Overview

The new draft National Forest Policy takes into account the paradigm shift in present realities due to climate change. The Union Environment Ministry has come up with a forest policy that focuses on climate change mitigation and reducing threats like wild fires, encroachment and man-animal conflict. This latest development suggests that a new forest policy is on the anvil after 30 years.

The previous NFPs concentrated on production and revenue generation of forests (NFP, 1894 and NFP, 1952) and environmental stability and maintenance of ecological balance (NFP, 1988). The NFP, 2018 talks about climate change mitigation through sustainable forest control.

“The overall objective and goal of the present policy is to safeguard the ecological and livelihood security of people, of the present and future generations, based on sustainable management of the forests for the flow of ecosystem services,” the new draft suggests. The new draft seeks to sync the country’s forestry-related ‘Nationally Determined Contribution’ targets under the Paris Agreement where India has promised to rapidly increase its forest cover so that an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent is created by the year 2030.

Although the role of forests as climate change mitigation factor has been recognized, the draft NFP is nebulous on the issue of forests rights for forest dwelling communities. The document propositions creation of a community forest management mission for the community resource management under Forests Rights Act.

The draft policy in 2016, brought out by the Ministry was withdrawn apparently for unknown reasons. The said draft had attracted substantial criticism from forest rights groups for proposing a parallel community forest management arrangement along the lines of joint forest management. The previous draft was also criticized for ignoring the fact that a new community forest governance regime under the Forest Rights Act has been emerging across the country.

The issue of human-animal conflict has also been addressed in the new policy. Also, short term and long term measures to reduce this have been mentioned. The draft specifies that “Quick response, dedicated teams of well-equipped and trained personnel, mobility, strong interface with health and veterinary services, rescue centers, objective and speedy assessment of damage and quick payment of relief to the victims would be at the core of the short-term action. Monitoring and management of population of wildlife would be adopted on a long term basis within and outside forests for maintaining the balance.”

New Development: Forest Lands open to Industries –

The previous government had made sentient efforts to protect the rights of the 300 million tribals and forest dwellers who heavily depended on forest lands for their livelihood. The proposed new policy says that the old policy needs to be replaced as the policy needs revision in the context of “low quality and low productivity of our natural forests, impacts of climate change, human-wildlife conflict, intensifying water crisis… and the continuously declining investments in the sector”.

The increasing consumption of the country owing to the rapid increase in population combined with government’s decision and low-productivity of forests over last two decades has led to increase in imports. Using scarcity of timber as the reason, the government is pushing for opening forest lands for industries.

On the issue of Forest Rights Act, the draft policy is vague and hardly coherent. It just says, “As far as community forest resources management under FRA is concerned, the new policy will address the same under participatory forest management and the same will be addressed through the proposed community forest management mission.”

On the lines of the national and state wildlife boards, for forest administration and management too, the draft policy advocates a National Board of Forestry headed by Union Forest Minister and State Boards of Forestry headed by State Forest Ministers will be established for ensuring inter-sectorial convergence, simplification of procedures, conflict resolution and periodic review. It says, “Forest Skill Development centers will also be set up with the help of National Skill Development Corporation for forest-based industries so that a demand for trained professionals is created in this sector.”

The Vital National Goal:

Couched in these superfluous structures and references, the Forest Policy document develops an overarching responsibility for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change towards restoring and maintaining the health of India’s surface and sub-surface water systems, considering both are largely governed by forests and other natural ecosystems. The protection of healthy natural ecosystems in catchment areas could be a vital national goal, given the challenges of failing freshwater systems facing the nation. The State Forest Departments can do the most in this context, by stopping void practices like planting forests and instead use that money in sensible ways to directly and indirectly protect natural ecosystems in sensitive areas like watersheds, catchment areas, and coasts, as has already been envisaged in the current National Forest Policy, 1988.

SALIENT FEATURES OF THE DRAFT NATIONAL FOREST POLICY, 2018

1. There will be public private participation for afforestation in degraded forest areas
2. The promotion of urban greens will be prepared and implemented in consonance with the development plan of cities
3. Measures to safeguard ecosystems from forest fire (map the vulnerable areas; develop and strengthen early warning systems)
4. National Community Forest Management Mission for participatory forest management
5. Afforestation in catchment areas for river rejuvenation and water recycling
6. An economic valuation of forests would take place
7. There will be a forest certification to provide premium on forest produce
8. Integration of climate change concerns in forest management
9. Promote agro-forestry and farm forestry
10. Management of north-eastern forests

Plunging into appropriate laws, rules and regulations for effective implementation of the new policy, the draft also seeks to set up a ‘National Board of Forestry’ headed by the Environment and Forest Minister and ‘State Boards of Forestry’ headed by State Minister in-charge of forests for conflict resolution and periodic review.

A conclusive analysis:

Criticizing the sweeping changes, noted environmentalist Mr. Ajay Saxena has this to say, “The draft policy claims despite ‘increase in forest and tree cover’ and reduction in the diversion of forest land for commercial activities, the quality and productivity of our natural forests is pretty low and so there is an urgent need to revise the National Forest Policy after three decades to tackle new and newer challenges. This is nothing but pandering to the demands of the timber industry even while ignoring the rights of the tribal communities and other forest dwellers. If this policy is approved, then forest lands traditionally used by forest dwellers will be opened up and leased to private industries, thereby, violating the FRA.”

What is bothersome, however, is that in the 30 years since it was articulated, no officer of the Indian Forest Service has pointed out these deficiencies. There is clearly an urgent need to review the curriculum of the Indian Forest Service since it seems to rely on concepts that are not only archaic but also have been discarded more than a century ago and which are totally out of sync with the standard international practices.

The draft National Forest Policy 2018 — which aims to replace a 30-year-old forest policy — tends to address issues that have emerged over a period of time, including increasing public-private partnerships. India has promised to sequester 2.5 -3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalents by 2030. In order to achieve this it would be helpful if the revised forest policy lays out a vision for its implementation; dovetailing it with existing initiatives like the Green India Mission. However, the measures suggested must not impact natural forests-reservoirs of biodiversity and of ecosystem services to millions of people.