Significance of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and its implementation in forest-dwelling communities of India (original) (raw)

The paper tries to focus on the implementation status of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA)in India, and implications on the forest-dwelling communities in India. The work elaborates on various forest dwellers, their legal statuses, and their progress in claiming the rights including community forest rights under section 3(1)(i) of Forest Rights Act, 2006 of India. The study focuses on the Juang community of Keonjhar, Odisha who are classified as particularly vulnerable tribes under the Dhebar Commission. The main focus of the study was to measure the implementation status of FRA in the Odisha state of India and to study the influencing factors which every community used to implement the act in their region. The article documents the claim procedure and their current status in various regions and also looks into forest dependency on food among these tribes. The documentation also helps to understand the intricacies of FRA and the roadblocks ineffective implementation of the right at a larger scale. The work also looks into the livelihood options of forest-dwelling communities after FRA and the resource management techniques of forest depended on communities bestowed by the rights. The study also tries to document forest food dependency of communities and the significance of conservation of traditional knowledge. One-liner: The paper tries to analyze the status of forest rights in particularly vulnerable communities of India and try to find the best practices for sustainable forestry and to fast track the claims under FRA.