Environmentalists are urging the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to reconsider the implementation of the Aravalli Green Wall Project, warning that the plan poses significant risks to India’s oldest mountain range.
The statement was made by the 'People for Aravallis' group shortly after Union Minister Bhupender Yadav announced during a national workshop in Rajasthan on 22 May 2025 that the project would enhance green cover and biodiversity in the Aravalli range.
Neelam Ahluwalia, a founding member of the non-profit People for Aravallis, expressed concern about the project’s implementation through the 'Green Credit Programme' for eco-restoration work in the Aravalli landscape.
Additionally, a legal petition is currently pending in the Supreme Court, filed in early March 2025 by People for Aravallis and the Goa-based group 'Rainbow Warriors'. This petition challenges the existing Green Credit Rules (GCR), emphasising that the rules inadequately address the responsibility of the entity seeking green credits. Specifically, the GCR focuses only on the initial planting of trees and does not ensure the long-term survival of those trees.
Further, the GCR allows the plantation of 1,100 trees per hectare without any scientific study and permits plantations in fragile ecosystems such as open forests, scrublands, wastelands and catchment areas.
Reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India from different states show that the survival rate of trees after plantation is abysmally low, ranging between 6–30% of those originally planted.
“Granting of green credits to the entities solely on the basis of plantation of trees and absolving them of the responsibility of ensuring survival will defeat the purpose for Green Credit Scheme,” said Ahluwalia.
Environmentalists have urged the MoEFCC to take note of the concerns raised in the legal petition and revise the GCR to suit the Aravallis ecosystem. They stressed that the Aravallis need a special restoration plan, as it is a highly degraded forest patch.
“In earlier plantation drives to green the Aravallis, invasive, non-native species such as Prosopis juliflora were used, which have spread extensively all across the Aravalli range,” underlined Kay Nair, Co-Founder of People for Aravallis group.
“We hope that MoEFCC will focus on removing these invasive species and bring back the native flora of the Aravallis through the Green Wall Scheme,” he added.