Former bureaucrats urge govt to withdraw the Green Credits programme

A group of 91 retired bureaucrats has appealed to the Centre to withdraw the Green Credits programme, which they claimed may facilitate diversion of forest land to private entities.

“Quick, smooth and easy diversion of our forest lands in favour of user agencies is apparently the sole intention of this set of Green Credits rules. We urge the MOEFCC to recognize this danger and withdraw the Green Credits notification expeditiously,” the group of former civil servants wrote in an open letter to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

The group, which calls itself Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), argued that the Green Credits Rules issued on February 22 are “ecologically unsound” and undermine existing forest protections by facilitating easier acquisition of forests for entrepreneurs and industrialists.

“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. Yet the government is trying to make it easy for entrepreneurs and industrialists to acquire forest land by permitting them to offer, in exchange, money (in the form of green credits), instead of land for land as was the case so far,” the CCG said.

A query sent to the MoEFCC regarding the allegations remained unanswered until the filing of this story.

Last month, the forest ministry had released a notification permitting private entities to undertake plantation projects on degraded lands, including open forests, scrublands, wastelands, and catchment areas that fall under the administrative jurisdiction of states.

The initiative aims to generate green credits, which can be traded and utilised as an indicator of corporate social responsibility leadership.

State forest departments are mandated to identify all sparsely covered forested lands within their jurisdiction to be made available to private agencies or investors for funding support for plantation activities.

The group, in its letter, said 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.

“A new set of Green Credits invaders may ask for diversion of some of our densest and best protected forests for commercial purposes like mining, industry and infrastructure,” the group said.

In July 2023, the group, in a separate open letter, had criticised the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, which permits the diversion of forest lands for security purposes.  

The letter also raised questions on the scientific basis for the program, particularly regarding the effectiveness of tree plantations compared to creating natural ecosystems.

Plantations are usually fast-growing monocultures and it is a scientifically proven fact that they are poor at carbon sequestration when compared to natural ecosystems. Compensatory afforestation plantations already undertaken in our country are known to have dubious success rates, the group said.