Through history, forests for humans have been sites of shelter, food, livelihoods, protection, and strength of spirit. According to the new India State of Forest Report 2023, 25% of India’s land is covered by forests or trees, on its face a healthy figure and a step closer to the National Forest Policy’s prescriptions. But big numbers always hide problems. Post-Independence, India’s forest governance has been typified by attempts to break free from European colonialists’ insular view of forests as sources of timber, codified in laws the country inherited. Two significant achievements in this regard were the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 and the Forest (Rights) Act 2006. The counteracting forces of industrial development and the pressures of climate change on the state have however troubled the implementation of both Acts and the government has, sadly, chosen the easy way out.
Courts and conservationists have demanded that the state follow the dictionary definition of forests whereas the administration has been muddying it to exclude “community” forests, among others, while including plantations and orchards. Even if the administration’s impetus is murky, it is allowing India to claim it is growing its carbon sink towards its climate commitments while allowing developmental activities to continue unimpeded. Thus, the 25% figure hides forest cover loss in the biodiverse Western Ghats, the Nilgiris and the northeast, the shrinking of mangroves in the Kutch and the Andamans, and of ‘moderately dense’ forests and the ongoing endangerment of open natural ecosystems. The report also lacks details about whether its estimates of the carbon sequestration potential of degraded land account for the specific uses to which they are currently being subjected. Forest loss in biodiverse areas cannot be adjusted with new plantations elsewhere, the consequences of which are exacerbated by the decision to include even commercial plantations, which have lower sequestration and ecological value, and the continued use of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act. Indeed, the growing gap between theoretical and actual forests also extends to finances. In several northern districts, the extent of forest cover that suffered fire losses has increased by an order of magnitude in two years. Ground reports by The Hindu have documented a paucity of human resources, skill, and equipment to control fires. Economic growth is essential and trees will be lost, but this is precisely why the friction that laws impose on the growth impulse is essential too. Yet, the government has been weakening environmental safeguards — more recently, the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023 further contracted the 1980 Act’s purview — and distorting its official inventory of forests. It is hard to imagine anyone winning in the end.
Published – December 24, 2024 12:10 am IST
