The Wildlife Protection Act & How It Is Used To Criminalise Forest Dwellers
The QuintViolation of Forest Rights Act: Moreover, if authorities criminalise fishing, they act in direct violation of the The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, 2006. Section 3 of the act says that it recognises: “community rights of uses or entitlements such as fish and other products of water bodies, grazing and traditional seasonal resource access of nomadic or pastoralist communities.” “Therefore, such cases under the WPA are illegal, except cases related to the species of fish mentioned in the schedules of WPA, as they criminalise already recognised rights of forest-dwelling communities,” the report explains. In Ajit’s case too, the case against him and his arrest was in contradiction with the 2006 act, because it says that it grants "the right of ownership, access to collect, use, and dispose of minor forest produce which has been traditionally collected within or outside village boundaries.”
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