Citizens’ and environmental groups on Monday appealed to Rajya Sabha MPs to reject two bills on forest conservation and biological diversity passed by the Lok Sabha last week but decried by opponents as detrimental to forests and diversity.

The groups, iterating concerns articulated earlier by the bill’s opponents, said the amendments to the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) and the Biological Diversity Act (BDA) dilute provisions to curb forest loss, infringe on the rights of forest-dwelling communities, and accelerate the loss of biodiversity.

The amendments are “huge and unprecedented steps which will effectively destroy five decades of environmental jurisprudence the country has built with enormous struggle, pain and foresight”, the Environmental Support Group (ESG) and other signatories have said in an open letter to Rajya Sabha MPs.

The FCA bill will ease forest diversion for extractive development, commercialise, commodify and privatise forests, community rights and control over forests, while the BDA bill will decriminalise biodiversity offences and remove certain existing controls on access to the country’s bioresources, the groups have said.

“If the BDA amendments become law, Indian companies will be exempt from provisions that require permissions from local biodiversity management panels and state biodiversity boards before accessing bioresources,” said Leo Saldanha, a coordinator with the ESG.

“This will mean domestic corporations will have virtually unfettered access to our bioresources that include herbs and spices.

“We fear this will lead to overexploitation and a loss of diversity.”

The FCA bill will exempt strategic projects on national security within 100km of
India’s international borders, 0.10 hectares of forest land providing connectivity to
establishments along roads and railways, 10 hectares for security-related infrastructure, and up to 5 hectares in Left-wing extremism affected districts for public utility projects from the purview of the Act. It will also encourage plantations on non-forest land.

The Union environment ministry has claimed the amendments will enhance the productivity of forests, raise plantations outside forests, strengthen regulatory mechanisms, and cater to the livelihood aspirations of local communities.

But opponents, including environmental groups and former central civil servants, have challenged these claims.

A group of 105 former central civil servants had on July 12 in a similar open letter addressed to the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs said the FCA amendment bill “is replete with flaws and is totally misleading”.

They had said passing the bill in its present form “will nullify the very Act it seeks to amend and will prove to be the last nail in the coffin for the existing forest resources of the country”.

The amendments will “cause widespread displacement and dislocation of nature-dependent communities, contribute to a massive erosion of natural resource dependent livelihoods”, and offer India’s forests and biodiversity “for unfettered growth of private profit,” the ESG and other groups also wrote in their letter.

The other signatories
include representatives of the Nature Conservation Foundation, the National Alliance of People’s Movements,
the Indian Confederation of Indigenous and Tribal People of North East Zone, the Biodiversity Collaborative, and
the Centre for Environment and Social Justice, among
others.

The Lok Sabha passed the BDA bill on July 25 and the FCA bill on July 26.

“We’re hoping that the Rajya Sabha MPs will understand the implications of the two bills and reject them,” said Nidhi Hanji, a lawyer and
research associate with the ESG.

The letter has appealed to the MPs to “put national interest before party and step up to protect and conserve India’s astounding biodiversity, forests, and such other natural resources and associated rights … This will require you to refuse assent to both these bills”.