‘Green tax’ to address forest woes

Making public the draft national forest policy, the Union environment ministry has proposed “green tax” to “supplement financial resources essential to address forest woes” in the context of plantations and growing trees outside forest lands.

It also proposes “eco-tourism” after ensuring “conservation” to benefit “local communities”. The draft, which would replace the one crafted in 1988, has been put in the public domain for a fortnight from June 16, inviting comments from stakeholders.

The new draft continues with the national goal of a minimum of one third of the geographical area under forest or tree cover. The ministry had been working on the draft for about two years to find ways to tackle forest areas degrading due to rapid economic development.

The draft has been prepared by Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), the research arm of the ministry.

Proposing to levy taxes to generate financial resources to combat large scale degradation of forest area in the country, the new policy draft says: “Forests and trees constitute nearly one fourth of the geographic area of the country (about 24.16 per cent). Protection of this vast and valuable resource, improving and increasing the forest and tree cover requires adequate investment keeping in view the pressures on these forests, and the ecosystem services that they provide to the nation. Large tracts of forest area in the country have degraded due to immense biotic pressure and lack of adequate investment.’’ It added, “The budget of the forestry sector should be appropriately enhanced so that the objectives enshrined in this policy can be achieved. Environmental cess, green tax, carbon tax etc. may be levied on certain products and services for facilitating ecologically responsible behaviour, garnering citizen’s contribution and supplementing financial resources,” the policy said.

Addressing concerns of environmentalists to adopt a more sustainable approach while diverting forest areas for industrial projects, the new draft calls for “safeguard (ing) forest lands by exercising strict restraint on diversion for non-forestry purposes”. “Forest land diversion projects related to mining, quarrying, construction of dams, roads and other linear infrastructure need to adopt special caution. Use of state-of-the-art technology which causes minimum pollution and damage should be promoted,” the policy recommends. According to government estimates about 1.21 million hectares of forest land has been diverted for non-forestry purposes since 1980. Ignoring Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, that diminished the control of the forest department over traditional forest lands and gave it to tribals and other forest-dwellers, the new draft proposes a parallel arrangement, an overarching FRA, as per which, a new Community Forest Management Mission would be set up with the aim to bring government, community and private land under a proposed new management system.