Revenue forests of the Western Ghats continue to be plundered by unscrupulous cultivators and an undecided government machinery, notes LAKSHMI SALGAME Elephants migrated along these fabled forests long before man made his appearance on Earth. Birds of every description flitted between lianas, creepers, ferns and tall trees in whose canopy, it is believed, tree squirrels could once have traveled over 1,000 km. without ever stepping down to the ground. Dense vegetation then formed an evergreen canopy to protect the fragile soils of this most diverse and magical belt. The long wall of tree-clothed slopes acted as a screen to capture the rain heavy southwest monsoon winds that blew in from the sea to water this 160,000 sq km Eden. Along the west coast of India - beginning from the Surat Dangs at the western extremity of the Satpuras in south Gujarat, for over 1,500 km. to the southern tip of India in Kerala - stretch the Western Ghats, a mountain range second only to the Himalayas in magnificence. The Ghats form the catchment area for the complex peninsular Indian river system that drains almost 40 per cent of India, the second largest tropical evergreen and semi-evergreen forest belt of the sub-continent. In this verdant treasure trove lies an area that has been prey to rampant encroachment. Located in Chikmaglur district, the forests of Koppa are part of the green corridor that links Kudremukh National Park and the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary. Interestingly, though the area is thickly wooded, the forests are on revenue/government lands; thus making the management of these forests a continuing tussle between these two government (revenue and forest) departments. When chaos prevails, encroachment takes over. As a result, over the last 10 years alone, we have lost over 27,500 Ha of pristine jungle to the encroachment malaise. However, in a landmark order, the DC, Chikmaglur on 5th June 2002 declared over 55,000 Ha as ‘forest reserves’ under section 71 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964. The Government of Karnataka lost no time in issuing a stay on his order. The future of forests like these hangs in uncertainty with successive governments interested in merely politicizing the issue as against progressive action to solve the issue. The dispute concerning revenue forests is not new nor restricted to any particular area. Across the districts of Coorg, Hassan, Shimoga, Chikmaglur and Uttara Kannada, revenue forests face a grave threat from encroachment. Historically, all lands in the country were apparently revenue lands marked out for various purposes like community lands, sacred groves, C & D lands (unfit for cultivation) fallow lands etc. And some lands, which had visible green cover, were demarcated to be ‘reserve forests’. Over the years successive notifications from the Department of Forests has helped conserve this area as sanctuaries, national parks etc., while some remain ‘reserve forests’ awaiting notification. But here lies a category of forests - ‘revenue forests’ (i.e. forest on government land), which are officially not declared forest area, though containing evergreen vegetation. Encroachment can be classified into two types - encroachment on forestlands, and encroachment of ‘revenue forests’. The law protects the former better, seeing how it is the primary responsibility of the forest department. Efficient and timely follow-ups by the countable few efficient officers have seen rise in the number of cases booked against encroachment under Section 24 and section 33 of the Karnataka Forest Act and other relevant sections of the Forest Conservation Act. The encroachment takes place gradually till the planter then approaches the local staff of the revenue department (mainly village accountants and revenue inspectors) fills their pockets and begins by paying the Tatkar Takt (TT) which is a minimal fine collected for encroaching a small piece of land. This is the first step towards regularizing encroachment. The planter automatically claims his cultivation to be over 10 years old and eviction is out of question and thus continues to pay TT for several years. Crores of land revenue is thus lost with TT hardly making up for tax not collected. Sometimes the encroachment is upto hundred of acres. The government does have an encroachment policy in place, which says, a maximum area of three acres of land (including the private land) can be regularized to enable the sustenance of the aggrieved family. This policy was originally put in place to benefit the small farmer. In such cases, the encroacher pays the TT and later on with time, gets the land records transferred to his/her name. One wonders how the same policy could be used to regularize hundreds of acres of encroached area under (coffee, tea, cardamom, etc) cultivation owned by influential planters. In the 1960s and 70s, governments did try and respond to the crisis they foresaw by transferring large stretches of land to the control of forest department, which is the first step towards converting the forests into notified forests. Over the years, it was planned to transfer all the revenue forests to the forest department for efficient administration of the same. Several divisions in the forest department were created merely for the management of these forests. Though the thinking was novel, action did not follow. Government orders have seen these forests changing hands every few years, thus making land records in the area an utter mess. Orders ‘remained’; once transferred to the forest department (like in some cases) successive mutation of the transferred lands in revenue records failed to follow. RTCs were tampered, ownership swapped a couple of times (between the forest and revenue department), and till date people continue to expand their estates/property further into the forests as the law takes ages to touch them. Initiation of Darkhast files by revenue department in un-mutated forestlands has caused abatement of large-scale encroachments. As experts point out, tackling encroachment does not need any additional legislation. What it needs is able use of existing laws. The Karnataka Land Revenue Act for example has a novel provision (Section 71) where the Deputy Commissioner of the particular area has the powers to demark areas as ‘forest reserves’ and initiate transfer of revenue forests to the forest department. However, successive DCs have chosen to ignore this provision bowing to other pressures (both political and apolitical). The Supreme Court passed a landmark order in 1996, which demystified the jurisdiction of these forests. It categorizes any land, irrespective of the ownership, which has good tree growth, as ‘forest’. The order clarifies that any area that looks/appears as a ‘forest’, going by the dictionary meaning of forests, is to be governed by the Forest Conservation Act 1980. This virtually means all revenue lands consisting of forests across the Western Ghats can be rightfully declared ‘forest reserves’ or even directly notified as ‘reserve forests’ by the Forest Department. What the Ghats now urgently need is political will and a committed administrative machinery to protect it. One wonders who is to bell the cat? ÿ