The Karnataka Government notified 3.3 lakh hectares as deemed forest. The notification states that the total land includes 2.21 lakh hectares of deemed forest land identified by the Reconstituted Expert Committee-No.1 and 1.08 lakh hectares of land, which was not included by the expert committee but meets the local requirements for calling it as forest.
- As per the notification, highest of 52,900 hectares of deemed forest is in Chikkamagaluru district,
Related information
- The earlier expert committee had identified 9.94 lakh hectares as deemed forest land. As these lands included farm lands and revenue lands, the expert committee was reconstituted to have a fresh look on deemed forest.
- Now it has been decided to retain 3.30 lakh hectares of deemed forest. The remaining 6 lakh hectares will be declassified and given to revenue department.
About Deemed Forest
- The concept of deemed forests has not been clearly defined in any law including the Forest Conservation Act of 1980.
- In 1996, the Supreme Court in the case of T N Godavarman Thirumalpad (1996) issued an interim order banning all non-forestry activities in the forest area without central government approval.
- The word forest must be understood according to its dictionary meaning and any area in the government records irrespective of its ownership will be regarded as a forest, the court had said.
- An expert committee constituted by the Karnataka government after the Supreme Court order identified ‘deemed forests’ as “land having the characteristic of forests irrespective of the ownership’.
The committee identified following lands as deemed forest:
- Thickly wooded areas of the Revenue Department not handed over to the Forest Department;
- Thickly wooded areas recommended to be handed over to the Forest Department;
- Thickly wooded land distributed to grantees but not cultivated; and
- Thickly wooded plantations of the Forest Department could all be ‘deemed forests’,
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