‘Harnessing the Power of India’s Forests for Climate Change Mitigation’

Forests help mitigate the impacts of climate change, provide economic benefits for the country, and meet specific facets of India’s sustainable development goals.

It is essential, therefore, to revisit India’s forest governance and evaluate the country’s efforts at forest restoration and conservation.

• India’s first comprehensive climate analysis report, ‘Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian region’, highlights the role of forests as effective mechanisms to mitigate climate change impacts, provide economic benefits for the country, and meet several of India’s sustainable development goals.
• It is essential, therefore, to revisit India’s forest governance and evaluate efforts at forest restoration and conservation. 
• Over the past two decades, India has witnessed an ever-increasing rate of deforestation and unsustainable exploitation of forest resources, leading to overall degradation at an alarming rate.

What is the state of India’s Forests?

• India is now ranked 3rd in the world for annual net gain in terms of forest area.
• The biennial India State of Forest Report-2019 released by the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change reports that India has achieved an increase of 24.56 percent in its total forest and tree cover.
• The government has claimed that India’s green cover has increased by 15,000 km²in the last four years.

• Supporting economy and livelihood: India’s forest ecosystems support the economy and livelihood of approximately 300 million tribal and local people in forest villages.
• Habitat, food and energy supplier: Covering 80.73 mha or 24.56 percent of the geographical area of the country, forests are home to 80 percent of the terrestrial biodiversity, provide 40 percent of energy needs, and 30 percent of the fodder supply.
• Natural stabilising agent for climate: Besides driving sustainable growth, forests act as a natural stabilising agent for the climate as they regulate carbon cycle significantly.
• Carbon sequestration: Carbon sequestration through photosynthesis is considered one of the most potent and inexpensive methods for climate change mitigation.
  • Forests are the only unique, safe and inexpensive carbon capture and storage technology that is naturally available at scale with the potential to neutralise global CO2 concentrations.

• Unfortunately, due to the over-dependence on forests of large populations and the unsustainable exploitation of their resources, India has witnessed rapid deforestation in the last decades, leading to the degradation of over 30 percent of its land and a loss of 1.6 mha of forest cover.
• According to government data, in the last 30 years, 14,000 km²of forests were cleared to accommodate 23,716 development and industrial projects across India.
• Besides rapid land conversion, the harvest of an estimated 850 Mt of fodder, 100 Mt of fuel wood, and 15 Mt of timber annually beyond the sustainable limits have led to the degeneration of India’s forests.
• At the same time, however, India is seeing a massive deterioration in the health of its forests, with the growing stock (GS) decreasing significantly by 586.387 million cubic meters (M cum) or 12.26 percent.
• The reduction in GS, despite increasing forest cover, is an indicator of forest degradation.
• Within the forests recorded officially by government authorities, 94.96 percent are prone to crop injuries, 39.94 percent has inadequate regeneration, and 5.05 percent has no regeneration.
• Forest degradation undermines the ability of forests to act as carbon sinks.

• Reducing productivity of ecosystem: Deforestation and loss of tree density of forests decreases the carbon assimilation capacity and reduces the forest soil’s organic carbon, thereby affecting the productivity of the ecosystem to act as a carbon storage.
  • Therefore, the larger the green cover of the forest and the older and healthier the trees are, the better is its capacity to sequester carbon.
  • The capacity of a very dense forest is naturally highest, followed by the moderately dense, and the open forests.
  • Dense tropical forests that are rich in biodiversity have the greatest potential to absorb the highest amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.
• Increase in carbon emissions: Continuous, unchecked deforestation and forest degradation has resulted in significant reduction (12.6 percent) in the growing forest stocks and caused nearly 172 tonnes of carbon emissions as per World Resources Institute (WRI) over the last two decades.
• Economic loss: Furthermore, for a highly resource-dependent country such as India, any severe degradation of forests would have far-reaching ramifications for the economy, food and water security, and climate solutions.
  • According to a study by TERI (The Energy and Resource Institute), the degradation of India’s forests is depriving the country of 1.4 percent of its GDP annually.

• At the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP, 2015), India, under the Bonn Challengecommitted to the goal of restoring 13 million hectares (mha) of degraded and deforested land by 2020 and an additional 8 mha by 2030. 
• Moreover, in its pledge to reduce the emission intensity of its GDP by 33-35 percent by 2030 (from 2005 levels) through mitigation efforts across various sectors, India envisions to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5-3.0 billion tonnes (Bt) of CO2eq through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.
• The Indian government is pursuing afforestation and reforestation through policies and programmes such as
  • the National Mission on Green India
  • the National Afforestation Programme
  • compensatory afforestation
  • plantation drives across States

• In the Union Budget 2020-21, the overall allocation for the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has increased to ? 31000 million for 2020-21 from ? 2,6579.4 million in the revised estimate of 2019-20, a significant portion of which is expected to be channelled to the integrated development of forest ecology.
• Furthermore, in October 2019, the MoEFCC transferred ? 47,436 crore under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) to 27 States for their afforestation efforts.

• Redefining ‘forests’: An important element of a sound roadmap for forest regeneration is a redefinition of what is considered a ‘forest’. The focus should shift to the measurement of the relative density of a ‘thriving forest’ or an ‘ecosystem’
• Updating forestry policies: The National Forest Policy of 1952 and 1988, as well as existing forest regulations, have become ineffective in protecting and conserving forest resources. A new forest policy, therefore, is vital in order to provide an overarching framework and direction for the management and regulation of forests; such new policy would consider current changes in forests due to pressing issues such as climate change and pollution.

• Effective institutional and monitoring mechanism: A successful forest programme will depend on creating strict institutional mechanisms for the effective utilisation and monitoring of funds.
• Empowering local communities: For a forest landscape as diverse and densely populated as India’s, the agency of local communities in operational decision-making and forest governance is essential. The participation of local communities must work synonymously with the coordination of impartial and credible processes to operationalise sustainable use and conservation strategies. 

India’s forest sector has a huge potential to mitigate climate change by achieving an additional 3 billion tonnes of carbon sequestration by 2030. However, achieving this would require serious efforts towards conservation, restoration and regeneration of the country’s forests. Given the critical state of India’s forests, the government must demonstrate a sense of urgency in proper planning its afforestation programme and do serious implementation on the ground.