THE GOA STATE FOREST POLICY: 2009
By Averthanus L. D’Souza
By a Notification No. 2-1-2009/FOR dated March 24th. 2011, the
Government of Goa notified a “Goa State Forest Policy – 2009” and has
requested suggestions, if any, within the period of sixty days from the
publication of this Notification.
The state of Goa’s forests are a crucial component of Goa’s overall
development, and this move by the Government to formulate and finalize a
Forest Policy should be welcomed enthusiastically by all the citizens of
Goa. In fact, one would have liked to see as much enthusiasm for this
Policy as is evident for the Regional Plan 2021 of which it should be an
important component. Unfortunately this notification seems to have been
overshadowed by other, less important, preoccupations of the citizenry.
Overall remarks
A Policy document of any Government should not only be a pious statement
of intentions. It should indicate clear and definite objectives and
should spell out precisely how those objectives are to be achieved.
This document, unfortunately, does not meet this requirement. It is
more like a political manifesto which is very appealing, but which
everyone knows will soon be forgotten. A Policy document is a framework
within which the necessary laws will be put into place and which forms
the basis for the creation of an efficient and effective mechanism to
help achieve the policy objectives. The spelling out of the
institutional structure to make the policy effective is an integral part
of any policy document. This is missing in this Forest Policy of the
Goa Government.
It will be readily conceded that this is the very first time that the
Government of Goa has attempted to formulate a Forest Policy. The
document itself admits that the government has simply been attempting to
implement the National Forest Policy which was promulgated in 1894 by
the then British government. This policy was revised in 1952, and a
fresh National Forest Policy was formulated in 1988. The Goa Government
rightly asserts that Goa has specificities which are not adequately
addressed by the overall National Forest Policy of 1988. Hence the need
for a specific Forest Policy for the State of Goa. This is a very
laudable and welcome initiative of the Goa Government. What is also
very welcome is that the government has published the draft of the
Policy for public scrutiny, and has invited suggestions from the
citizens of Goa.
Specific general comments
It is obvious to any reasonable person that the two main threats to the
integrity of any forest are the so-called “timber lobby” which
surreptitiously fells trees to be sold as timber to many industries,
including the furniture industry, and the “mining lobby” which has
blatantly intruded into our forest areas in search of minerals to be
exported.
The Goa Forest Policy does not address this issue of the greatest
threats to our forests. There is only a cursory reference in the
section “Objectives” to “reclamation of abandoned mining areas and
afforestation of mine dumps/rejects. Again in Section 6.5.10 the
document refers to “Mineral prospecting/exploration or mining (fresh or
existing leases and/or their renewal) including extraction of minor
minerals shall be regulated as per the existing legal provisions. This
is simply too timid and unconvincing. Mining and preservation of forests
are totally incompatible. It is simply impossible to preserve forests
and permit mining in forest areas at the same time. It is necessary
that the Forest Policy of the Goa Government should strongly and
unambiguously assert that no mining (or prospecting) activities will be
permitted within the defined forest areas of the State. In order to
deter surreptitious prospecting for minerals, the Government should
clearly state that heavy penalties (including imprisonment) will be
imposed on those who attempt to prospect within forest areas.
Illegal mining in forest areas is a far more heinous offence than
poaching of wild animals. Wildlife can rejuvenate naturally, given the
proper approach to preservation; but the denudation of forests by mining
or by felling of trees is an irreversible disaster and has to be
discouraged at all costs.
Ecotourism should not be part of a Forest Policy
It is unfortunate that this draft of the Forest Policy has included an
entire section 6.4 to “Development of Ecotourism in Goa.” Experience
worldwide has shown that when humans intrude into wildlife habitations,
there is a one sided destruction of wildlife and irretrievable damage to
the natural habitat of wildlife. Even apart from tourism, when human
habitations encroach into the traditional habitats of forest animals,
there is conflict between humans and animals. Moreover, in the name of
“ecotourism” and using it as a cover, tourism promoters destroy forests
and put up buildings (tourist bungalows) to make it comfortable for the
tourists - no matter what damage this does to the natural inhabitants of
the forests. This needs to be actively discouraged – not promoted.
The Forest Policy of the Goa Government should not provide an excuse for
the further damage to our fast depleting forests and wildlife. Leave
it to the Tourism Department to promote tourism, but be adamant that it
does not attempt to intrude into forests in order to pander to the
tastes of insensitive tourists.
