Context – Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N. expert body, states that not degrading existing ecosystems in the first place will do more to lower the impact of the climate crisis than restoring ecosystems that have been destroyed — a finding that speaks to an increasingly contested policy in India that has allowed forests in one part of the country to be cut down and ‘replaced’ with those elsewhere.
Background – To compensate the loss of forest area and to maintain the sustainability, the Government of India came up with a well-defined Act, known as CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority).
Key features of the CAMPA Act
- To compensate the loss of forest area and to maintain the sustainability, the Government of India came up with a well-defined Act, known as CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority).
- The law establishes the National Compensatory Afforestation Fund under the Public Account of India, and a State Compensatory Afforestation Fund under the Public Account of each state.
- These Funds will receive payments for: (i) compensatory afforestation, (ii) net present value of forest (NPV), and (iii) other project specific payments.
- The National Fund will receive 10% of these funds, and the State Funds will receive the remaining 90%.
- According to the Act’s provision, a company diverting forest land must provide alternative land to take up compensatory afforestation.
- For afforestation, the company should pay to plant new trees in the alternative land provided to the state.
| In 2002, the Supreme Court had observed that collected funds for afforestation were under-utilised by the states and it ordered for centrally pooling of funds under ad hoc Compensatory Afforestation Fund. The court had set up the ad hoc National Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) to manage the fund. In 2009, states had also set up state CAMPAs that received 10 per cent of funds from the national CAMPA to use for afforestation and forest conservation. |
NET PRESENT VALUE- ANALYSIS
Under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 (FCA), developers who use forest land for their projects are required to pay a one-time monetary valuation, called Net Present Value (NPV), to the government in lieu of cutting down forests.
It depends on factors such as the quality and type of forests. Since 2009, the government has been charging between Rs. 438,000 and Rs. 1.04 million as the NPV for diverting every hectare of forest.According to a 2008 Supreme Court order, the NPV was supposed to be revised by the Indian government in three years.
But it failed to do so despite recommendations from several committees.In January 2021, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) proposed to hike the NPV by 1.51 times which was based on the Wholesale Price Index (WPI).
However, while doing so, it set aside the recommendation of a four-time increase in the NPV by another expert group the ministry had constituted earlier in 2014.
Existing Issues
- Against Ecological principles – The act allows afforestation activities to be taken place in some other areas. New forests cannot replace the age old natural forests. For e.g. Creating single species plantations in, say, Haryana does not really come close to a natural sal forest lost to a development project in, say, Central Indian forests in terms of biodiversity, local livelihoods, hydrological services, and sequestered carbon,
- Methodology – Experts feel that the NPV is miscalculated and is undervalued as it does not take ecosystem services into account while calculating the value.
- Non revision – According to a 2008 Supreme Court order, the NPV was supposed to be revised by the Indian government in three years. But it failed to do so despite recommendations from several committees.
- Underutilization of funds – The FSI collected data on total money allocated by the central government to the state government and forest cover in India between 2009-10 and 2016-17Its analysis showed that funding by the central government increased at a rate of 84.67 per cent in the period, but the forest cover increased by only 2.42 per cent. So, increase in CAMPA funding by the central government has clearly not resulted in significant increase in forest cover.
- Misutilization of funds – Several state governments are not utilising it properly. An amount of Rs 86 lakh from CAMPA funds meant for afforestation was reportedly spent on litigation work in Punjab.
- Lack of focus on species specific plantation – At several places, the loss of natural species is compensated with plantation of non-native species in the name of the artificial plantation. It serves as a threat to even the existing ecosystem.
Way ahead?
The central government should adopt the concept of outcome budgeting for allocation of funds to the state government in which funding will be done on instalment basis by checking the outcome of previous funds. Then, state governments should restore the existing forests rather than creating new ones.
