Main features of the national forest policy of postindipendance in India
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Meeting the requirements of fuelwood, fodder, minor forest produce and small timber of the rural and tribal population. Increasing the productivity of forests to meet essential national needs. Encouraging efficient utilisation of forest produce and maximising substitution of wood.
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The ministry of environment, forest and climate change has framed a new draft National Forest Policy 2018 which proposes climate change mitigation through sustainable forest management. The new policy, which aims to bring a minimum one-third of India’s total geographical area under forest cover through scientific interventions and enforcing strict rules to protect the dense cover, will replace the existing one that has been guiding the government to manage forests since 1988. Unlike the previous policies, which stressed on environmental stability and maintenance of ecological balance, the 2018 policy focusses on the international challenge of climate change.
While the ministry has done away with the environment cess that was proposed in the scrapped 2016 draft policy, it has retained several controversial clauses in its 2018 draft.
The environmentalists had seen red in involving private concerns for afforestation and reforestation activities pointing out that this would mean privatisation of India’s natural resources and creating “private forests”.
The 2018 draft policy retains this clause saying, “public-private participation models will be developed for undertaking afforestation and reforestation activities in degraded forest areas and forest areas available with Forest Development Corporations and outside forests.”