Events & Issues

New Delhi, 27 June 2011

Environmental Clearance

LET’S FIRST DEFINE FOREST

By Suraj Saraf

Land acquisition protests continue to hit the headlines, be it in Uttar Pradesh, Orissa or elsewhere. This, despite the State Governments’ waving the requisite environment and forest clearances in hand. Obviously, there is something drastically wrong in our handling the issues involved. For one, the Centre has as yet no legal definition of what constitutes a forest!

According to the UN Environment Programme, developing forestry has immense driving prospects for employment, But sorry, how can India benefit from it when still it has no definition of what a forest is. Worse, 80 per cent of fuel wood needs in the country are illegally met from forests.

As per its statistics, the UNEP states: Investing an additional $40 billion annually in the forestry sector can halve deforestation rate by 2030, increase rates of tree planting by about 140 per cent by 2050 and catalyze creation of millions of new jobs.

Backed by the right kind of enabling policies, such an investment, equivalent to about two-thirds more than what is spent on the sector at present could also remove an extra 28 per cent carbon from the atmosphere, thus playing a key role in combating climate change, says the UN report Forests in a Green Economy: A synthesis.

It underlines that natural capital such as forests can represent up to 90 per cent of the GDP of rural poor India, among a dozen countries taking the global findings of the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity into national assessment which in turn could translate the value of nature and its services into national accounts. Carefully planned, investment would also contribute to increased employment from 25 million now to 30 million by 2050.  

Present at the release function of the report, Union Minister for Forests and Environment Jairam Ramesh noted: “We must leverage forward looking policies that conserve and improve the quality of our forests, while generating employment and socio-economic returns for local communities.” In fact, the Government has launched a Green India Plan wherein $10 billion would be spent to improve the quality of forests and increase the green cover by involving the local communities, civil society and elected representatives. In the entire process, the forest department is meant to play only a technical role. Hopefully, the Green India plan could increase forest-based incomes for three million households.

At the same time, Jairam brought into focus the “misuse” of subsidies, and sought that financial support should be targeted towards subsidizing cooking gas for 1,72,000 villages that depend on forest wood for cooking. This would not only empower women but also prevent degradation of forests and check carbon emission. Regrettably, we are giving subsidy on kerosene instead, which is being used to run diesel generator sets for mobile towers. He was of the firm opinion that sometimes hard though unpopular decisions have to be taken.  

Ironically, while on the one hand Ramesh is talking of such grandiose plans for forests, on the other India as of now shockingly has no legal definition of what constitutes a forest. The Ministry admits that work is on to come up with an ecologically sound and socially desirable definition of forest and forestry. “We are still working on the definition of forests,” is a quote from Joint Secretary, Mission Green India, Brij Mohan Singh. There is, however, no word on what was delaying the process.

As per Ministry documents, the Indian Forest Act, 1972, does not define forest and the legal extent of forests depends on the process of notifications. As of now, what is being followed is based on a Supreme Court order which defines forest as given in the dictionary or by experts. “The term forest does not have any definition in India. It is defined on the basis of the 1996 Supreme Court order which says anything should be a forest if it meets one of the two definitions either the dictionary definition or land recorded as forest in any government record”, reveals the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, of an NGO working for forest dwellers.

Clearly, this is vague and allows major scope for abuse of power by the authorities. Worse, it gives space to the Government to misuse draconian powers at its convenience and mark an area as forest or non-forest, depending on political affiliations.  In fact, the Ministry documents that recent concerns about climate change also require greater clarity regarding definition of forests for the purpose of understanding opportunities and obligations under the global carbon sequestrating regime.

Importantly in the above context, it is critical that there is need to examine the definition of forest in the Indian context keeping in view the international commitments and different orders of the Apex court of the country. A couple of years back, the Government had asked the NGOs to suggest some definition of forest but had sadly rejected all the suggestions which came its way.

At the end of all this, we are in an odd situation. It is better to have a satellite imagery, fix a bar on the dimension of a forest and then calculate land under forest and non-forest area in the country, according to Yogesh Gokhle, fellow with the forestry and biodiversity division of the Energy Research Institute.

Strangely, even without a definition, the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change had approved Green India Mission to fight climate change. The Mission, one of the eight under the National Action Plan on Climate Change, projects an ambitious target of 10 million hectare of forest cover by 2020 at a cost of Rs.160 billion ($10 billion). Additionally, the country has been the global to the United Nations World Environment Day on June 5.

Given the above background, it is ironical that 80 per cent of the fuel wood market in India is sourced illegally. The statistics may vary, but an international study suggests that every year the country uses 100 million to 200 million tonnes of fuel wood to keep the rural household fires’ burning. This business is worth $10.64 billion. But FAO sources estimate this to be around $60 billion. It is time for the Ministry of Environment and Forests to get its act together. Define forests before it is too late. ---INFA

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