Commentary: Issue
02/2013: Friday: 2 August 2013
On 28 January, at a
meeting in Rangamati presided over by the Deputy Commissioner, it was decided
to expedite the process of acquiring 84,542.42 acres of land under 22 Mouzas in
Rangamati district for reserved forests. In fact, most of these lands have already
been declared ‘reserved forest’ under section 20 of the Forest Act. If the
process, which began in 1982, of acquiring the remaining lands is completed,
the entire lands of six Mouzas and most part of the other Mouzas will be
off-limits to the public, rendering hundreds of Jumia families
landless.
The lands already
acquired or to be acquired fall under the jurisdiction of three departments of
the government, namely, Department Relating to Unclassed State Forests,
Pulpwood Division and Jum Control Division.
Department Relating to
Unclassed State Forest
Of the 84,542.42 acres
of land that the government seeks to acquire in Rangamati district, 16,000
acres fall within the Department Relating to Unclassed State Forest. For the
acquisition of these lands, the government, on 4 January 1982, issued a
notification in the official Gazette under section 4 of the Forest Act 1927,
which represents the first stage in a long process of declaring an area a
reserve forest. It is not known how much of these lands have been acquired
already, but the meeting in Ramgamati decided to declare these lands as
‘reserved forests’ in phases rather than all at once, apparently to avoid the
cumbersome process.
Mouza-wise distribution of lands to be
acquired under Department Relating to Unclassed State Forests:
No.
|
Name of the Mouza
|
Amount of land to be
acquired
(in acre)
|
1.
|
Shukarchari Mouza No. 110
|
500
|
2.
|
Kudukchari Mouza No. 111
|
500
|
3.
|
Hazachari Mouza No. 70
|
3,000
|
4.
|
Ghilachari Mouza No. 69
|
3,000
|
5.
|
Chowdhury Chara Mouza No. 68
|
1,500
|
6.
|
Toichakma Mouza No. 75
|
3,500
|
7.
|
Kengelchari Mouza No. 79
|
4,000
|
Total:
|
16,000
|
Of these total lands,
1,391 acres are owned by individual proprietors and yet to be acquired.
Pulpwood Division
According to a memo of
the meeting mentioned above, a total of 23,748.92 acres of land under the
jurisdiction of Pulpwood Division Rangamati have been declared a reserve forest
under section 20 of the Forest Act. The government made this declaration in two
separate letters issued by Ministry of Forest and Environment on 18 June 1996
and 20 September 1998.
However, within these
lands are included 59.75 acres of personal property which have not been decided
upon yet. While the Revenue Department has been ordered to add the remaining
23,689.17 acres of land to the rent-roll in the name of the Pulpwood Division,
the meeting decided to go for the next step with regard to the lands (59.75
acres) owned by private individuals.
Jum Control Division
On 4 January 1992, the
government issued a notification under section 4 of the Forest Act for the
acquisition of a total of 36,182.54 acres of land in 15 Mouzas in Rangamati
district. Of these lands, which fall within the jurisdiction of the Jum Control
Division, Rangamati, at least 1,642.99 acres belong to private individuals
while another 6,329 acres were declared ‘reserved forests’ on 1 March 1999. As
for the remaining 28,210.55 acres, it was decided in the meeting that steps
should be taken to declare those lands free of encumbrances as reserve forests.
Mouza-wise distribution of lands acquired or
to be acquired under Jum Control Division:
No.
|
Mouza name
|
Amount of land
(in acre)
|
1.
|
Manikchari Mouza No. 108
|
1,000.00
|
2.
|
Sapchari Mouza No. 109
|
1,000.00
|
3.
|
Hemonto Mouza No. 123
|
1,000.00
|
4.
|
Bananta Mouza No. 28
|
1,000.00
|
5.
|
Phoolgazi Mouza No. 125
|
1,000.00
|
6.
|
Ghagra Mouza No. 99
|
2,000.00
|
7.
|
Khaskhali Mouza No. 95
|
10,920.00
|
8.
|
Betbunia Mouza No. 95A
|
|
9.
|
Atarokchara Mouza No. 27
|
2,000.00
|
10.
|
Longudu Mouza No. 3
|
1,000.00
|
11.
|
Ultachari Mouza No. 57
|
4,514.30
|
12.
|
Kudukchari Mouza No. 122
|
2,816.50
|
13.
|
Barudgola Mouza No. 130
|
1,463.50
|
14.
|
Bollalchara Mouza No. 131
|
5,467.50
|
15.
|
Kaindya Mouza No. 129
|
1,000.74
|
Total:
|
36,182.54
|
According to a
government document – a 27 July 2008 letter from the office of the Chief
Conservator of Forests to the secretary of the Ministry of Forest and
Environment, a total of 9,04,456.44 acres of land have been declared reserved
forests under section 20 of the Forest Act, while 70,575 acres are in the
process of being declared reserved under section 6 of the said Act.
