What do you understand by ‘Compensatory Afforestation’ in the Indian context? The recently introduced Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill, 2015 (CAF Bill) has given rise to many apprehensions amongst environmentalists. Critically examine what these apprehensions are and comment on the other objectives of the Bill. (200 Words)

Compensatory afforestation means afforestation done in lieu of diversion of forest land for non forest use. For this money is collected from companies to whom forest land is diverted. Centre proposed CAF bill,2015 which has following objectives:

1. to provide an appropriate institutional mechanism, both at the Centre and in each State and Union Territory
2. to provide safety, security and, transparency in utilization of amounts realised in lieu of forest land diverted for non-forest purpose
3. ensure expeditious utilization of accumulated unspent amounts available with the ad hoc Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA)

But recent CAF Bill has many flaws which have been
highlighted by environmentalists as:

1. The bill promotes breaking of large forest land into smaller patches which disrupts landscape connectivity, affecting dispersal of animals, creates new edges that expose forest to exploitation and severe degradation. Therefore there is no consolidation of OGF (old growth forest) but fragmentation of them.
2. The species raised are non native to the areas where they are planted. This causes degradation of indigenous or native species. E.g KIOCL ( Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd.) planted trees in Bhadra river basin which has destroyed natural grassland over there
3. The compensatory afforestation has only increased tree cover as VDF(very dense forest) and MDF(moderately dense forest) has declined. This was highlighted by Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment & forest. This shall be taken into
account.
4. Bill also does not provide for natural restoration and regeneration of degraded forest

The need of the hour is to promote consolidation of OGF, restoring degraded ecology and using funds for non native plantations only in extreme case when forest is extremely degraded with no trace of native species

Ans2:
Compensatory afforestation means plantation of new trees to regenerate forest in an alternate patch of land when deforestation becomes imperative over a particular part of forest to meet the developmental needs. This concept was introduced by Forest conservation Act of 1980. Under it, the Net Present Value (NPV) of the forest land that is to be deforested is estimated over 20 years in
monetary terms and the amount is deposited in CAMPA before deforestation takes
place.

The Apprehensions surrounding the Compensatory Afforestation Bill, 2015 are:

a) Misutilisation by centre and state government due to corrupt practices in utilisation and cover-up exercise to meet the norms of CAMPA.

b) This will open door way for rapid deforestation. Planned afforestation are no substitute for natural vegetation loss.

c) Ancillary impacts like biodiversity loss, fragmentation effect, development of new edges that increases the forest loss, fringe effect etc can never be compensated.

d) NPV assess only 20 year impact that too with restricted knowledge of biodiversity loss. This is too conservative and over simplistic.

e) Forest management and restoration, which are the major problems afflicting forest are rarely addressed. Thus even dense forest are converting into open forest.

These apprehension are genuine. But balancing the development environment trade-off is equally challenging. CAF should stand to meet out and compensate those projects that have wide social impact. Simultaneously NPV value should be enhanced by detailing biodiversity loss in better manner. Also, maximum effort should be made to restrict development projects that are intrusive for forest, and should be allowed only as an exception.