Understanding the history of Dehing-Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary from a Legal Perspective

The Seed, a Nature's Beckon Blog / By / August 18, 2020

Akash Kumar,

The year 2020 witnessed the sudden rise in popularity of Dehing-Patkai, the remote rainforests of Assam. This happened due to a campaign which plagued the news and social media outlets. The campaigners claimed that the Dehing-Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary was in peril due to a new lease of coal-mining which had been sanctioned by the NBWL (National Board of Wildlife), Government of India. Nature’s Beckon, the organisation which initially discovered and revealed the Dehing Patkai rainforests to the world, promised that they will not let such a thing happen within the 500 km2 of rainforest area which included the 111.19km2 area of the Wildlife Sanctuary. So, after the organisation had carried out its inspection, Nature’s Beckon announced, to the utter surprise of people, that no coal-mining was going on in the wildlife sanctuary and the adjoining area. This statement was met with the hue and cry of the general public, who were ignorant of the actual facts. The organisation was accused of being corrupt and accepting bribes from the government. But, in reality the claims of the organisation were correct and made perfect sense. How so? The answer lies in this article.

Dehing Patkai is a Wildlife Sanctuary which is located in the districts of Tinsukia and Dibrugarh in Upper-Assam. It is also known as the ‘Amazon of the East’. It encompasses an area of 111.19 km2. It was declared Wildlife Sanctuary in the year 2004 after a 10-year long struggle known as the “Rainforest Conservation Movement of Assam”. Hitherto, people didn’t even know that there were rainforests in Assam, let alone rich with flora and fauna. Although only 111.19 km2 of rainforest was declared Wildlife Sanctuary in 2004; the actual rainforest stretches across an area of more than 500 km2, which includes three contiguous patches of rainforests called Joypur, Upper-Dihing and Dirok which are home to numerous wildlife species.

Recently, the Dehing Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary has been in the news for various reasons apart from the one mentioned in the beginning. The Assam CM, Sarbananda Sonowal has announced that the Wildlife Sanctuary will now be upgraded into a National Park. This decision was welcomed by the conservationists and the nature activists. But there is one single demand which has been gaining traction, i.e., “to extend the Wildlife Sanctuary to include the entire 500 km2 of virgin rainforests”. As per the nature activists, although upgradation to a National Park is a benign step, it is indispensable to extend the area of the Wildlife Sanctuary because that is the only way in which the wildlife can be protected under the existing law i.e., the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Let us try to understand this demand through a legal perspective.

Reserved Forests are ‘not really’ protected

Before the 1990s, these rainforests of Upper-Assam were unprotected patches of Reserved Forests. The term ‘reserved forest’ is an administrative term which was coined in the British era. This term is quite misleading because it gives us the false suggestion that these forests are protected areas. This is not so. The degree of protection given to Reserved Forests is not enough. They are vulnerable to exploitation and if there isn’t any vigilance, a reserve forest will perish eventually.

The Britishers enacted the Forest Act in 1878. To them, reserved forests were seen as something of commercial value. They wanted to exploit the natural resources of forests for commercial gain. The Indian Forest Act, 1927 didn’t make things right. If we take a close look on provisions of the Indian Forest Act of 1927, then we’ll realize that this law made it legally possible for the extensive cutting down of trees. Also, there was an intention of making profit out of the timbre gathered from such deforestation.

Under section 27 of the Indian Forest Act, the state government had the power to declare forests no longer reserved. Some restrictions were laid down on this rule by Section 2 of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. But still there are ways in which a reserved forest can be exploited through various loopholes present in the law.

Currently, the indigenous people of Assam don’t have any right over these forest areas. The Forest Department can lease the soil, woods, sand and other resources of the forest to entrepreneurs and can even permit open-digging on forest lands and so on. In a way, the reserved forests are treated as ‘estates’ of the forest department. Thus, we observe that even after independence, the money-minded attitude has shamelessly continued.

