REPORT OF THE ONE-WEEK REFRESHER TRAINING COURSE FOR IFS OFFICERS ON BENEFIT SHARING FROM FOREST ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: LAW, POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION HELD FROM 23RD TO 27TH AUGUST, 2021

ABOUT THE TRAINING PROGRAMME
The Five-day Online Refresher Training Course was conducted with the main aim of equipping the officers of the Indian Forest Service with the understanding of laws, policies and their practical implications in the conservation of biodiversity and forest ecosystems. The Course was designed with the aim of delivering lectures and deliberating on case studies
which would lay emphasis on the legal and regulatory nuances of biodiversity conservation, with special focus on forest ecosystems. As such, emphasis was laid on the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, the Stated, 2002 and its Rules, the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 and other related legislations. Recent judicial orders and decisions would also be deliberated upon as a part of the discussion.

The design and scope of the programme was such that the participating officers would have ample scope to understand the legal dimensions of benefit sharing from forest ecosystems along with gaining insights from each other’s experience during the training sessions. The sessions aimed to bring to the fore multiple challenges – practical and regulatory – and possible solutions for the same. Resource persons from legal academia, law practitioners, activists, industry experts are chosen to deliver sessions, to make the effort interdisciplinary. Further, as the mode of discourse is mix of lecture and discussion method, the officers were given an opportunity to understand the challenges of benefit sharing and would have been able to appreciate the legal nuances if the subject matter.