The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 was amended in 2023 to name it as the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyan. One of the provisions of the amended law is to promote plantation works on forest lands by government and non-governmental agencies, within the framework of Working Plans of the State Forest Department. The intention of this provision is quite good, as it attracts investment on degraded forest land with a task to re-green it. In other words, afforestation and plantation activities could be carried out on forest land by any private agency after providing for growing compensatory afforestation and recovering the net present value of the forests.

On 2 January 2026, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change issued a circular redefining how these activities on forest lands are exempted from long standing environmental safeguards like compensatory afforestation and recovery of net present value of the forests. Recovering the cost of compensatory afforestation and net present value of the forests required for diversion had been considered as barriers that prohibited big industries from investing in degraded forests.

The circular makes way for pulp and paper and rayon industries to grab the opportunity and use degraded forest land for growing short rotation tree species for the raw material that the industries need. The country is importing newsprint, and this move is said to take us towards ‘Atmnirbharata’. Let me examine in this piece what are the economic and environmental costs associated with it. In addition to opening forest lands for private players, the amended law has some more loopholes. The newly inserted section 1A(1) in the 2023 amendment can make way for the exploitation of the unclassed forests. Around 90 per cent of the forests in the north eastern states are unclassed and successive reports published by the ‘Forest Survey of India’ have shown that these forests are shrinking. It is evident from the bi-annual reports published by the said........

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