NEW DELHI: A group of 91 retired civil servants criticize the Union Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) over bringing ‘unscientific’ Green Credit Initiatives (GCI) alleging that it would make it easy for corporates to obtain forest land for their projects, leading to an "ecological disaster" and impacting the livelihoods of millions of pastoral and semi-pastoral communities.
The Central government launched the GCI last year in October 2023. It is a market based incentive system to encourage individuals, organisations, and industries to undertake plantation of an open forest land to reduce carbon emissions, improve in air and water quality, and increase biodiversity. The Credit programme launched in the context of India’s ambition to achieve net zero emission by 2070 as per Paris Agreement.
In February 2024, the government came up with rules where it asks the State Forest Departments to identify degraded land parcels, including open forest and scrub land, wasteland and catchment areas, under their administrative control and management, which shall be made available for tree plantation.
Constitutional Conduct Group, a group of former civil servants, today wrote an open letter to the MoEFCC, terming ‘green credits’ as a concept is anachronistic, and has been seen as a tool for monetising the natural environment and handing it over to corporates for exploitation.
In its letter, the group mentioned that the last year amendment to the Forest Conservation Amendment Act 2023 was a major assault on the forest and Green Credit rules would further worsen the disaster.
“The government has now come up with certain rules that will further worsen the disaster: the provision for earning Green Credits by agencies seeking to take possession of forest lands for “developmental” projects.” states the letter.
"When forest land can be so easily obtained by private entrepreneurs, it does not take much imagination to realise that the extent of land legally classified as forests at present will steadily shrink until there is virtually nothing left. A new set of Green Credit invaders may ask for diversion of some of our densest and best-protected forests for commercial purposes like mining, industry, and infrastructure," the letter signed by 91 retired civil servants read.
"Quick, smooth, and easy diversion of our forest lands in favour of user agencies is apparently the sole intention of this set of Green Credit rules. We urge the MOEFCC to recognise this danger and withdraw the Green Credits notification expeditiously," they said.
"Measuring forests merely by tree count is totally wrong. All forest lands, whether grasslands, wetlands, deserts, scrub forests, or open forests are ecological entities in themselves. They harbour a wide variety of animal species endemic to the Indian subcontinent, such as the Great Indian Bustard, the Lesser Florican, blackbucks, wolves, etc. Taking up plantations in these areas will mean an end to the survival of these and other species," the retired civil servants said.
"But it is not merely the lives of animal species that are at stake. The livelihoods of millions of pastoral and semi-pastoral communities depend on these scrub' and waste lands', and they will be directly and adversely impacted by this scheme," they said.
The Govt amended the forest conservation law to allow diversion of forests without any oversight of the central govt or any expert committee for defence or security infrastructure, feeder roads for road and rail-side establishments, surveys for coal, diamonds, etc.
“The scheme’s shortcomings are obvious. No amount of money can be a substitute for the land required for our forests, and for our biodiversity and wildlife to thrive,” the letter further states.
The group alleged that green credits' as a concept are 'anachronistic' and have been seen as a tool for monetising the natural environment and handing it over to corporates for exploitation.
"To allow the transfer of pristine forest lands to corporates, in exchange for green credits earned by them, by getting them to fund the forest department to plant degraded forest lands, is shocking indeed. More so, because the ecological values of these lands can be restored by the forest department itself, with the funds already at its disposal, they said.
"This is a transaction weighted heavily in favour of Big Capital. If the government is really serious about conservation with financial help from the private sector, it should permit relevant, impactful conservation projects as eligible activities under the law governing corporate social responsibility," the letter said.
According to foresters and environmentalists, a dangerous fallout of this order is the ecological disaster that diverse forests will be replaced with trees.
(With inputs from PTI)
