Context: India as part of its international climate change commitments has promised to increase its forest and tree cover by 2030.

Background

• India has promised to increase its forest and tree cover to absorb an additional 2.5 – 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030.

• However, the forestry target is difficult to achieve due to the need for rapid industrial, infrastructure development, and urbanisation.

Progress of India’s commitment

• Improvement in emissions intensity and the deployment of renewable energy.

• In the last 10 years, more than 1,611 square km of forest land has been cleared for infrastructure or industrial projects.

• Nearly 529 sq km of them has been cleared in the last three years only.

• Total forest cover had increased by 1,540 square km between 2019 and 2021.

• Caused by: tree plantation, afforestation and reforestation programmes.

• Government programmes: the Green India Mission, national afforestation programme, and the tree plantation exercises along the highways and railways.

• Programmes with afforestation components: the national rural employment guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) and Namami Gange.

What is Compensatory Afforestation programme?

• Launched in 2016, to extend India’s forest cover and ensure that forest lands used for non-forest purposes is mandatorily accompanied by afforestation on at least an equal area of land.

• Launched under the Forest Conservation Act 1980, which made it mandatory for project developers to seek ‘clearance’ of the Environment Ministry for diversion of forest land.

• Supreme Court has institutionalised it during the Godavarman case in the 1990s and 2000s.

• It made a legal requirement through the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act of 2016 to ensure that newer parcels of land are used to be developed as forests.

• Project developers, public or private, are required to fund the entire afforestation activity on these new lands.

• Newly afforested land cannot immediately deliver the goods and services like: timber, bamboo, fuelwood, carbon sequestration, soil conservation, water recharge, and seed dispersal.

• They were provided by the diverted forests.

• Project developers has to pay for the Net Present Value (NPV) of the forests being cleared, based on a calculation decided by an expert committee.

• NPV rates ranges between Rs 9.5 lakh and Rs 16 lakh per hectare that depends on the quality of forests getting diverted.

• All this money must be spent to increase or improve the quality of forest cover in the country, or on similar works.

• The money is parked in special funds created for this purpose at the Central and state levels.

• The money is first deposited in the Central fund, from where it gets disbursed to states where the projects are located.

• The Central fund can keep up to 10% of the total money to spend in administrative expenses.

• The rest has to be sent to the states according to their share.

• The clearing of forests for one or the other purpose cannot be entirely eliminated.

• Thus, it is a good mechanism to make up for forest losses to some extent.

• State governments have to prepare an annual plan of operations for afforestation work through this money.

• The annual plan of operations (APOs) contains details of money to be spent during a financial year for specific works related to afforestation.

• After approval from the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) at the Central level, the state government transfers the amounts to the state forest departments.

• State forest departments then carry out the work.

Drawbacks of Compensatory Afforestation programme

• It had legitimised clearing of forests, and are an example of ‘greenwashing’.

• APOs by the state governments are not fully utilised or misutilised or diverted.

• Lack of availability of suitable land as the land that is made available for afforestation cannot be used for any other purpose.

• Such lands have poor quality of land and are extremely unsuitable to grow plantations. 

• Many times, the land that are made available are rarely contiguous.

• Thus, even if good plantations were grown, they are incomparable to the diverted forests.

• Many times, plantations are monocultures, and the key element of any forest is biodiversity which is grossly missing.