forest

Two immediate challenges exist. Many consider the Compensatory Afforestation money as “blood money”, as its very existence is tied down to the diversion of original forests. This leads to the question whether the proliferation of this fund should be privileged at all, and if forest diversion needs an inherent pause. At a less ideological level, the question remains: do we have land available for planting new forests?

However, the science of biodiversity debunks the idea that complex forest systems can be recreated easily. Ecological restoration plays a key role in it, as does time. Secondly, several States have said that they do not have land banks for planting new forests. For this reason, parts of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) funds have been used in the past for purchasing forest department vehicles or repairing buildings. Further, compensatory afforestation has been undertaken on the flanks of railway lines, highways, and so on, raising trees with poor survival rates but certainly not creating biodiverse forests.

“The science of biodiversity debunks the idea that complex forest systems can be created easily.”

Rather than creating new and artificial forests, existing forest land should be restored and bought by the forest department using the CAMPA funds. This is controversial, of course. Decisions have to be made on ecological (rather than political) merit and with safeguards. Such consolidation could include areas like forest corridors (a tenuous link between two tiger reserves) and eco-sensitive areas (a riparian or estuarine system).



In its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDCs), announced last month ahead of the 21st Climate Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) made a commitment to create an additional forest cover to hold 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 by 2030 (pg 29). This is to be achieved through existing programmes and schemes such as the National Afforestation Programme (NAP), Joint Forest Management (JFM), the Green India Mission (GIM) and compensatory afforestation (CA).

The first is the history of afforestation programmes and their indifferent outcomes. India has had numerous centrally sponsored plantation programmes as the NAP or international grants for social forestry and joint forest management — large-scale projects, implemented by the State Forest Departments. The INDCs propose to rely on this “plantation drive” mechanism without a review of its earlier outcomes.Several reports, even from the government, have questioned its efficacy. The Thirty-Sixth Report of the Lok Sabha Secretariat Committee on Estimates (Fifteenth Lok Sabha) on ‘National Afforestation Programme’ in February 2014 observed that the outcome of the NAP, launched in 2002, had been negative. Though a total of Rs. 3044 crore had been spent since the launch of the programme with a target area of 1.94 million ha, at the end of 2011, the total area under forest cover had declined by 367 sq km.

The second relates to the selective projection of a future for India’s forests in the INDC document, isolated from the other sectoral growth targets such as those under ‘clean’ energy through nuclear, ‘clean’ coal and hydro power projects. While growth in these sectors may be considered crucial for an aspirational economy, the commitments to expand these sectors do not acknowledge their footprint on forest areas. Almost all such energy projects would require the diversion of forest land under the Forest (Conservation) Act. Though this has been a legal requirement since 1980, forest diversion is not accounted for in the growth projections made by other sectors.

An article on how not to tackle corruption talks of amendment in PC act -- how can bribe givers be charged of abetting corruption when they are only being forced to pay bribe. Either differentiation should be done on collusive and coercive bribery or a strong grievance redressal method be set up.

Again the single directive in Vineet Narain case has brought amendments in PC act now the investigating agencies need permission of lokpal and lokayukta instead of the gvt. The writer says how can the investigating agencies know who is criminal without investigating before hand. Gvt says that it needs to protect the decision makers and therefore the clause. But lokpal would ensure atleast no gvt interference in such investigations.