Equity Watch - Global Environmental Government Unit - Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)

ew_headline.jpg (13872 bytes)

CoP-8/UNFCCC SPECIAL EDITION 3

October 28, 2002

One swims...

N H Ravindranath
Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore

Indian industry and the law…
It is true there is a lot of pressure on the government from the industry, and also from politicians, to amend the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. Even state governments need to take permission from the Union government, if they want to give away even a small portion of the reserve forest land to the industry or if they want to use it for building roads. On top of that, there is a Supreme Court ordinance, issued last year, which clearly ban all activities in a reserve forest land. So far the government has been resisting this pressure.

What they want…
Industry wants to have its own source of raw materials. Obviously, they do not have access to reserve forests, so they are looking for other sources such as village commons. The industry, it seems, wants to have their own huge plantations, wherever it is possible, on common village land. This is the debate, which is going on.

The opposition…
The government wants to yield to the pressure, but non-governmental organisations and others are fighting tooth and nail. Even politicians have their own agenda. Many politicians, including chief ministers of several states, have been putting pressure on the Indian government to make changes in the Forest Conservation Act, so that they can freely distribute forest land among people in order to cultivate their constituency. The industry is also putting pressure on state government, to some extent.

People’s access to forest produce…
There is a clear understanding that afforestation, deforestation and reforestation (ADR) being taken under CDM should be in partnership with local communities. Addressing their needs has been an integral component of any CDM forestry project. Modalities are being worked out. There is already a general agreement among the parties on this. It clearly states that such projects should promote biodiversity, should have community participation and should be based on the sustainable use of forest resources. So, it is not true to say that the people living will lose access to forest and land because of such projects. I have been involved in these negotiations. We have been actually pushing for giving priority for small projects, which benefit small communities.

...the other sinks

K P NYATI
head of the environment management division, Confederation of Indian Industry

Private plantations and carbon sinks…
Most developed countries have large chunks of privately owned forests. But I don’t mean that we should immediately privatise all forests in India. Then again, private companies will involve themselves in plantation projects for commercial purpose and not charity. But the law does not allow private partnership in forest activity.

We can devise a strict method by which private companies can be involved in plantations. If a company undertakes commercial plantation projects, then we can set certain conditions –– the company will harvest wood for commercial purpose no monoculture company will give twigs free of cost to local communities, the project will follow the sustainable forestry principle. The company should be given forest land on lease and in case it does not follow the specified procedures, its lease should be cancelled. The company can also pay the forest department some fee so that joint forest management (JFM) projects can be carried out.

The best thing about afforestation is that by selling credits one can get money. Corporate bodies already know how to make a project plan document, how to get verification and certification. Poor communities are not aware of these procedures.

On communities managing sinks projects…
The problem I see is that the moment it is everyone’s responsibility, it turns out to be no one’s responsibility. I believe that communities should be involved in managing forests, which they can then sell to a private entity at a price they want to. But the trouble is how do you organise the village community? Who is responsible? Is the community-based model a cooperative, an elected representative or is it a trust? Which model are you talking about? No one is providing details on this. If the community sells timber, then in what proportions? Should the sale proceeds go to the individual members of the area? Is it in relation to the level of effort? I am not against community forest management, but we need clarity as to how to do it.

Low carbon prices and viability of sinks projects…
The us has proposed bilateral projects. And if such schemes are able to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions –– are able to prove that they would provide the project developer more efficiency in terms of per unit of product output, and low energy consumption –– then the entrepreneurs would still go for them.

Another important issue is that at present the carbon market is uncertain and no one knows what the scene be after 2012. Then why should the entrepreneur not take advantage of whatever little he is getting right now?

Definitely the US withdrawal and crashing of carbon prices will restrict the choices of projects as many schemes will not be commercially viable and will eventually be scrapped.

return to the index

Archives

Climate Change Campaign

Global Environmental Governance Unit