Department redefines non-ESAs, they are reserve forest

The department’s maps, which political parties and settlers in the high ranges consider outrageous, have underscored a legal point that will be hard to ignore: Areas marked as non-ESA in the maps prepared by the Oommen V. Oommen committee but falling within larger areas notified as reserve forest will be governed by the Forest Conservation Act, 1972. The maps have given rise to a new classification: ‘reserve forest non-ESA’ lands. In other words, any development activity in ‘reserve forest non-ESA’ lands will be subject to as stringent restrictions as in lands declared ESA.

The Forest Department’s late intervention has made the ESA and non-ESA differentiation complicated. While the Oommen V. Oommen Committee took out agricultural land, built-up land including towns and houses from areas declared as ESA by the High-Level Working Group headed by K. Kasturirangan, the Forest Department maps show all these areas as reserve forest. For instance, the Kasturirangan panel had taken out all of Karunapuram village in Idukki except 2.93 sq km from ESA status. But the department map has the entire 53.39 sq km of the village, including patches of Cardamam Hill Reserve, as ESA.

Former union minister Jairam Ramesh has backed the department move. “Cardamom plantations must be treated as forest areas,” he said, contradicting Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. The charge against the department is that its maps are old, dating before Kerala formation. However, department sources say that these areas include ecologically fragile land, encroachments and areas caught in legal disputes. “Encroachments prior to 1977 have been regularised. But encroachments had taken place after 1977. These, too, have been notified as reserve forests,” the official said.

Further, Kerala Private Forests Vesting and Assignment Act, 1971, which sought to convert private forests except agricultural lands within these into natural forests, had resulted in encroachments and legal disputes.