Article 2: Losing forest for trees
Why in news: The CAG performance audit found major implementation failures in the Green India Mission, with poor achievement of forest restoration targets despite its importance for climate commitments and ecological conservation.
Key Details
- Poor Performance: GIM improved only 0.11 million hectares of forest quality against its 1.4 million-hectare target.
- Limited Forest Expansion: The mission achieved only around 4% of its forest-cover expansion target, exposing serious implementation gaps.
- Weak Convergence: GIM’s planned convergence with CAMPA and MGNREGA failed to materialise, limiting resource mobilisation and restoration efforts.
- Trees ≠ Forests: Despite 140 crore saplings planted under Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam, only 156 sq km of the 1,445 sq km green-cover increase was actual forest.
- Restoration Challenge: The Aravallis show that plantation alone cannot reverse mining, encroachment and invasive species; restoration requires ecosystem-level intervention.
Poor Performance of Green India Mission
- CAG findings: The performance audit found that the Green India Mission (GIM) achieved very little of its original objectives over a decade.
- Forest-quality target: The mission aimed to improve forest quality across 1.4 million hectares.
- Actual achievement: Only about 0.11 million hectares were covered, less than one-tenth of the target.
- Forest-cover expansion: The mission achieved only around 4% of its target for expanding forest cover.
- Implementation gap: The findings highlight a major gap between policy goals and ground-level outcomes.
Failure of Scheme Convergence
- CAMPA funds: CAMPA uses money collected from industries for compensatory afforestation after forest land is diverted.
- MGNREGA support: Rural employment programmes can fund plantation and land-restoration activities.
- Poor coordination: GIM was expected to converge with such schemes, but this coordination largely failed.
- Resource under-utilisation: Lack of convergence reduced the mission’s ability to mobilise financial and human resources.
- Fragmented implementation: Multiple schemes operate in the same ecological space without adequate integration.
Climate and Ecological Significance
- NAPCC pillar: GIM is one of the eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change.
- Paris commitment: It was intended to support India’s commitment to create an additional 2.5–3 billion tonnes of CO₂-equivalent carbon sink by 2030.
- Biodiversity: The mission aimed to conserve and restore forest biodiversity and habitats.
- Water security: Healthy forests support watershed protection, groundwater recharge and water availability.
- Carbon sequestration: Forest restoration helps absorb and store atmospheric carbon.
- Ecosystem restoration: Its objective was broader than plantation and focused on reviving functioning ecosystems.
Plantation vs Forest Restoration
- Shift in focus: GIM appears to have been overshadowed by the ‘Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam’ tree-plantation campaign.
- Large plantation numbers: The government reports planting around 140 crore saplings since 2024.
- Forest-cover distinction: Planting trees does not automatically create a natural or functional forest ecosystem.
- Forest data: India State of Forest Report 2023 recorded a 1,445 sq km increase in green cover.
- Limited forest gain: Only 156 sq km of this increase was classified as forest.
- Outside-forest trees: About 1,289 sq km was tree cover outside recorded forests.
- Quality concern: Dense forest areas are reportedly showing signs of canopy degradation and conversion into scrub.
- Core lesson: India may be planting more trees while restoring fewer forests.
Aravalli Restoration Challenge
- Ecological degradation: The Aravallis have suffered from mining, encroachment and habitat degradation.
- Native vegetation loss: Invasive species such as vilayati kikar (Prosopis juliflora) have displaced native vegetation.
- Green Wall approach: Fresh plantations are being proposed as part of efforts to restore the range.
- Limits of plantations: New trees cannot by themselves reverse decades of mining and ecological destruction.
- Ecosystem complexity: The Aravalli ecosystem evolved over thousands of years and cannot be recreated simply through landscaping.
- Restoration principle: Ecological restoration must address soil, water, native species, biodiversity and habitat connectivity, not merely tree numbers.
Need for a New Approach
- Outcome-based monitoring: Success should be measured through forest quality and ecosystem health, not merely hectares planted.
- Native species: Restoration should prioritise indigenous species suited to local ecological conditions.
- Protect existing forests: Preventing degradation of existing forests should receive priority over compensating through plantations.
- Better convergence: GIM should be effectively integrated with CAMPA, MGNREGA and other relevant programmes.
- Scientific restoration: Restoration plans should be based on local ecology and landscape-level assessments.
- Independent evaluation: Regular audits should assess both financial efficiency and ecological outcomes.
- Long-term protection: Plantation must be followed by survival monitoring, maintenance and protection.
- Restore ecosystems: The central goal should shift from counting trees to restoring forests.
Conclusion
India must shift from tree-counting to ecosystem restoration. Forest policy should prioritise native species, protection of existing forests, biodiversity, water systems and ecological connectivity. Better convergence among GIM, CAMPA and MGNREGA, along with scientific monitoring and survival audits, is essential. Success should be measured through forest quality, carbon sequestration and ecosystem health, rather than plantations or hectares alone.