Growing forests 

Growing forests 

Context

A scientific national plan to expand good green cover is absolutely essential

Author’s contention

Author states that the disclosure in Parliament that the Centre is not ready with the rules to implement the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 demonstrates that the government’s resolve to meet a variety of environmental objectives, including major commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals, remains woefully weak

Is Compensatory Afforestation Fund enough or even a sound remedy?

Evidence is not heartwarming.

• The evidence on compensatory afforestation in a big project such as the Sardar Sarovar Dam, for instance, is not encouraging. About 13,000 hectares were compensated there, but only with patchy outcomes: healthy monoculture plantations having low biodiversity value came up in some places, while others resulted in unhealthy plantations with few trees

Diversion is inevitable

Diversion of forests for non-forest use seems inevitable to some degree, and the accumulation of about ₹40,000 crore in compensatory funds clearly points to significant annexation of important habitats. The task is to make an assessment of suitable lands, preferably contiguous with protected areas that can be turned over for management to a joint apparatus consisting of forest department staff and scientific experts

Commitments under Paris agreement

Putting in place a scientific national plan to expand good green cover is essential, since the sequestration of carbon through sustainably managed forests is a key component of the commitment made under the Paris Agreement

• There is already a Green India Mission, which is distinct from the framework envisaged for compensatory afforestation

What is Green India mission?

The National Mission for Green India (GIM) is one of the eight Missions outlined under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). It aims at protecting; restoring and enhancing India’s diminishing forest cover and responding to climate change by a combination of adaptation and mitigation measures

• It envisages a holistic view of greening and focuses on multiple ecosystem services, especially, biodiversity, water, biomass, preserving mangroves, wetlands, critical habitats etc. along with carbon sequestration as a co-benefit
• This mission has adopted an integrated cross-sectoral approach as it will be implemented on both public as well as private lands with a key role of the local communities in planning, decision making, implementation and monitoring.

Mission Goals

• To increase forest/tree cover to the extent of 5 million hectares (mha) and improve quality of forest/tree cover on another 5 Mha of forest/non-forest lands
• To improve/enhance eco-system services like carbon sequestration and storage (in forests and other ecosystems), hydrological services and biodiversity; along with provisioning services like fuel, fodder, and timber and non-timber forest produces (NTFPs); and
• To increase forest based livelihood income of about 3 million households

Independent audit

What the Centre needs to do is to enable independent audit of all connected programmes, in order to sensibly deploy the financial resources now available

Immense potential

It must be emphasized, however, that replacing a natural forest with a plantation does not really serve the cause of nature, wildlife, or the forest-dwelling communities who depend on it, because of the sheer loss of biodiversity. Yet, there is immense potential to augment the services of forests through a careful choice of plants and trees under the afforestation programme. All this can make a beginning only with the actualization of the law passed in 2016

Method of calculating net worth is not perfect

It is worth pointing out that the method used to calculate the net present value of forests, taking into account all ecosystem services they provide, is far from perfect, as many scientists point out

Conclusion

Some of the momentum for compensatory afforestation has come from judicial directives, but now that there is a new law in place, it should be given a foundation of rules that rest on scientific credibility