Afforestation fund will aid India in meeting Paris pledge

Early October, India joined the Paris Agreement committing to work towards limiting global temperature rise to under 2 degree C.

The newly passed Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) Act offers an opportunity to devise a ‘landscape restoration’ plan that contributes to a national strategy, and ensures environmental, economic and social wellbeing.

The enactment of the Act in July has put in place a process for disbursement of Rs 42,000 crore (and rising) from the Centre to the states for forestry and related activities. The Act unleashes a tremendous opportunity for scaling up greening efforts across the country through the potential use of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF). At the same time, questions still remain about planning, implementing and monitoring the use and outcomes from the CAMPA to accommodate multiple competing demands on forests – for fuel, fodder, timber, biodiversity, climate and water.

To ensure that India’s forests and their ecology are not lost while accommodating development and economic progress, the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 ruled that a compensatory afforestation fee be levied on businesses for use or diversion of forests for non-forestry purposes. This fee was envisaged to be used for afforestation of non-forest land that is equal in size, or degraded forest that is twice the size, of diverted land.

The CAF combined three types of funds – the funds linked with compensatory afforestation, money collected as Net Present Value (NPV) of the forest used, and the sum from diversion of protected areas – each in different proportion and with varied restrictions on use.

The rapid rate of increase in industrial, infrastructural and other developmental projects have led to a massive collection of Rs 42,000 crore as CAF today. The CAMPA was set up to hold responsibility of these funds. However, with no protocol to monitor the flow, the funds remained unutilised for 14 years.

The recent CAMPA legislation unlocks the flow of these funds to the states and forest departments for undertaking artificial regeneration (plantations), assisted natural regeneration, protection of forests, forest-related infrastructure development, the Green India Programme, wildlife protection and other related activities.

This flow of funds to a cash-strapped department – the 12th Five Year Plan allocated Rs 2,000 crore to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), which was 0.012% of the national GDP and 0.25% of annual budget – brings hopes. It also helps India’s global commitments under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and UN Convention to Combat Desertification - all of which require infusion of funds into re-greening. The flow of these funds is also a recognition of the ‘federalism principle’ which empowers states to define their plans, within a broad framework.

While funds are now at hand, the bill has fielded concerns about the ways in which afforestation activities would be carried out. Studies have shown that implacable afforestation affects other ecosystems and disrupt prevailing land use practices. To realise the unparalleled potential of CAMPA, it is essential to move beyond the narrow lens of afforestation and adopt a holistic approach.

The concept “landscape restoration” advocates a method to regenerate degraded and deforested landscapes through a combination of interventions including plantations, natural regeneration, agroforestry, silvo-pasture (the practice of combining forestry and grazing of domesticated animals in a mutually beneficial way), climate smart agriculture and so on. Today, this concept is gaining critical traction globally, yielding promising results across many fast developing countries.

Analyses indicate that more than 70 million hectares of land in India offer opportunities for landscape restoration. This is equivalent to the combined area of three states – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra – put together.

India’s landscape potential will not just support its tree-based commitments but also strengthen the livelihood of more than 850 million people who currently live in rural areas and depend directly on the land for food, water and fodder. Peri-urban and urban dwellers also benefit through greater security in food, water and energy, and it will support India’s global commitments.

Interactive tool

The key to successful landscape restoration is identifying restoration opportunities, implementing appropriate interventions, facilitating finance flows and close monitoring by adopting an integrative approach involving stakeholders from different sectors. Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM) is a recently developed interactive tool which is guiding restoration opportunities assessment in over 34 countries.

The tool is now being sampled in India to identify several critical factors such as the potential costs and benefits associated with each intervention, and to resolve long-standing issues like land tenure disputes, the monitoring and management of forests etc.

World leaders will meet at the Conference of the Parties (CoP22) in Marrakech from Nov 7 with a hope to enforce the ambitious Paris Agreement which requires all countries who ratify it to come up with a national plan to limit global temperature rise. India, which currently produces about 4.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, has formally joined the Paris Agreement. India has also committed to restore 13 million hectares of land under the Bonn Challenge and various other domestic policies (including the National Mission for Green India and Agroforestry Policy).

The timely channeling of CAMPA funds to the states could contribute significantly to India’s commitment to the UN to sequester an additional 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030 through enhanced tree cover. The landscape approach can pave way to an ideal co-existence where forests and communities mutually benefit from each other. This gives immense scope for India to emerge as a world leader in landscape restoration.

(The writer leads the Landscape Restoration Programme in WRI India)