Indian Forest Act 1927 and Forest Conservation Act, 1980

Sanjay Gandhi National Park sits inside Mumbai’s city limits, and the land around it is pressed from every side by slums, roads and builders. Whether a patch of green near Borivali can be cleared for a project depends on two old statutes. One, from the British period, decides what kind of forest it is and what people may do there. The other, from 1980, says that the State cannot simply give forest land away without the Centre’s approval. Why did India need a second law fifty years after the first, and how do the two fit together?

In two minutes

The Indian Forest Act 1927 lets the State Government classify forest land (reserved, village, protected) and punishes forest offences, while the Forest Conservation Act 1980, now the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, stops State Governments from de-reserving forest or diverting forest land to non-forest use without the Centre’s prior approval.

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