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Losing ground
So we may be getting more and more tech-savvy in measuring forests—but
unfortunately, we are just not getting savvy enough to protect this
precious resource.
JFM is
considered by some to be a major turning point in the history of
Indian forests. For the first time, the government came
forward to seek help from the local people—who were till then
treated as intruders and destroyers of forests—to protect the
resource. In return, they were allowed to collect non-timber
forest produce—lifeline for millions of Shabitris across
country.
Today JFM covers over 40,000 Indian villages. Given the scale,
it should have changed India’s landscape, and made Shabitri and
her neighbours prosperous, if not rich! But the reality is that
our forests are dying, and our rural economy is still in deep
red…
Obviously JFM has not delivered. |
It’s not as if the
government’s forest departments, the sole custodian of all forest lands
across the country, oblivious to the problem. Conserving forests, has,
in fact, been India’s key priority for some time now. Till the 1970s
forests were stripped mercilessly. While the British government took
forests away from the local communities, to cut trees to make ships and
railway lines, the desi rulers sold them to the paper and pulp
industry—to be used as its source of raw materials. By then alarm
signals were ringing furiously. Satellite data—put together by foreign
research agencies—revealed that India was losing 1.3 mha of forests per
year!!
Clearly, the government
was in trouble. Then came the National Forest Policy, 1988. As a
significant follow up to this policy, the mechanism of Joint Forest
Management (JFM) was legalised in 1990.
Pricing the priceless
What do you think would be the most effective way of halting this
process...or at least slowing it down? One sure-fire solution is placing
a value — in actual money terms. That is, make people aware of the true
potential of a forest by evaluating it. The easiest way to fix a price
tag is, of course, by treating it as a factory producing timber. But
aren’t we forgetting about those absolutely essential, life supporting
services that it provides to all living things in this planet? As a
watershed, as a soil and air purifier, as a carbon sink, as a flood
controlling mechanism, as a habitat, as a livelihood source…..
 For
forests to be protected and conserved, they need to be seen as being
more valuable than the standard utilities they provide—like wood for
instance.
The good news is that it is now possible to put a tangible, economic
value on the many, intangible benefits a forest provides. And this
practice of ‘proper’ evaluation is slowly gaining ground in India. It
has already been done in Himachal Pradesh, the picturesque forest
covered state that attracts thousands of tourists every year. According
to Madhu Verma, economist with the Indian Institute of Forest
Management, HP forests are worth over Rs 100,000 crore. Verma has
included money from timber, fodder, other minor forest produce, as well
as from a host of other kinds of benefits. Local, such as watershed
functions; national, such as ecotourism or biodiversity; and global
benefits that the HP forests provide by acting as carbon sinks!
Just think about it. If the forests of Himachal Pradesh alone are worth
a gigantic fortune…what would be the true value of all the lands that
are under forest cover in India.
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