India, Oct. 31 -- After many years of stonewalling, the Madhya Pradesh (MP) government seems to have seriously taken up the issue of recognising Community Forest Resource Rights (CFRR) under the Forest Rights Act (FRA). The publication of the FRA manual and a list of potential villages in April 2025, the training of all district-level committees in May, the creation of a pool of state-level master trainers and the recent circular aiming to reach 10 per cent recognition by December together suggest a degree of seriousness and urgency regarding community rights that has been missing for the previous 15 years.

No doubt, in the complicated and contested arena of forests in India, any initiative to radically change the contours of governance ...