The entire section 6.4 “Development of Ecotourism in Goa” needs to be
removed from this policy document. The section is badly drafted and has
incomprehensible statements such as “Eco-tourism has tremendous
opportunities to meeting the market requirements within the framework of
sound eco-system management . . .” What does this mean? Again in
section 6.4.3 the draft speaks of “Community based ecotourism (sic)
involving the local people by imparting suitable training in
hospitality, bird watching, botanization (sic) and nature guides, etc.
should be promoted . . . .” Section 6.4.6 “The type and scale of
eco-tourism development should be compatible with the environment and
socio-cultural characteristics of the local community.” Once again, an
incomprehensible statement.
Protection of marine life ?
The drafting of this policy document should have remained within the
confines of a “forest policy”. This would have made it more focused and
more limited to the overall objective of preservation, conservation and
protection of forests. As part of 6.3 Conservation of Wildlife &
Bio-Diversity (sic) the draft drifts into areas which are completely
outside its competence and concern. One statement says: “All efforts to
be made to protect marine life ecosystem. Forest staff should be trained
for rescue and rehabilitation of marine lives like shark etc.” It is
preposterous to expect foresters to be adept in saving sharks etc. (sic)
Drafting anomalies
There are many other anomalies in the draft of the Forest Policy, but
these can be removed by subjecting the draft to scrutiny by people who
are more experienced in the use of the English language and who can
detect grammatical and syntactic errors and offer corrections. One such
anomaly is the section 6.2.9 which speaks of “Appropriate Urban forestry
models shall be designed and function as an effective interface with the
public by organising outreach programmes and publicity activities.”
The use of the expression “Urban forestry” is a contradiction in terms.
There is either a forest or an urban area. One cannot have an urban
forest.
Positive Feedback
It is very heartening to see that the draft of the Goa Forest Policy
recognizes the need to protect the rights of the traditional forest
dwellers and the Scheduled tribes. However, this is simply stated in
one sentence. The Forest Policy needs to elaborate on this important
feature of the Policy. There should be a full chapter devoted to how
this will be done, and the mechanisms which will be set up to achieve
this laudable objective.
It is also good to see that this draft takes cognizance of the fact
that there is some fallow land available in Goa, which can be brought
under tree cover. However, there is no indication of how much fallow
land is available or where it is located. The Forest Policy needs to
spell out in greater detail the means which will be adopted to convert
the fallow land into land which will yield fruit.
The preservation of mangroves is an important part of any Forest Policy,
and the present draft rightly devotes an entire section 6.6 to this.
However, this section of the draft can be re-written to make it more
positive and to indicate in greater detail how this is going to be achieved.
The identification, classification and categorization of medicinal
plants in Goa is a challenge which needs to be given special attention
in this Forest Policy. Section 6.7 needs to be elaborated and more
emphasis needs to be given in the Policy to ways and means of
identifying and classifying medicinal plants and systems which will be
set up to process and propagate such plants.
Concluding remarks
Given the fact that this is the very first time that the Government of
Goa is attempting to formulate a Forest Policy, and given the fact that
not enough information is available on the natural resources available
in Goa in forested areas, this is an opportune time to put in place an
effective organization which will research and analyse all the natural
resources which are available to the State of Goa. In fact, this should
be a priority of the Forest Policy and needs to be stated boldly up front.
The existence of Forest Service Officers at all levels needs to be
re-examined in the light of the new enterprise of formulating a State
Forest Policy. The Policy itself is an innovation. The structures
envisaged under this Policy should also be innovative. The existing
structures have probably become obsolete and will need to be changed
radically. Structures which were set up under the ancient National
Forest Policy of 1894 may be completely irrelevant to the challenges
faced by Goa in the twenty-first century. Therefore the new Forest
Policy needs to be formulated on a completely different paradigm.
The drafters of the new State Forest Policy should include specialists
in economics, ecology, sociology and forestry in addition to the
bureaucrats of the Department of Forests. The first draft is certainly
a very good attempt to formulate a relevant Policy, but it needs to be
critically improved by a fresh committee to be appointed by the Government.
In this important task, the Government should be assured that the
citizens are solidly behind it and that any contributions that they can
make will be in the larger interest of the State of Goa. The
formulation of a State Forest Policy should be devoid of the intrusion
of vested interests such as the mining lobby and the timber lobby. It
should also be ensured that the final Policy document leaves as few
loopholes as possible.
Averthanus L. D’Souza,
Dona Paula, Goa
[email protected]
