ACCESS OPEN

An amendment to India's nodal forest conservation law opens up forests across India to commercial exploitation by the paper industry

- HIMANSHU NITNAWARE

SINCE THE 1970s, paper industries in India have demanded direct access to forestlands controlled by the Union government to grow commercial plantations. Now, an amendment in the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980 [earlier Forest Conservation (Amendment) Act, 1980] has fulfilled that demand.

The paper industry's demand for access arose from a need to meet the shortage of wood availability compared to increase in demand of paper, and to reduce the dependency on foreign imports. According to the Indian Paper Manufacturers Association's (IPMA) annual report for 2024-25, the domestic availability of wood is estimated to be 9 million tonnes per annum (TPA), lower than the current demand of about 11 million TPA of wood for paper. It argues that the new amendment will not only allow them to meet the industry's demand, but also play a role in increasing India's green cover.

Under its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), India needs to bring an additional 25-30 million hectares (ha) of degraded land under forest and tree cover to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5-3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030. India has pledged to bring in 26 million ha of degraded land under restoration by 2030 as part of the 2011 Bonn Challenge—a global goal to restore degraded and deforested landscapes.