Adivasi rights groups petition Parliament against Compensatory Afforestation Fund law
Adivasi rights groups from across the country have petitioned Parliament demanding that the government should either repeal the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016, or amend it to ensure that Adivasi rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2009, are not violated by the compensatory plantations that the law facilitates.
The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is in the process of finalising the rules to implement this law, which seeks to manage the distribution of funds – now amounting to more than Rs 50,000 crore – collected as a levy from industries, miners and others who need to fell forests for their projects. The Act allocates this fund to the forest departments of states to set up plantations to replace the lost forests.
Courtesy: Scroll.in