Government must take a relook at its forest policy

Just a week before the international day of forests on March 21 our environment ministry put out a draft national forest policy for public comments. A ten-page document with four parts covering a wide range of topics, it has no authors or any information regarding how it was put together.

Not many may recall this document’s predecessor. In 2015, the Indian Institute for Forest Management (IIFM) set up a series of consultations to put together a forest policy. Several meetings later, a draft was publicised for comments much like this one. However within five days the draft was pulled down and it was never to be seen again. The environment ministry issued an official clarification that the document uploaded was not the draft policy.  On reading both documents, it is difficult to tell if this new draft is a revision of the earlier one or is based on a very different process. The contents reveal that this new draft policy radically changes the purpose and methods of forest protection as our generation has known it. 

Missing pieces

A comparison of the IIFM draft and the new one shows that both documents refer to various threats to forests such as encroachments, illegal felling and pollution. While the IIFM draft emphasizes an “ecosystem approach” for forest preservation and reversing the trend of forest degradation, this forest policy is focused on raising plantations as a rehabilitation measure. It seeks to alter degraded or damaged areas through afforestation and reforestation. It makes several references to encouraging targeted afforestation programs, use of scientific inputs and genetically improved planting materials. 

Another big difference between the IIFM consultative draft and this version is the shift away from community empowerment. In the IIFM draft, all the suggestions made for forest protection such as landscape level plans, community based monitoring mechanisms and social audits are centered on the Gram Sabha (village assembly) as the legitimate unit of decision-making. In contrast, this new draft takes us back to the 1990s by speaking of community participation in forest management. 

The absence of both these terms “ecosystem” and “community empowerment” means a loss of three decades of work done on forest governance by ecologists and human rights activists.

A clear purpose

There are several statements made in the new policy that may make it seem like it is trying to do too much. However, its main focus is a single set of statistics of our economy: the growing demand for wood in the country. 
In 2011, the Forest Survey of India estimated that the annual consumption of wood in house construction, furniture and agricultural implements is 33.61 million cum. Nearly 50 per cent of this comes from imports as per Down to Earth (March 10, 2017). A 2017 report of the Centre for Science and Environment says that imports could nearly double by 2030. 

Domestic supply is severely constrained as the Forest Development Corporations (FDCs), established in 1970s as the production and commercial wing of the forest department, are able to cover only 5 per cent. The new policy looks to substitute imports by raising plantations in degraded forest areas, in agricultural farms and in FDC’s plantation plots. This is to be done by encouraging private sector involvement.

This policy also envisages a shift to a wood based economy and encourages the use of wood products by domestic consumers. This is justified as a response to address climate change as wood is “locked carbon.” More importantly, the growing demand is expected to pay for plantations and incentivise investments by private players. It is no wonder, therefore, that the policy is hardly concerned with The Compensatory Afforestation Fund of over 500 billion Indian rupees. 

Beyond conservation

So the question that one is left with at the end of reading these documents is where is forest conservation? It is peppered throughout the document and offers temporary comfort after every few paragraphs about making forests an efficient, economically higher value, privatised commodity. Forest conservation is relegated to “dense”, “natural” and Protected areas while other green spaces are dealt with hard economic logic. Conservation is left to the working plans/management plans and Catchment Area Treatment (CAT) plans led by the forest department. Such planning processes and their implementation have been critiqued extensively by independent biologists and the audit agencies.

A policy to economise and make forest conservation pay for itself through the plantation route may threaten all existing forests. Unless logging and sale of wood is monitored closely, it will be impossible to tell the difference between wood harvested from natural forests and from plantations. The policy relies on certification and compliance to avoid this. But the experience so far is that regulatory institutions in India have suffered tremendous constraints to implement such actions.

The authors are with the CPR Namati Environment Justice Programme. Views expressed are personal