One of the most unfortunate misconceptions regarding this issue is that the term ‘Reserved Forest’ in Assamese translates to ‘Sangrakshita’ which literally means ‘protected’. But in reality, we must understand that ‘reserve’ means ‘reserved for revenue’. The general mass doesn’t understand this and therefore are being misled. Legal education can play a role in making sure that the forests of our land are not exploited.

Elephant Reserves are not protected areas

Before we go any further, let us very quickly understand the history of these rainforests of Assam. In the 1990s, an activist group called Nature’s Beckon led by a veteran environmentalist and Ashoka fellow, Soumyadeep Datta discovered contiguous stretches of rainforests in the Dibrugarh and Tinsukia Districts of Assam. They led the “Rainforest Conservation Movement” in order to make sure that these 500 km2 of rainforests were declared as Wildlife Sanctuary.

However, the state government in the year 2003, declared 937 km2 of land, which included the proposed 500 km2 patch of rainforest into an ‘Elephant Reserve’ under the Project Elephant of 1992. This decision of the state government was met with huge backlash by Nature’s Beckon because an Elephant reserve has no status of protection under law. There is no legal sanctity of protection given to Elephant Reserves in the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. The Act only mentions protected areas, wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. So, we can infer that this move of the state-government was meant to mislead people into thinking that the rainforests will now be protected under the status of elephant reserve. In reality, it is legally allowed to construct human settlements, do mining activities, do deforestation and so on in elephant reserves.

Hence, after a huge uproar, the state government finally declared only 111.19 km2 of the proposed 500 km2 of rainforests as Wildlife Sanctuary on 13th of June, 2004. A question arises: Why the whole rainforest wasn’t declared as Wildlife sanctuary? The then Assam government gave no explanation for leaving out the 388.81 km2 of rainforests from being included under the status of Wildlife Sanctuary. The answer to this question has remained a mystery for the last 16 years.

False Propaganda of Coal-Mining in the Wildlife Sanctuary

A few months ago, the news of alleged coal-mining in Dehing-Patkai was trending in the media as mentioned in the beginning of this article. Nature’s Beckon clarified that the coal-mining was happening in Saleki, which is included in the Dehing Patkai Elephant Reserve and is actually quite far away from the Wildlife Sanctuary. As we’ve discussed earlier, it is legal to do coal-mining and other such activities inside an Elephant Reserve. Moreover, mining has been happening in Saleki for over 200 years since the British era. So, there is not much point in stopping coal-mining in Saleki. Moreover, stopping coal-mining will cause great distress to the workers and labourers working in the coal mines as they would lose their jobs. So, the whole coal-mining news was proven to be just a false propaganda.

However, this event created much publicity for the Dehing-Patkai WLS. Most people were oblivious of the fact that there was a rainforest in Assam known as “Amazon of the East”.

Soumyadeep Datta and Nature’s Beckon has been trying to gain this momentum brought about by the media attention on Dehing-Patkai to expand the area of the Wildlife Sanctuary to the 500 km2 proposed all those years ago. They call this the “2nd Phase of Rainforest Conservation Movement of Assam.”

Protected spaces under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972

India is among the few countries of the world which mentions the importance of environment protection in its Constitution (Article 51A (g)) and has legislations for the protection of nature and wildlife. One such legislation is the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 (‘WPA’ in short). It has provisions which guarantee absolute protection to the species mentioned in the Schedule-I and Part-2 of Schedule-II of the said Act.

In this article we’ll briefly touch upon the Chapter IV of WPA which is titled, “Protected Areas”. There are specifically two types of protected areas under this act. They are – Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks.

