India’s disputed compensatory afforestation policy at odds with new IPCC report

India’s disputed compensatory afforestation policy at odds with new IPCC report

Subject : Environment

Section: Ecosystem

Context: The Synthesis Report has found that the climate-mitigating potential of natural ecosystems is second only to solar power.

More on the News:

• 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.
• The finding originates in the Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N. expert body that determines the global scientific consensus on the consequences of climate change.
• It is extremely significant that the preservation of natural ecosystems is being recognised as an important means to mitigate climate change. Sequestered carbon recovers fastest under fast-growing plantations, but even then, it will take many decades before it approaches the level of carbon sequestered in a natural forest.
• In addition to livelihood impacts, biodiversity impacts, and hydrological impacts, the climate impacts of such development projects also cannot adequately be ‘compensated’ by compensatory afforestation.
• IPCC report also found that the sole option (among those evaluated) with more mitigating potential than “reducing conversion of natural ecosystems” was solar power and that the third-highest was wind power.
• IPCC report also noted that “reducing conversion of natural ecosystems” could be more expensive than wind power, yet still less expensive than “ecosystem restoration, afforestation, [and] restoration”, for every GtCO2e.

CAMPA Funds:

• Whenever forest land is diverted for non-forest purposes, it is mandatory under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 that an equivalent area of non-forest land has to be taken up for compensatory afforestation.
• In addition to this, funds for raising the forest are also to be imposed on whom so ever is undertaking the diversion. The land chosen for afforestation, if viable, must be in close proximity of reserved or protected forest for ease of management by forest department.
• In 2002, the Supreme Court (SC) ordered that a Compensatory Afforestation Fundhad to be created in which all the contributions towards compensatory afforestation and net present value of land had to be deposited. 
• In April 2004, Ministry of Environment and Forests constituted Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA)to overlook and manage the Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) as directed by the SC. The authority was termed as the ‘custodian’ of the fund.
• Further in 2009, the government ordered that State CAMPAs had to be set upto boost compensatory afforestation at state level and also manage Green India Fund.
• Despite all these efforts, CAG report in 2013 revealed that the CAMPA funds remained unutilised. The report stated that between 2006 and 2012, CAF with ad hoc CAMPA grew from ₹ 1,200 crores to ₹ 23,607 crores.

Statutory backing

• Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 came into force from 2018. The Act established a National Compensatory Afforestation Fundunder the Public Account of India and State Compensatory Afforestation Fund under the Public Account of each state.
• The payments made for compensatory afforestation, net present value and others related to the project will be deposited in the fund.
• The State Funds will receive 90% of the payments while National Fund will receive remaining 10%. These funds will be regulated by State and National CAMPA.
• The Ministry also stressed that the fund had to be used for important needs such as Compensatory Afforestation, Catchment Area Treatment, Wildlife Management, Assisted Natural Regeneration, Forest Fire Prevention and Control Operations, Soil and Moisture Conservation Works in the forest, Improvement of Wildlife Habitat, Management of Biological Diversity and Biological Resources, Research in Forestry and Monitoring of CAMPA works and others.