Promise and Performance: Ten Years of the Forest Rights Act in India.

This report seeks to highlight the potential of FRA, assess its achievements, identify the bottlenecks, and find the ways forward. Its objectives are to:

Make a quantitative estimate of forest land that has the potential to be recognized as CFR area, and compare it to the actual forest area recognized asCFRs across the country;

Assess the qualitative potential of FRA for gender equal development, poverty alleviation, climate change and biodiversity conservation;

Compile the progress of recognition of other major rights under FRA, such as IFR, CR and habitat rights;

Identify the major institutional and procedural bottlenecks in FRA implementation; and

Identify the ways forward.

The report is structured in three sections. Section I discusses the methodologies used for the study. Section II provides a quantitative assessment of the potential CFR area and the qualitative potential of FRA for development, poverty alleviation,climate change, and biodiversity conservation. It discusses the performance of FRA and carries out a promise and performance analysis for CFR rights. Section III discusses the major bottlenecks in meeting the potential of FRA and provides the ways forward