Compensatory Afforestation and Forest Governance

What is the issue?

• There were protests against the decision to fell more than 16,000 full-grown trees in Delhi recently. Click here to know more
• This has brought attention to the issue of compensatory afforestation and the availability of land for it.  

What are the larger concerns?

• In forested and tribal-dominated states large tracts of forests are being diverted for infrastructure projects.
• This was however on the condition that afforestation will compensate for forest loss.
• The user agencies will in turn pay money.
• However, “polluters pay” model may not resolve environment- and land-related concerns.
• Compensation - Forest Conservation Act, 1980 and Indian jurisprudence led to the Compensatory Afforestation (CA) concept.
• In 1999, it was proposed that the “area” of forest lost be compensated by afforesting an “equal area” on non-forest land.
• If non-forest land was not available, then degraded forest land that was “double the area of forests lost” had to be afforested.
• Eventually, a price tag was put on forests and its loss was deemed to be compensated financially.
• Implementation - Earlier the state forest departments were made responsible for afforestation.
• But despite money being deposited by the user agency, CA was not taking place on the ground.
• This led to the setting up of the Compensatory Afforestation Planning and Management Authority (CAMPA).
• The money deposited thus came under the purview of the Centre.
• CAMPA at national and state levels managed these funds.
• A CAG audit report found that 11 out of India’s 30 states could not use more than 50% of the funds released to them by the centre.
• The report also added that it was difficult to procure land for compensatory afforestation.
• This is because the state forest departments lacked planning and implementation capacity.
• The situation is more worrisome for states with high tribal populations.
• Principle - Later, in 2016, the Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) Act was enacted.
• The whole principle reduced a “forest” to a “commodity which acquires certain area on the ground”.
• The whole focus has shifted to spending money.
• The ecology, biodiversity and ecosystem services of the forests lost relevance.
• Data indicate that ecologically unviable but commercially popular species like Eucalyptus are promoted.
• The need of the hour is to improve forest clearance processes, approvals and basic issues of forest governance.

Source: Business Standard