A truly effective forest policy for India must be based on facilitating community-managed forests.
But the ‘Draft Forest Policy - 2018’, which is intended to replace the current “National Forest Policy (1988)” undermines this.
What is the current status of Forests?
The status of our forests is reported every two years in the State of Forest Reports (SFRs).
Since 1987, 15 such reports have been published, the latest being SFR 2017, published in February 2018.
SFRs have multiple sets of data on growing stocks (the sum total of volume of all trees in the forest), and the forest cover within the recorded forest areas.
All data are not available for all the years, but there is enough to enable a coherent analysis on the health of our forests.
SFR 2017 recorded India’s total forest cover as 0.71 million sq. Km, which is 21.54% of the country’s geographical area.
Out of this, dense forests (more than 40% canopy cover) are 0.41 million km2 and open forests (10-40% canopy cover) 0.3 million km2.
What are the trends in Forest since NFP-1988?
The Aim - NFP 1988 was enacted to “preserving the remaining natural forests” and for “increasing substantially the forest/tree cover in the country”.
It debarred the private sector from raising plantation on forestland and encouraged them to source raw materials directly from farmers.
It promoted substitution of wood with other materials.
It also envisioned ownership rights over trees for forest dependent weaker communities for bettering conservation efforts.
Spread - In 1989 (immediate aftermath of the NFP-1988), the total forest cover was recorded as 0.64 million km2, i.e., 19.47% of the geographical area.
While an area of 0.38 million km2 had dense forest cover and 0.26 million km2 was open forests in 1989, it has increased considerably from there.
Hence, India’s forest cover has increased by 68,139 km2 in the last 30 years, which is equal to 1.5 times the area of Haryana.
But, most of the increase (70%) has been in the category of open forests, which are largely degraded forests.
Since 2011, State of Forest Report (SFR) has also been counting forested areas outside the “Recorded Forest Areas (RFA)”, which are government protected.
Forests outside recorded areas (on private lands), marked about 36,000 Km2 increase (Contrastingly, recorded forests decreased by 19,800 Km2).
Quality - Growing stock is an indication of forest health, and there has been a general decline in “growing stock”, for decades now, implying degradation.
It has reduced from 4781.4 million cubic metre (m3) in 2002 to 4218.4 million m3 in 2015—a decline of 12% in a little over a decade.
This could be because of the diversion on more than 10,000 km2 of forests for mining, irrigation, power and other infrastructure projects.
Conclusion - The health of our forests has declined significantly.
Most of the increase in dense forests is just plantations on private land and changes in dense forest cover inside RFAs are insignificant.
The increase in total forest cover is also largely because of trees grown outside forests, mostly under social and farm forestry.
Recorded forests have experienced significant degradation in the last 30 years, which has caused significant losses to ecological diversity of the country.
Why did NFP-1988 fail?
Increasing tree cover outside RFAs and promoting agro-forestry is a positive step, but much needs to be done to realise the full utility of agro-forestry.
While the policy of substituting wood with plastic and metals have been successful, but the goal of preserving natural forests has failed miserably.
Vesting forest rights in forest-dependent communities is being resisted tooth and nail by the forest department, which is not in good vein.
Notably, “Forest Rights Act – 2006” took the matter out of the hands of the foresters, thereby enabling some form of community ownership.
It the NFP of 1988 didn’t fail, but its implementation did.
How does the current draft policy (NEP-2018) look?
We need a forest policy that recognises the role of forestry in climate change and the potential of people to grow, manage, and use forests sustainably.
Unfortunately, the draft NFP 2018 fails to do this, and has many controversial provisions like bringing private sector into forest management.
It also seeks to reassert control of the forest department over the forests by undermining the Forest Rights Act, which would be a regressive step.
All these give the indication that India hasn’t woken up from the colonial mindset in forest management (which seeks to isolate forest dwellers).
Significantly, many countries worldwide have become mere facilitators in forest governance by handing over control to their native forest dwellers.
Nevertheless, some good objectives like promoting agro-forestry and reversing the wood-substitution policy are also there in the draft policy.
