On 29th December 2006, an Act of Parliament, a path-breaking legislation, has received the assent of the President of India that acknowledges the injustice meted out to India’s forest dwellers, particularly tribes. The act is “The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006” popularly known as Forest Right Act, 2006. In the preamble of the law it was claimed that the act recognised the customary and historical rights of scheduled and non-scheduled tribe communities, who have been residing in forests in India but whose rights couldn’t be recorded earlier and undo the “Historical Injustice” done to the tribes and forest dwellers since pre-independence. FRA recognised that jungle dwellers have equal rights in the forests to the flora and fauna and they are an important and integral part of forests. The provision that was enshrined in FRA recognised that forest inhabitants would be involved in sustainable development, conservation of biodiversity and maintenance of the ecological balance, as they have a vast habitual knowledge on this. In that way, not only the rights were given to customary forest dwellers for usage of forest resources but also for its management and governance.
