We have new challenges in forests. In the pre-1980 forest-environment conservation era, the emphasis was on extraction of wood. We lost large areas of forests to commercial interests — pulp was sold at throwaway rates; timber logging was rampant. We also had subsistence pressures from local people —firewood and grazing needs. As we could not protect forests from these pressures, we had to take hard steps.
In 1980, the country introduced the Forest Conservation Act; in 1996, the Supreme Court ordered forest felling only based on working plans; and put additional restrictions on green felling in high-altitude areas. We have made it punishable to cut trees on individual lands. All this has meant that we have been able to stem the rate of deforestation.
But this is only half right. The fact is that forests are still under huge pressure. First, forests are being diverted for development projects. Currently there is no value seen in forests (other than the cost that has to be paid for diversion of land). And therefore, there is no value that is perceived in the forests as against the dam, road or mine for which land is needed.
In all this, already huge areas have been diverted. The Centre for Science and Environment has put together data on forest clearance and finds a shocking picture. Between 2007 and 2011, over 8,000 projects were granted forest clearance and 2,03,576 hectares of forestland was diverted. The pace of clearance doubled in this period and was unprecedented. Worse, this will only increase as land becomes more scarce and unavailable. Forests are the last available public lands in India.
Secondly, forests are still under pressure for local needs and illegal extraction.
Himachal has 66 per cent of its land area under forest department; 26 per cent is under forest cover, and of this, as per the Forest Survey of India, only 6 per cent is very dense. Even Himachal, with relatively better per capita incomes and electrification and LPG connections, is losing its forests. In the last survey, as much as 10 per cent was open forests and this is increasing. Today, forestry is about a holding operation, but we are losing bit by bit.
This needs to be reversed. We need new strategies for forests. We need strategies for building economies without degrading forests. We need to re-position forests as integral to the economic growth of a state. We need to plant trees, to also cut them. We need, quite literally, to make money on our forest wealth. But we need to learn how to make money without destroying the forests.
Take a look at the economic survey of the country and you will find how forests have disappeared from national accounts. In 2005-06, the contribution of forestry and fisheries was 5.2 per cent. By 2009-10, its growth rate turned negative. Its place has been taken by the mining and quarrying sector, which registered a growth rate of 8.7 per cent in 2009-10 against 1.3 per cent in 2005-06. In fact, forests have been blacked out in the economic assessment of the country.
And because the focus is on conservation, forest productivity is nobody’s business. The forest survey report says forest cover in the country is stable but growing stock of forests has decreased between 2005 and 2009. Currently, we import more and more forest produce, from pulp to timber. It is for this reason that revenues from forests are declining in state budgets, which creates pressure for their diversion to more productive uses.
Because of our focus on conservation, people today do not want to plant trees as they cannot cut them for their use. Forestry is today a prohibitory business.
So how do we change this? One, we need to urgently value the economic and ecological and livelihood potential of forests and incorporate this into national accounts. We need a robust methodology to bring the tangible and intangible costs together. That is why this workshop is important. There is much talk about this, but the methodology is weak. For instance, there is no real assessment of minor (non-timber) forest produce. Other assessment of contribution of forests to livestock or hydropower sector is inflated or non-existent. All this is not accepted by state and national accounts.
Two, we need to use this methodology to pay for standing forests. The 12th and13th finance commissions allocated funds for forests. But there is no acceptable method to measure forests — both for tangible and intangible benefits. We have to find ways of transferring payment for standing forests — protected for biodiversity or watershed or other purposes — to local custodians. It will build local economies and local support for forest protection.
Three, we need to use this methodology to increase the productivity of the remaining forestland. But we know that the business of cutting and planting trees that survive cannot be successful without people who live in the forest. So, this becomes a new opportunity for employment and economic growth.
Himachal has taken a lead on these issues — has done policy for payment of ecological services — and has made carbon sequestration accounts. But these calculations have not made it to the state accounts and so have not been used to make policy for the future. Clearly, this is the challenge. This work now must be taken to the end so that it is used for policy direction on forests.
The writer is Director, Centre for Science and Environment
For
many years, I carried an epigram pasted on my briefcase that read: “Genius is
the ability to make the complex simple.” Listening to Raghuram Rajan,
Governor, Reserve Bank of India, deliver the Eighth Kao Memorial Lecture in New
Delhi recently, I remembered that maxim. Rajan boiled down complicated economic
precepts to lucid language that even a high school student would have
understood. I majored in economics when I was in college and if I had Rajan as
my teacher I would have enjoyed learning it far more than I did.
I
believe the workshop on building forest accounts in Himachal Pradesh, organised by the Department of Environment, Science and Technology, and the World Bank will take critical steps to move us in the challenge to take forests from conservation to development. We need a robust methodology to assess the value of resources so that we are not short-changed. 
IT is an irony that we Indians (and this is true for all peoples of the emerging world) have had to learn and know about ourselves from the eyes of others. In most part these eyes have been of western origin. If it is Sanskrit that you might want to learn, you would probably be referred to Max Weber, and if you happen to be a student of state craft, it is likely you will be asked to read Machiavelli and not Chanakya who preceded Machiavelli by 1,800 years. That every student of geometry would know about Pythagoras would be a given, but that every student of mathematics would know about Aryabhata’s zero would be a tenuous conclusion. 