Opening the floodgates

Forest Corporations in many states used to bulldoze and rip the area, and plant short rotation tree species like Populus, Casurina, Eucalyptus and Acacia-auriculiformis. The purpose was to supply the raw materials to industries. Such projects were also economically viable, but it was at a huge environmental cost. We ended up converting a biodiverse forest to the monoculture of exotic species. Natural forests have higher carbon sequestration potential than the plantation forests

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The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 was amended in 2023 to name it as the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyan. One of the provisions of the amended law is to promote plantation works on forest lands by government and nongovernmental agencies, within the framework of Working Plans of the State Forest Department.

The intention of this provision is quite good, as it attracts investment on degraded forest land with a task to re-green it. In other words, afforestation and plantation activities could be carried out on forest land by any private agency after providing for growing compensatory afforestation and recovering the net present value of the forests. On 2 January 2026, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change issued a circular redefining how these activities on forest lands are exempted from long standing environmental safeguards like compensatory afforestation and recovery of net present value of the forests.

Recovering the cost of compensatory afforestation and net present value of the forests required for diversion had been considered as barriers that prohibited big industries from investing in degraded forests. The circular makes way for pulp and paper and rayon industries to grab the opportunity and use degraded forest land for growing short rotation tree species for the raw material that the industries need. The country is importing newsprint, and this move is said to take us towards 'Atmnirbharata'. Let me examine in this piece what are the economic and environmental costs associated with it.