We are back with another edition packed with insightful stories, investigative reports and updates!
Earlier this month, our Climate Change Research Lead Mrinali K wrote about the intensely-debated issue of adaptation for Frontline Magazine. Drawing from her coverage of COP28 in Dubai last December, she explains the history behind climate adaptation, which means making adjustments to existing systems to deal with the adverse effects of climate change. Despite being recognized as a significant pillar of climate action since 1992, the importance of adaptation efforts have been diminished by rich countries in recent climate talks. Read how developing countries are fighting back for the adaptation targets in Mrinali’s piece.
Closer home, India’s Just Transition framework to shift away from fossil fuels to clean energy, was pioneered by Jharkhand in 2022. However, our Writing Fellow Sukriti Vats’s report for IndiaSpend reveals that the state has opened more coal mines, without shutting down the old ones. The question of giving land back to communities to undo historic wrongs, remains unanswered as the exhausted coal mines have not been returned even to the state. Read the full report to know more about the concerns surrounding the Jharkhand government's pursuit of clean energy.
And our contributor Rayan Naqash does a deep dive into the aftermath of the repealed Roshni Act in Jammu & Kashmir, which had regularised the occupation of state lands by landless people. He highlights how the evictions disproportionately affect Muslim families and small landholders, as opposed to wealthy and influential beneficiaries of the Roshni Act, fueling concerns of discrimination and human rights violations. Rayan’s report for Himal SouthAsian analyses recent demolitions in the last two years, revealing the uncertainty and fear among locals facing potential dispossession, with limited legal recourse against the administration's actions.
We currently have 758 ongoing conflicts documented in the LCW database. Last month, our team of researchers added nine new conflicts and four updates in old conflicts listed below:
By Priyansha Chouhan
On February 19, the Supreme Court held that forests falling within the ‘broad and all encompassing’ dictionary definition, should be identified and notified by the state governments. Additionally, the central government was directed to publish the identified forests by April 15. This ruling has a huge impact because it protects the unrecorded and deemed forests, which were exposed to diversion because of the amendment to Forest Conservation Act, 1980. Experts fear that the amendment restricted the ambit of the Forest Conservation Act only to the forests explicitly recognised by the states.
This order also attempts to restore the ‘dictionary definition’ of forests as given in the landmark judgment of T.N. Godavarman. In this case, the Apex court had also directed setting up of the State Expert Committees (SECs) to identify forests by following this ‘definition’. But the status and progress of these SEC reports remains unknown to this day.
This ruling was given in the case which challenged the constitutional validity of the Forest Conservation Amendment Act, 2023, which came into force on December 1, 2023.
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Editors,
Nayla Khwaja, Communication Officer