indian forests in terminal crisis

Ever since the mid 1990’s when the Narsimha rao government amended the conservation act and threw India’s forests open for commercial purposes including mining, the forest cover has be rapidly dwindling. On the face of it a one time loss due to the tsunami and gains in some states seem to point to an environment balance. There is still a sizable loss of 728 sq kilometers of forests and degradation of another 630 square kilometers throughout India. Thus when one looks at the latest state of the forest report the devil is found in the details.

A lot of the blame lies with corporate India whether it is setting up a bauxite mine over a tiger forest in orrissa or a power plant in Madhya Pradesh. So much so that a supreme court appointed committee had recently ordered canceling of 49 projects on forest land that had seemingly got relevant clearance.
The most serious loss of forest cover is in states such as Andeman and Nicobar and Assam along with Manipur and Madhya Pradesh. These very states were previously thought to be green cover bastions and are the ones which have shown most forest loss. One can safely add Arunachal Pradesh to that list. That sate is India as it used to be, with 83 per cent forest cover. However the recently announced package by the Prime Minister that calls for 10,000 crore invested in roads and railways across the state is bound to degrade forest cover here.

The reason why forests matter even in this age of globalization is three folds. For on thing Indian forest is a source for more than 250 million tribal and non tribal persons across the country. Forest products by value constitute more then $45 billion annually to India’s economy including timber and non timber products and proactive large scale employment. Lastly India is home to one of the world most diverse fauna and flora which if not nurtured could be lost for ever.

The real story of the forest loss of India is in its imbalance. Over the last twenty years the continuing erosion of forests in Central and north India has meant that the north east of India that has only 7 per cent of India landmass has in more than 25 % of her forest cover. This imbalance has created vast swaths of India without significant forest cover. The related f\degradation of river and outer resources is most immediate here.

A new law to empower tribal to have right to forest produce and land has divided the conservation community. Some believe that this may be death knell of the forests as viable cover as well as the tiger. Past record however suggests that such a doomsday scenario is misplaced. If anything the Gandhian idea of self reliance is more relevant today then ever before in the context of tribal rights over the forests. The tribal, once having ownership, is likely to use the forest as resource not as something to plunder on the sly. The empowered tribal and sensible regulations can together save the last of India’s forest cover. India and the world will be worse off if the forest s is not saved through political will directed at arresting the current slide.