Sanctuaries protect the forests from human exploitation and hence protects the wildlife living in the area. Let us discuss the various ways in which protection is granted in the WPA taking Dehing Patkai WLS as an example:-

  • Restriction on entry in the Sanctuary: The rainforests of Assam are rich with natural resources. This is eye-candy for people who want to exploit the forests, i.e., the coal and timbre mafia. However, entry into a wildlife sanctuary is restricted as per section 27 of the WPA. This makes sure that anyone with ill-intent can’t enter the rainforests.
  • Grant of Permit: Section 28 of the act mentions that on application to the Chief Wild Life Warden, entry permission is granted in case if someone wants to conduct scientific research, tourism, photography, study, etc. Dehing-Patkai is rich with natural beauty and harbours animals and birds which are extremely rare. An example can be the Hoolock Gibbon (India’s only ape species) which is listed in the Schedule-I of the Act.
  • Destruction, etc. is prohibited in the sanctuary without a permit: This clause (mentioned in section 29 of WPA) is self-explanatory. The permit is granted by the Chief Wild Life Warden only if doing such an act of destruction is actually benefical for the sanctuary.
  • Causing fire is prohibited: No one can kindle any fire within the area of the sanctuary(section 30 of WPA).
  • Prohibition of entry into the sanctuary with a weapon: As per section 31, no one is allowed to enter the sanctuary with a weapon. This prevents hunting and poaching which is quite prevalent in Assam despite the protection of sanctuaries and national parks.
  • Ban on the use of injurious substances: As per section 32, no one is allowed to use chemicals, explosives etc. inside the sanctuary.
  • Control of Sanctuaries: As per section 33, the Chief Wild Life Warden controls, manages and maintains the sanctuary. An example can be the construction of watchtowers for monitoring various areas of the sanctuary.

Now let us proceed to National Parks as mentioned in the WPA, 1972 and understand how they are different from Wildlife Sanctuaries. Well, in the case of National Parks, the protection measures are escalated and much more stringent. Human activity is not allowed at all, there are high restrictions and no random person is allowed.

Unlike reserved forests, once a forest has been declared a Wildlife Sanctuary or National Park, there is simply no way in which anyone can take away that title from the forest. It is a one way street.

As we discussed in the beginning of this article that the Assam CM, Sarbananda Sonowal, intends to upgrade the Dehing-Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary into a National Park. There is no harm in this.

However, the crux of the matter is that even though this move by the Assam CM is much welcomed, it won’t achieve much. This is because “area expansion” is the key here.  Either you can expand the Wildlife Sanctuary to include the whole proposed 500 km2 or, you can bring the whole 500 km2 under the ambit of a National Park. Just converting the existing Wildlife Sanctuary into a National Park won’t achieve much. Especially when the area excluded from the protected status is described as a “Reserved (for revenue) Forest” or an “Elephant Reserve”.

Conclusion

These days, whoever talks about nature and wildlife conservation is regarded as a tree-hugger who is anti-development. Our country which was once regarded as the country of rivers, dense jungles, forests, etc. is on the brink of losing it all in the forseeable future.

Some things in nature are not meant to be interfered with at all. The Wildlife Protection Act with its provisions on ‘Protected Areas’ has played a huge role in stopping such interferences from public and private enterprises alike. In 1972, when this law came into being, there were only a handful of Sanctuaries and National Parks in the country. Currently, there are 101 National Parks and 553 Wildlife Sanctuaries in India. By no means is the WPA perfect, neither is any other law in the world. For example, there is no provision in it for the assistance provided by the fringe communities in the protection of wildlife and environment. Because the communitites living in and around the forests play a huge role in its conservation. But at the moment, the WPA, 1972 is the only legal protection shield we have in rescuing our forests.

Law has a crucial role to play in protecting our forests. We must understand that law is made when ‘the thought of the people’ is reflected in the policy. We can take the aforementioned example of there being a provision in WPA for assistance by fringe communities. Also, there should be a law as per which any forest which has endangered species having a population below a certain number, say 5000, should be declared as Wildlife Sanctuary. This will allow us to approach the courts for the protection of wildlife. Also, judiciary will be able to play an active role in the conservation of wildlife. For such ideas to reach fruition as a form of legislation, people have to be educated so that they elect representatives who are willing to enact such laws. Education, which includes legal education, has a huge role to play in this regard.

When people are ignorant of the fact that they are being fooled by legal wordplay such as ‘Reserved Forests’ or ‘Elephant reserves’, then it becomes much more easy for profit-oriented people to exploit our forests. Once people are taught that they are being misled and there are fundamental misconceptions in their understanding, they are willing to take action.

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