The report presents the work undertaken by me during an internship with ATREE CFR team. During this internship, I assisted the team members with various tasks and activities being done by the team. Overall, I was involved in 3 major activities: CFRR Title Analysis, Media search on forest clearance cases in Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh, and helped with other operational activities in the team.

The major activity that I was involved in examined inconsistencies in the quality of Community Forest Resource Rights (CFRR) recognition in seven Districts of Chhattisgarh under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA). Although the State has made remarkable advances in issuing CFRR titles, geographical inconsistencies in area demarcations, compartment numbers, and customary use zones continue to weaken the enforcement of the authority of law. By employing a planned approach to closely analyze CFRR titles, utilizing spatial analysis through Web-GIS, our study points out some of the key kinds of errors that affect the authority and utility of CFRR in India. The errors in the CFRR titles we highlight include: incorrect recognition of CFR areas, including under-recognition and non-recognition of CFR areas, potential overlap (between Gram Sabhas) of CFR areas, and poor quality of title information maintained by the government.

I also conducted a media study of statutory violations and community-led challenges to forest diversion reported in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand. This uncovered bigger systematic issues and patterns of failing compensatory afforestation, bureaucratic lapses, and significant community resistance to unsustainable state intervention. I also supported operational support activities (data entry, formatting, presentation), which contributed to improving data quality and usability, and disseminating findings.

The internship strengthened skills in spatial data management, developing interpretations of policies, legal awareness, and science communication, and it emphasized the ways that tools can work together to inform forest governance. The report concludes with a reminder about the urgent need for procedural change, and better coordination between departments, participatory mapping, and clarifying Standard Operating Procedures around CFRR recognition, to create a more transparent, inclusive, forest rights recognition framework. The learning we have shared here will hopefully be useful in building towards community-led conservation, just and equitable environmental governance, and ultimately, strengthened implementation of the FRA in India.