How the forest conservation Bill in Lok Sabha trades forests for trees

The amendment bill also renames the parent legislation, the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, to Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam which translates to Forest (Conservation and Augmentation) Act. Besides being in Hindi, the new name is a reflection of a new focus on afforestation and reforestation activities with the objective of increasing India’s forest cover and fulfilling its international commitment of creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes by 2030.

The predominant idea of the proposed changes is to build forest carbon stock by raising plantations. The Bill also seeks to make land available for developers to meet their legal obligation towards compensatory afforestation in lieu of forest land diverted for development projects.

The Bill tries to achieve both these objectives by restricting the applicability of the FC Act, and by freeing up land that is currently locked up as unrecorded forests.

File records and field reality

Following Independence, vast swathes of forest land were designated as reserved and protected forests and brought under state forest departments. However, many forested areas were left out — and areas without any standing forests were included in ‘forest’ lands. The anomalies were supposed to be sorted out through extensive ground surveys — but the process remained incomplete.

In 1996, the Supreme Court suspended the felling of trees across the country, and ruled that the FC Act would apply to all land parcels that were either recorded as ‘forest’ or resembled the dictionary meaning of forest.

This sweeping order helped check rampant deforestation on land not recorded as ‘forest’, but it also came in the way of excluding from recorded forests vast areas that were already in use for agriculture or as homesteads.

The amendment Bill, instead of completing the demarcation process on the ground, seeks to limit the applicability of the FC Act only to land recorded as ‘forest’. This will have the effect of removing the protection of the Act from millions of hectares of land that have the characteristics of forests, but are not notified as such.

How much area will be affected? For an idea of the scale, consider the latest State of Forests Report (SFR 2021), which records India’s forest cover as 713,789 sq km. Of this, nearly 28% or 197,159 sq km — roughly the size of Gujarat — is not recorded as ‘forest’.

Projects and plantations

If the scope of the FC Act is restricted, fewer projects will be required to obtain forest clearance, which is considered a ‘hurdle’ by most developers in and outside the government. But it will also help developers secure forest clearance when they need it.

A key condition for forest clearance is that a developer must carry out compensatory afforestation on equivalent non-forest land or, if non-forest land is not available, on degraded forest land twice the extent of the forest area diverted. Since land is always at a premium, this works as an effective check on the demand for forest land.

But in June 2022, the government amended the Forest Conservation Rules to propose a mechanism to allow developers to raise plantations “over land on which the [FC] Act is not applicable”, and to swap such plots against subsequent requirements of compensatory afforestation. The proposed amendments are key to the working of this scheme.

“Once the FC Act is no longer applicable on a land, it can be used to raise plantations and compensate for an equivalent area of diverted forest land. This will incentivise building private land banks of plantations, and streamline the forest clearance process,” explained an expert who was consulted on the matter by the Environment Ministry.

Conservationists see this as a double whammy: losing unrecorded forests to plantations, which will subsequently help to divert recorded forests for projects.

Exemptions prove rule

In the recent past, a slew of executive orders has been issued to exempt certain types of projects in certain areas from obtaining clearance under the FC Act. The Bill proposes to expand these exemptions and make them part of the Act itself.

Between July 2014 and November 2017, the construction of defence roads within 100 km of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) was exempted from forest clearance. The Bill now seeks to exempt all strategic linear projects of “national importance and concerning national security” within 100 km of international borders, the LAC, and the Line of Control (LoC). India’s land boundaries extend over 15,000 km.

Between May 2011 and May 2013, critical public utilities not requiring more than 5 hectares each were exempted from the FC Act in 106 districts affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE). This is proposed to be extended to “construction of defence related project or a camp for paramilitary forces or public utility projects, as may be specified by the Central Government…in a Left Wing Extremism affected area as may be notified by the Central Government.”

Additionally, the amendments seek to exempt “security-related infrastructure” requiring up to 10 hectares, without defining its scope. To the list of activities related to conservation and therefore exempt from the FC Act, the Bill adds silvicultural operations, construction of zoos and wildlife safaris, eco-tourism facilities, and any other activities “the Central Government may, by order, specify”.

The proposed exemptions, sweeping in themselves, leave a lot to the Centre to decide retrospectively.

Protecting forests, people

Any review of the FC Act is an opportunity to make suitable concessions for land that has traditionally been under the control of indigenous and forest communities. Even after the enactment of the Forest Rights Act, of 2006, the scope for their consent has eroded incrementally when it came to the diversion of forest land for development projects. Now, they may have no say on the extensive plantations that are envisaged on land on which they depend as communities.

The Bill talks about keeping up with “dynamic changes in the ecological, strategic and economic aspirations of the country” and “improvement of livelihoods for forest-dependent communities.” But the scope of the amendments boils down to pushing plantations to achieve carbon neutrality by limiting the scope of the Act.

Indeed, compared to stable natural forests, fast-growing plantations score faster carbon growth. Conveniently, both count the same towards increasing the country’s green cover, since India does not discriminate between forests and plantations for the purpose.

But forests are a lot more than a sum of trees. Unlike man-made plantations, natural forests perform a range of ecosystem services that are key to the survival and well-being of the millions of species that they support and also provide direct livelihood and subsistence to crores of people.

The Bill’s focus on raising tradeable vertical repositories of carbon can jeopardise the very purpose of the Act, which is to protect and conserve India’s forests.