Environment › Environmental law and institutions

Forest laws and forest rights

Forest law and the rights of forest dwellers: the Indian Forest Act, forest clearance and the definition of forest, the Forest Rights Act and the gram sabha, and minor forest produce. Prelims has asked who initiates the recognition of forest rights and which ministry is nodal for the Act.

UPSC has asked

Prelims 2021: moringa and tamarind: family, origin and minor forest produce

Showing 1 of 9 subjects, those that changed from 16 to 31 August 2026.Show all

Ecotourism in forests

Prelims and Mains

Under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 an ecotourism facility inside a forest counted as a non forest use and needed diversion approval. The 2023 amendment placed ecotourism facilities among forestry and conservation activities, so the same construction no longer takes that route.

What changed

19 Aug 2026New subjectnewly added
- The sector has grown from a few crore rupees in two or three reserves in the early 2000s to an estimated $11 billion by 2025.
- Sharing of revenue with communities rests on convention and not law: Kerala and Odisha pass on about a third, Himachal Pradesh the whole amount and Gujarat nothing.
- Carrying capacity is set administratively. On Kuruva island on the Kabini in Wayanad a cap of 400 visitors a day was raised to 1,150 and, after a death and a court ordered closure, reset at 488.
Mains: a change of definition in a statute, and not any project clearance, opened wilderness zones to construction.
Frontline, 19 Aug 2026: The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 reclassified ecotourism facilities as a forestry activity rather than a non-forest use, opening wilderness zones to construction. (opens in a new tab)

Also filed elsewhere

Limestone mining at Jafrabad · on Big cats
The Jafrabad lions live on the coast, well away from Gir, and what keeps them part of the same population is the strip of forest in between.