Forest Rights Act 2006 and the Question of Traditional Knowledge: A Legal Framework for Forest Management in India

In recent years, the problem of resource depletion and mismanagement of natural resources compelled governments, international organisations, environmentalists, policymakers and civil society groups to develop a sustainable and inclusive strategy of natural resource management as the existing one appeared to be largely unsustainable, resource-intensive, exclusive and discriminatory. It is also believed that the aim of sustainable development appears difficult to be achieved without reforming the existing natural resource management structure. This is probably why the Indian government announced the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in 2006—formally known as the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006—to offer a democratic, sustainable, inclusive and collaborative model of forest management. This chapter seeks to critically analyse the FRA and its subsequent amendment brought in 2012, to explore to what extent the customary and cultural practices as well as the values and beliefs systems based traditional knowledge of tribal communities living in India find articulation in the exiting forest legal structure. The study adopts the environmental justice perspective as its analytical framework to examine this problematique. The FRA unlike its predecessors is the first such act that acknowledges the significance of traditional knowledge in developing a sustainable model of forest management. However, much has still to be done to promote the patterns of traditional knowledge in the context of natural resource management. This study also demonstrates how the recognition and incorporation of traditional knowledge (pertaining to the forest management, conservation and regeneration) in forest laws and policies can equip the Indian state to ensure environmental justice to its indigenous communities by promoting three essential environmental justice principles (local participation, social justice and sustainable development).