An important Bill to have been passed by Parliament during the current monsoon session is the Compensatory Afforestation, Management and Planning Authority Bill, 2006 (the Campa Bill). Proposed to be set up based on the direction of the Supreme Court in the case of T N Godavarman case, many hope that Campa will be a panacea for several problems faced in forest conservation today.
The Campa fund – money collected as compensation for forest diversion – is meant for afforestation and amounts to nearly Rs 40,000 crore; the Bill sought to ascertain the modalities under which the money would be spent. The flow of this amount, it is felt, will infuse new vigour in the forestry and wildlife sector, which is grappling with a severe fund crisis and the associated lack of human and technical resources.
Public discourse on the Bill had essentially focussed on the synergy between the Campa Bill and the Forest Rights Act, 2006, specifically with respect to the role of the gram sabhas. Notwithstanding these valid objections and concerns, there are some fundamental problems with the basic premise of the now passed bill which needs to be highlighted. First and foremost, Campa is based on the faulty assumption that loss of natural forest and ecosystem can be ‘compensated’ by planting trees.
It is based on the belief that a forest is a sum total of trees and as long as one plants equal or even double the number of trees felled, the ecological loss is more than compensated. It is also based on a belief that by putting a price tag on forest land (termed as Net Present Value or NPV), we will be careful and judicious when decisions are taken with respect to diversion of forest land for non-forest purposes such as mining, highways, infrastructure development and related activities.
Basic science and practical experience clearly show that it is impossible to recreate natural ecosystems. In addition, the obsession with tree density overlooks the fact that India’s forest (irrespective of its crown density) is home to the world’s largest number of forest dependent communities.
It is important to keep in mind the fact that the source of this Campa fund is the Net Present Value (NPV) which has been collected by the government whenever forest land is diverted for various non forest purposes under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. It is nothing short of ‘blood money’ – money collected by killing/destroying natural ecosystems.
One of the main reasons why the Supreme Court made it mandatory to charge NPV was the idea that fixing a monetary value on forest would lead to reduction in demand for forest land for industrial and related activities. At a time when the cost of a single square metre of residential plots is in lakhs of rupees, prime forest land is being made available to the industries and corporations at NPV which ranges between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 9 lakh per hectare. If one looks at the forest land proposed for diversion in the last one month (July, 2016) based on proposals submitted by state governments, it adds to a massive 240 sq km.
This includes 130 sq km for the new capital of Andhra Pradesh, Amravati. More than 600 sq km of land was proposed to be diverted in Arunachal Pradesh in the last two months. The NPV has thus clearly failed to reduce the area of forest land proposed for diversion. In fact, the insistence on NPV has had the opposite affect: the willingness to pay has conferred a virtual right on the project proponents to demand forest land.
Diverting forest land
The irony is that each time forest land is diverted for non-forest purposes under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 there is an increase in forest land in the country and additional funds under the Campa. This happens through the following process: when the state government allows for diversion of forest land for non-forest purpose, it is explicitly made clear that the ‘Legal Status’ of the area will continue to be ‘Forest land’ or ‘Reserved Forest/ Protected Forest.’
Thus, many of our highways, airports, mines, railway lines, dams, residential buildings etc are actually ‘forest’ in the government records. Ideally, the compensatory afforestation has to be done on an equivalent area of revenue land. However, in view of the shortage of revenue/non-forest land, compensatory afforestation is usually done on degraded forest land. Areas rich in biodiversity including grasslands, wetlands and scrub forest are wrongly classified as ‘degraded’ and plantations carried out.
In the case of hydro-electric projects, an added condition is specified which requires that the area to be submerged for the reservoir should be declared as reserved forest, national park or sanctuary. It defies all logic as to what ecological purpose is served due to such declaration. It is for this reason that the land classified as forest has not shown any decrease despite significant forest loss across the country.
The Forest Survey of India (FSI) report year after year claims an increase in the country’s forest cover. The fact is that while natural ecosystems continue to vanish, Indian ‘legal’ forest land will continue to show an increase. In addition, the coffers of Campa will continue to swell.
It is high time that an independent review is undertaken on the utility of compensatory afforestation. We need to prioritise our forest conservation goals. We need to recognise that just as money does not grow on trees, similarly, money cannot create forest and natural ecosystem. The Campa, unfortunately, is premised on the latter view.
(The writer is a New Delhi-based environmental lawyer)