it will surely weaken the decision and power of the state government, undermine community ownership of land and forest, and the village councils may become voiceless. This may result in the extinction of the rich biodiversity of the indigenous people, and ancestral birthright be devastated, annihilated just for the sake of development and security reasons,” it said.
The ancestral forest, which is the identity of the Nagas will be left for arbitrary diversion and decisions of the Central government as it excluded obtaining prior consent from village councils and local district authorities.
More than an environmental issue, it said that it is an issue of social, cultural and historical identity and amendment to an existing Act is “undemocratic and unacceptable”
The Forum made an appeal to all Naga tribal organizations and village
councils to take into account the seriousness of the matter and do
whatever possible to stall the Act, and to pressure elected
representatives to take it to the Nagaland State Legislative Assembly to
reassert the age-old traditional ownership of land and forests.
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