Other Traditional Forest Dwellers
Also called: OTFD, OTFDs · Topic: Special Provisions, Scheduled and Tribal Areas · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) are forest people who are not forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes but still depend on the forest to live. They are one of the two groups protected by the Forest Rights Act 2006. To qualify, a person or community must have lived mainly in the forest for at least three generations (counted as 75 years) before the cut-off date of 13 December 2005. They must also depend on the forest for genuine livelihood needs, meaning what they need to support themselves and their families. The Act treats this as making up for a "historical injustice", because these families lived on forest land for generations without any legal rights to it.
Example
Take a non-tribal family that has grazed cattle and gathered minor forest produce (non-timber items such as bamboo or tendu leaves) in the same forest village for 80 years. It can claim rights as an OTFD. The claim goes through the gram sabha, which is the assembly of all the village's adult voters. A plantation owner who has grown a commercial crop in a reserve forest for decades does not qualify. The test looks at who the person is and how they depend on the forest, not at how old the crop is.
Don't confuse with
- Forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes: they do not need to prove 75 years of residence. They only need to live mainly in the forest and depend on it.
- Commercial cultivators and plantation owners: they farm forest land as a business, so the Forest Rights Act does not protect them, even if they have been there a long time.