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Forest laws, policies and schemes
Forest law in India runs three layers deep: the Indian Forest Act, 1927 over what may be cut, the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 over what may be cleared, and the Forest Rights Act, 2006 over who was there first. The live argument is whether a gram sabha can refuse a project. The Green India Mission, meanwhile, is more than 90 per cent short of its targets.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2021: the nodal ministry for the Forest Rights Act
- Prelims 2021: moringa and tamarind: family, origin and minor forest produce
- Prelims 2019: bamboo under the Indian Forest Act and the Forest Rights Act
- Prelims 2019: which protected areas lie in the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve
- Prelims 2018: habitat rights under the Forest Rights Act
- Prelims 2016: the aim of the Green India Mission
- Prelims 2013: who initiates the determination of forest rights
The three laws
- The Indian Forest Act, 1927 lets a State constitute reserved and protected forests and regulate what is cut from them and carried out.
- The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 requires the Central Government's prior approval before forest land is put to a non forest use, given in two stages.
- The Forest Rights Act, 2006 recognises individual and community rights of Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers in occupation of forest land before 13 December 2005.
- The Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the nodal ministry for the Forest Rights Act, while the other two sit with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
Who decides, and where consent comes from
Forest Rights Act compliance inside forest clearance
Identify
Potential forest rights claimants on the land to be diverted
Recognise
Their rights, where they apply
Vest
The recognised rights in the holders
Gram sabha consent
No objection certificate from each gram sabha concerned
Stage II
Final approval to divert the forest land
- The gram sabha is the authority that initiates the process of determining forest rights, and Community Forest Rights are recognised alongside individual title.
- The Act itself does not use the language of consent for diverting forest land.
- Guidelines under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 require a no objection certificate from each gram sabha concerned, and that is what is called gram sabha consent.
- Habitat rights under the Act are recognised for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups.
Bamboo: a grass in the law
From craft to enterprise
NECTAR
- North East Centre for Technology Application and Reach (NECTAR)
Engineered bamboo
- Bamboo fibres, strips or particles, bound and compressed
- Used in disaster relief structures
CSIR-NEERI, Nagpur
- CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI)
- Bamboo grown on reclaimed fly ash dumps
- Bamboo is botanically a grass, not a tree.
- In 2017 bamboo was removed from the definition of a tree under the Indian Forest Act, 1927, so bamboo grown on non forest land needs no permit to fell or transport.
- Bamboo standing in forest areas remains regulated.
- Under the Forest Rights Act bamboo is a minor forest produce, owned by the forest dwellers who collect it.
Trees outside the forest
- Felling on private and other non forest land is left to State law, which is where a State's tree protection Act does its work.
- The khejri (Prosopis cineraria) is a drought hardy leguminous tree of the Thar desert and the State tree of Rajasthan.
Two ways of paying for planting
Green India Mission
- Targets 1.4 million hectares of improved forest quality, and as much again in added cover
- Public money, meant to converge with CAMPA and the rural employment scheme
Green Credit Programme
- Notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 on 12 October 2023
- Run by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE)
- State forest departments register the degraded parcels restored
- A credit follows five years of restoration and a canopy density of at least 40 per cent
- Usable once, against compensatory afforestation, a statutory plantation requirement or a corporate social responsibility (CSR) obligation
- Forty per cent canopy is the line at which forest stops counting as open and counts as moderately dense.
- The plantation method under the Green Credit Rules was notified on 22 February 2024 and revised on 29 August 2025.
- Ecologists warn that planting trees on grassland is not restoration but the barren land fallacy.
What has happened
12 Sep 2026
A government backgrounder set out how bamboo has moved from craft to enterprise, and restated where it stands in forest law.
- Nothing in the law changed, and the release is the government's own account of where the 2017 change has led.
10 Sep 2026
The first regional review conference on implementation of the Forest Rights Act set out how far recognition has reached nationally.
- Over 54 lakh individual claims had been received and about 25.42 lakh titles distributed, over nearly 238 lakh acres, as on 30 June 2026.
- Over 10 lakh claims were still pending, and 19,845 community forest rights had been recognised.
6 Sep 2026
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs said on 31 August that the Act carries no provision for gram sabha consent to Stage II clearance, and that the matter falls outside its purview.
- A parliamentary committee report of 3 August had called consent from every gram sabha the most critical bottleneck in forest clearance, which took 106 months on average for hydropower projects.
- It suggested a qualified super majority of 70 to 75 per cent, citing Teesta-IV, where three of ten gram panchayats had not consented.
The Hindu, 6 Sep 2026: No provision in Forest Rights Act to obtain gram sabha consent for projects, Tribal Affairs Ministry says (opens in a new tab) · The Hindu, 7 Sep 2026: Why is MoTA distancing itself from Gram Sabha consent for forest clearance? | Explained (opens in a new tab)
24 Aug 2026
A government release restated the Green Credit Programme's rules in the form they take after the plantation method was revised in August 2025.
- The registry of restored parcels and the credits earned on them sits on a public dashboard.
PIB, 24 Aug 2026: Green Credit Programme rules (opens in a new tab)
16 Aug 2026
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audited the Green India Mission in 16 States and Union Territories from 2015-16 to 2024-25 and found it far behind its own targets.
- Forest quality improved over 0.11 million hectares, a 92 per cent shortfall.
- Forest cover rose over 0.03 million hectares, a 98 per cent shortfall.
- Weak convergence with CAMPA and the rural employment scheme, thin funding and poor monitoring are blamed.
The Hindu, 16 Aug 2026: CAG audit flags major gaps in Green India Mission implementation (opens in a new tab) · The Hindu, 24 Aug 2026: What is the barren land fallacy? (opens in a new tab)
14 Aug 2026
The Rajasthan Cabinet cleared a Trees (Protection) Bill giving special protection to 29 tree species, the khejri among them.
11 Aug 2026
The Supreme Court ordered time bound eviction of encroachments in the Agasthyamalai landscape of Tamil Nadu, acting on a Central Empowered Committee report.
- The landscape covers the Kalakad Mundanthurai and Srivilliputhur Megamalai tiger reserves and the Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary.
- Fresh diversion of forest land there is barred until the encroachments are cleared.
- Among the encroachers were 118 serving or retired government employees.
- Critics say the notices ignore the Forest Rights Act.