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Inversion of Custodianship: How Rights-Based Forest Governance Undermines Conservation under Weak Institutions in India

Identification

Clé publique

doi:10.66005/bi.e202641002

Auteurs

Hari Shanker Gupta

Année déclarée

2026

Langue déclarée

en

Type source

article

Première détection

2026-11-09T19:11:32.566289+00:00

Dernière observation des métadonnées

2026-11-09T19:11:32.566289+00:00

Dernière vérification HTTP

Non effectuée

Institutions déclarées par la source

Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education · Institute of Forest Productivity

Résumé documentaire — langue originale

The Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006 was conceived as a dual-mandate statute: to remedy historical injustice through the recognition of forest rights, and to secure long-term ecological stewardship of India’s forest commons. By linking tenure security with custodial obligations under Sections 3 and 5, the Act sought to transform forest dwellers into collective custodians. Yet growing evidence indicates a widening gap between statutory intent and ecological outcomes. This paper develops the concept of custodianship inversion to explain how rights-based forest governance, when implemented without procedural integrity, can systematically undermine both conservation and justice. Using Giridih district in Jharkhand as a critical case, the study combines field-based legal and procedural audits of Individual Forest Rights (IFRs) with satellitebased canopy analysis (MODIS VCF, 2005–2021). The analysis reveals pervasive bypassing of Gram Sabha verification, absence of GPS-based demarcation, and complete non-enforcement of custodial duties under Section 5. These failures are associated with systematic forest fragmentation and localized canopy loss of 8.7–13.6 per cent within 50–150 m buffers around IFR clusters. These micro-level findings align with recent national-scale evidence from Chhattisgarh (Agarwal et al., 2026), which shows that Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA)—India’s strongest village-level rights regime—does not improve forest outcomes, while political regimes associated with greater bureaucratic capacity exhibit significantly higher canopy gains. Together, the results demonstrate that rights-based forest governance, when operationally weak, functions primarily as a justice institution rather than a conservation institution, rendering ecological stewardship institutionally untenable.

Identifiants

OPENALEX

W7220426424

DOI

10.66005/bi.e202641002

Repères documentaires

Famille documentaire

Doctrine

Types déclarés par les sources

article

Juridictions étudiées — sources explicites

IN

Entités naturelles mentionnées

Forêt

Les mentions d’entités ne constituent pas une preuve de reconnaissance juridique. La juridiction étudiée est distincte du pays d’affiliation des auteurs.

Sources

OpenAlex · Document 1 · Document 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.66005/bi.e202641002
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7220426424

Relations bibliographiques documentées

Références et liens déclarés par les sources ; ils ne constituent pas une preuve juridique ni une qualification UGLC. Affichage limité à 20 références sortantes.

• openalex:w1970639832 · CITES
• openalex:w3143466377 · CITES
• The Forest Rights Act: A perfect recipe for the Doom of India's public forests? · CITES

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