Context

The Union environment ministry called for expressions of interest from consultancies to prepare a draft comprehensive amendment to the Indian Forest Act 1927.

Background

• There has been a history of Protection of Nature by classifying the areas as protected areas in different countries.
• This has given rise to the question of viability of notion of separation of human and nature which is not possible as an isolated concept.
• Currently 15.4% of land and 7.6% of oceans are under the Protected Areas regime through 257,889 designated PAs as on February 2021.
• The Fortress conservation is one of the ideas of conservation of forest and nature from the impacts of human.
• It is traced through the establishment of Yosemite National Park in 1864 for ‘public use, resort and recreation’.
• It was carved out of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains by waging a war against the indigenous people, the Ah-wah-ne-chee, and forcing them out.
• The Concept of Protected Area (PA) was given rise to support the fortress conservation.
• The first such Protected Area (PA) in the world, the Yellowstone National Park, was set up in 1872, as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.
• The first legal conservation framework is the US Wilderness Act of 1964 that recognised the value of preserving the area where the earth and its community of life are undistrubed.