Date: 09/01/2023

Relevance: GS-3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation

Key Phrases: Net-Zero Targets In The Private Sector, Forest Transition, Forest Economy, Forest Rights Act 2006, Complex Ecosystems

Context:

• Forests are central to achieving net-zero targets in the private sector. As of now, forests are the most common sources of carbon offsets and have the greatest potential for carbon sequestration through forest restoration.
• Securing forests to ensure sufficient negative emissions promises to turn the voluntary carbon market into a financial bubble that will be bad for the planet, businesses, and rural communities.

Why An Exclusive Focus On Carbon From Forests Is A Bad Idea?

• The reasons were first identified and analysed in the early 1990s, what later became the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol in 2005. These are additionality, permanence, and leakage.
  1. Additionality:
     • It refers to carbon sequestration that can happen even in the absence of targeted action.
     • Majority of forests in Western Europe and the north-eastern US grew back on agricultural land abandoned by households moving to industrial jobs.
     • This is known as the Forest Transition. This transition has also been underway in India since the mid-90s, with steady net-positive growth.
  2. Leakage:
     • Just because one forest is protected is no reason to believe that the activities that led to emissions from this forest have not been deflected to other neighbouring forests.
     • Counting negative emissions from this forest is simply fraudulent.
     • This is common and expected in rural contexts in India where the fuelwood comes from somewhere, and all that changes is that the women have to walk farther, spend more time, and face more harassment.
     • However, total emissions remain the same.
  3. Permanence
     • It is the most severe challenge. With climate change, more heat waves, dry spells, and more frequent and intense forest fires can be expected.
     • This phenomenon is already underway in Australia, the western US, and Siberia.
     • The Bootleg fire in Oregon burned through 90,000 acres of forest set aside as carbon offsets for Microsoft and BP. This forest and the carbon it holds were expected to live for at least 100 years.

Problems in the idea of Afforestation:

1. Complex ecosystems:
   • Forests are complex ecosystems that are built over years due to the interplay of birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, amphibians, fungi, microorganisms, water, soil, environmental conditions, and other factors.
   • Unless these players are part of the rebuilding process, trees will remain as green cover rather than the enchanting, natural, complex ecosystems that they are.
   • It is argued that planting trees will help store carbon and reduce pollution. It is true that all trees — invasive species and native and non-native species — store carbon, but the other benefits which are critical vary widely depending on the species planted and the location of plantation.
   • If wrong areas are selected for plantation, the natural habitat may get altered, which will cause habitat specialist species to become extinct and make the local environment and ecosystem less resilient.
2. Planting native species:
   • Some of these tree-planting campaigns claim to propagate native species. Native tree species is a very misused terminology in India.
   • Though neem, peepal, banyan, and anjan may be native to India, they are non-native to many parts of the country.
   • This critical ecological criterion tends to be ignored and planting of these species taken up in all areas. Planting any kind of native tree species may probably help in urban settings but not in natural habitats.
3. Lack of Support:
   • While the government has embarked on the ₹19,000 crore project of planting trees, a report by the Centre for Science and Environment says that the government has cut the budget for wildlife conservation by 47% between 2018 and 2021. This means reduced support for forests and other habitat protection.

Opportunity In Forests That Is Good For The Planet, Good For The People, And Good For Profits Simultaneously:

• To protect and restore the forests, incentives must be created and equity must be brought for local communities to reap a fair share of benefits.
• Forests will be protected and restored when communities living near these forests expect to derive direct material benefits.
• India’s Forest Rights Act 2006 allows communities to own and manage their forests.
• Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand have already recognised this opportunity to create jobs and wealth but this opportunity requires the private sector to step up and support the process.
• By engaging directly with communities, the informal forest economy can be transformed into business transactions that are fair and transparent and incentivize sustainable protection, management, and restoration of India’s forests.
• If communities protect forests because they get better prices for Sal seeds, Mahua flowers, or Tendu leaves, they will protect them from fires as well as any other threats that come along wherein carbon sequestration will be a side benefit.

Source: Hindu BL

Mains Question:

Q. Securing forests to ensure sufficient negative emissions promises to turn the voluntary carbon market into a financial bubble that will be bad for the planet, businesses, and rural communities. Discuss. (150 words).