District-wise breakdown of the figures: declared reserved forest under section
20: Rangamati: 5,73,270.21 acres, Khagrachari: 88,492.83 acres, Bandarban:
2,42,693.40 acres; under process of being declared reserved forest under
section 6: Rangamati: 41,401.88 acres, Khagrachari: 7,342.67, Bandarban:
21,830.80 acres.
Historical perspective
The expropriation of
common lands in the CHT has its origin in British colonial rule which
introduced the concept of private ownership of land and ‘claimed ownership of
all lands in the hills in 1868’ (The Politics of Nationalism by Amena
Mohsin, 1997). In 1865 the Indian Forest Reserve Act was passed and by
February 1871, nearly the entire CHT district viz., 5670 out of 6882 sq. miles,
was declared to be Government Reserve Forest. As a consequence of this policy
the areas available for jhum were reduced to one third of the formerly
available areas for jhum.’ (Ibid). By the end of the twentieth century, the
alienation of the Hill people from their sources of production i.e. land and
forest was total (Ibid).
After the independence
of Bangladesh, more reserve forests have been created, further depriving the
Jumma people of their common lands. The total land area of the CHT comprises
13,295 square kilometers or 32,85,266 acres. Of these, 19,22,000 acres are
covered by forest. If we deduct the reserve forests amounting to 9,04,456.44
acres and the protected forests comprising 19,220 acres (1% of the total forest
land), we have merely 9,98,323.56 acres or about 52% of the total forest area
available for jum cultivation. However, the government considers these lands as
‘Unclassed State Forest’ and wants to mutate them gradually into reserve
forests. The present 52 per cent USF has shrunk from 75% in 1976 (Cited
in “Land Rights of the Indigenous Peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh”
By Rajkumari Chandra Kalindi Roy.)
“Other forest”
The USF or the remaining
commons will shrink further once the Forest (Amendment) Act, 2012 is passed in
parliament. The proposed amendment provides for another category of forest
called “Other forest” in addition to the existing three types of forests,
namely, reserved forest, protected forest and unclassed state forest.
Section 34A of the
proposed Act says: ‘The Government may, by notification in the official
Gazette, declare the provisions of this Chapter, as far as it is applicable to
any waste-land or char land or forest plantation, which is not included in a
reserved forest or protected forest but which is the property of Government, or
over which the Government has proprietary right, or to the whole or any part of
the forest-produce to which the Government is entitled.’
Section 34B lists the
acts that are prohibited in ‘other forests’ and these include, among others,
felling, girdling, lopping or burning any tree or stripping off the bark or
leaves from, or causing damage to the same.
The proposed amendment
bill was placed before the parliament on 29 February 2013. The Speaker
forwarded it to the parliamentary standing committee on Forest and Environment
for necessary vetting, which in turn formed a 4-memebr sub-committee headed by
Advocate Soharab Ali Sana to work on the bill. In the face of strong protests
from environmental groups and indigenous peoples’ organizations, the bill is
now in a limbo.
Reclaiming the CHT
commons
Expropriation of the
common lands of the indigenous peoples / ethnic minorities is pervasive all
over the world. In an article titled ‘The tragic African commons: A century of
expropriation, suppression and subversion’, Okoth-Ogendo writes, ‘Denial of the
proprietary character of the commons was fundamental to the operation of
colonial occupation and subsequent exploitation of the African commons.’ The
same is also true for the Chittagong Hill Tracts, where appropriation of the
communal lands has brought misery, hardship and poverty to the Jumma people.
Land is vital for the
survival of any community. It is the life blood of a nation. Bereft of the
right to the commons, the indigenous peoples are like a fish out of water.
Therefore, for the survival of the Jumma people, restoration of the commons is
a must. The Government should immediately return the common lands to the Jumma
people, rather than acquire more. [End]
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