The draft forest law could actually end up spurring deforestation

Why read this story?

Editor's note: This edition of Thirty-six is about a subject which is of particular relevance to states which have significant forest cover, forest-dependent people and businesses: the proposed amendments to India’s main law for forest conservation. So let’s get right to it. As most Indians marked the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi last Saturday, the Union environment ministry quietly uploaded for public consultation, with a short 15-day deadline, a draft document which explains the kind of changes it is proposing to make to the Forest (Conservation) Act. Passed by Parliament in 1980, the government’s stated intent for drafting the law was to check increasing deforestation in the country. As a solution to this problem, for the first time, the law made it mandatory for project proponents to seek prior clearance from the Union environment ministry if they wished to use forest land for “non-forest purpose”. Like, say, the railways acquiring forest land to build railway lines or coal mining companies seeking to mine coal. The idea being that making approval for undertaking activities impacting forests mandatory would check indiscriminate deforestation. The law …