The Aravalli verdict is stayed, but its signal for forest governance is unmistakable

When the Supreme Court accepted a new technical definition of the Aravalli hills, it did two things: Brought regulatory clarity and reminded us that ecological systems rarely fit administrative thresholds. The November 20 judgment recognised the Aravallis as a “green barrier” against desertification and linked their fate to water security and climate resilience, even as it tried to balance environmental safeguards with livelihoods tied to legal mining. Supplement it with the public memory of severe forest-fire seasons — such as the 2024 Uttarakhand fires tracked through satellite observations — and the signal was unmistakable: India’s forest governance must shift from slow, file-driven control to fast, evidence-driven district operations.

The Court has now stayed its November 20 order that adopted the 100-m definition and has kept both that ruling and the committee recommendations in abeyance pending review by a high-powered expert panel. But the urgency it signalled is not confined to courts or crisis imagery. Parliament’s scrutiny has sharpened, with Lok Sabha questions seeking hotspot-level detail on human-wildlife conflict and recording the Centre’s enhancement of ex gratia for death/permanent incapacitation from ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh — signalling rising expectations of swift, credible response at field level. In parallel, the Forest Rights Act (FRA) remains under renewed legal and political attention, with the Union publicly defending the law’s rights-and-livelihoods purpose, reinforcing that community legitimacy is not optional — it is foundational.

All this lands on the desk of the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) — still treated as a mid-level functionary, but increasingly functioning as the district’s most exposed crisis manager. The DFO is expected to protect biodiversity and carbon, regulate water and soil systems, reduce fire risk, manage human-wildlife conflict, facilitate community forest rights, respond to litigation, and still clear or condition projects that drive the district’s development tempo. Yet the operational foundation is crumbling: Vacancies in many states reach up to 50 per cent of sanctioned strengths that were calculated decades ago, without reassessment for today’s interface-heavy workload.

Financial and logistic resources, compared to police or administration departments, remain grossly inadequate, forcing the DFO to juggle funds without scheme or design, breeding inefficiency and vulnerability.

When response is delayed — whether after an elephant attack, a fire alert, or an encroachment complaint — the public reads it as apathy or corruption, even if the real issue is thin staffing, fragmented authority, and funding bottlenecks. Reputational contagion follows; allegations against any wing or staff member taint “the Forest Department” as a whole, eroding cooperation from communities and other departments precisely when cooperation is most needed.

This is where Burt’s Structural Holes theory and Granovetter’s Strength of Weak Ties become operational necessities, not academic footnotes. With internal resources scarce, the DFO’s dependence on external actors — panchayats, CSR, MNREGA, line departments, academia, NGOs— has grown exponentially. These are no longer “oppositional groups” to be managed but essential bridges to non-redundant information, funds, and legitimacy. Institutionalising weak ties with Gram Sabhas for FRA facilitation, with police for enforcement, with media for transparency, and with research institutions for ecosystem-service metrics turns network gaps into governance assets. Without such bridges, the DFO remains isolated and easily captured by any single resource gatekeeper.

The first reform is not a new law but a new operating model: Diversify resources to reduce vulnerability. A DFO can build a “convergence shelf” of small, repeatable works — fire lines, waterhole restoration, corridor-edge habitat improvements, CFR support assets, and HWC mitigation — and fund them through multiple legitimate channels. When water security and disaster risk reduction co-benefits are visible, other departments and PRIs become partially dependent on forest outcomes too.

Second, treat information as an enforcement-and-service pipeline, not a report. The MoEFCC’s national guidance on human-wildlife conflict emphasises hotspot identification, SOPs, rapid response teams, and coordinated action, but these are credible only if districts can show proof-of-work. The shift required is from paper compliance to geo-tagged evidence: Patrol trails, incident logs, closure notes, and weekly map-based reviews of hotspots for conflict, fire risk, and enforcement incidents. A simple discipline — such as a 48-hour verification rule for credible alerts, with geo-evidence attached — can change incentives for staff and complainants.

Third, accept that FRA has changed the grammar of governance. The Union’s defence in the Supreme Court underlines that FRA is not merely land regularisation; it aims to restore dignity and livelihoods and recognises community rights, including the Gram Sabha’s authority in key processes. DFOs therefore need institutionalised channels with Gram Sabhas and PRIs for facilitation — maps, data, and technical support — so CFR governance does not become a recurring flashpoint.

Finally, build reputational defence through radical clarity. If citizens judge the department as a single brand, it needs a public-facing accountability surface: Who is responsible for what, what was done this month, and what corrective action followed verified misconduct. Package this into templates — dashboards, HWC response logs, CFR facilitation checklists, and geo-evidence protocols — so performance survives transfers and becomes replicable.

If the Aravallis require a landscape-scale plan to balance mining, water security, biodiversity, and restoration, India’s districts require the same governance upgrade to balance conflict response, rights compliance, regeneration finance, and a bioeconomy that will increasingly look to nature for value. The question is not whether forests can serve both ecology and economy; it is whether district forest governance will modernise fast enough to manage that dual mandate without losing legitimacy in the process.

The writer is chief policy adviser, Climate Parliament and former director general of Forests, Government of India. Views are personal