By IANS,
New Delhi : Facing the wrath of environmentalists, the central government Monday withdrew its new guidelines for declaring lands as critical wildlife habitats and relocating people from such areas. New guidelines would be put in place soon.
The environment ministry’s decision came after the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council said that rights of forest dwellers should not be diluted in any way.
“Members of some civil society organisations made representations to the ministry about some technical, scientific, social and ecological issues that related to the process of identification and notification of the critical wildlife habitats and relocation of people from such areas,” said a statement issued by the ministry here.
“Taking note of their concerns, the ministry has decided to withdraw the guidelines issued on Feb 7, 2011, and has initiated the process for having new guidelines in place,” it said.
The ministry organised a meeting of civil society groups March 4 after they sought fine tuning of the guidelines to make it compliant with the provisions of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, 2006.
The biggest concern against the guidelines was lack of a democratic process to determine the critical habitats which, once identified, will give powers to the government to relocate people from there.
The environmental groups also claimed that the new guidelines contradicted the recommendations of a joint committee of environment and tribal affairs ministries.
According to environmental groups, the guidelines aimed at doing away with the consultation process before notifying a critically wildlife habitat. There was no clarity on the process for identification of areas for declaring them as critical wildlife habitats under the guidelines.