“A careful reading of the CWH provisions in the FRA shows that it is open to both possibilities – people-wildlife coexistence as well as relocation – as long as they are arrived at through a rigorous and participatory process. It requires setting up a multi-disciplinary expert committee, including representatives from local communities. It also requires determining — using “scientific and objective criteria” and consultative processes — whether, and where in the PA, the exercise of forest rights will cause irreversible damage and threaten the existence of important wildlife species. It then requires determining whether coexistence is possible through a modified set of rights or management practices. Only if the multi-stakeholder expert committee agrees that co-existence or other reasonable options are not possible, should relocation be taken up, again
with informed consent of the concerned gram sabhas. And obviously, for any such process to commence, the Act requires that all forest rights under the FRA must first be recognised.”