The Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change (MoEFCC) recently issued a series of back-to-back notifications that will significantly impact India’s forest conservation and the livelihoods of forest dwellers by diverting forest lands for commercial purposes. Analysts see in these notifications a more lenient approach to promote business. One of the notifications is about amending rules related to ‘Green Credit Programmes’. The others include amendments to the rules of the ‘Forest Conservation Act 2023’ and notifying the ‘Environment Audit Rules, 2025’ to create a second line of environmental auditing by private parties.
Union minister for MoEFCC, Bhupender Yadav, termed the notifications as ‘very critical’ for balancing economic progress with ecological stewardship, given the prevailing trade tension, policy uncertainties and geopolitical conflicts. However, environmental experts see them as contrary to the Supreme Court’s orders and detrimental to India’s forest conservation.
Green Credit rules
In revisions to the Green Credit calculation rules, the new notification stipulates plantation of trees on a designated area of degraded forest land to achieve a minimum canopy density of 40%, whose assessment will be done after five years instead of the previous two years. Besides, the notification says, “Green Credit will be calculated based on the vegetation status, including changes in canopy density and the number of surviving trees.”
Besides, green credits will be treated as compensatory afforestation compliance instead of the “land for land” exchange envisaged in the guidelines of the amended Act issued on December 29, 2023.
Experts say it will result in the shrinking of forest area, which is against the rules and the Forest Policy of India upheld by the Supreme Court.
Further, the rules do not include provisions for tree plantation on non-forest lands. The new rule is also silent on what happens to the issued green credit if the plantation fails after five years. Also, the calculation of green credits based on the difference of canopy cover or number of trees accrued is vague, experts said.
A retired forest department official said on the condition of anonymity, “The revised notification indicates that degraded forest land with the government will be used for plantation. This means that forest land will be allocated for plantation instead of non-forest land as compensatory afforestation compliance, which raises the risk of double counting of forest land and shrinkage of forest land.”
Revision of Forest Conservation Rules
As for the notification of the new Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Amendment Rules, they weaken the regulations regarding compensatory afforestation and vaguely include public interest initiatives as projects of national importance, experts alleged. The notification modifies the definition of forest land diversion, allowing states to grant initial ‘working permission’ for linear projects. Previously, state governments could mobilise resources only after receiving in-principle or Stage-I approval for a project.
The government also ambiguously included the emergent nature of projects related to public interest. In a notification issued in September 2024, it masked projects related to defence and national security on the public portal ‘Parivesh’. Similarly, additional projects could be exempt from public scrutiny citing public interest, activists argue.
Experts argue that the amendments violate interim orders of the Supreme Court on February 3 and March 4, 2025, which states: “We make it clear that until further orders, no steps will be taken by the Union of India or any of the States, which will lead to reduction of the forest land unless a compensatory land is provided either by the State Government or the Union of India for afforestation.”
For his part, Yadav said the amendments aim to promote self-reliance in the critical and strategic minerals sector.