Sunita Narain: Managing our forest wealth

DOWN TO EARTH

The crisis that confronts forestry in the country does not only concern its protection. It is also about the fact that forest-rich states in India find conserving these forests is a burden they can no longer afford. This has happened because, in India, as concern for natural resources grew, the harvesting of forests stopped.

For these states, revenue has dried up, but the establishment costs of maintaining forest departments "" in continuing to protect forests "" has climbed up. In the mid-1990s, for instance, Madhya Pradesh made money from its forest resources. Its revenue was higher than its expenditure in this sector. But by 2005, the situation completely reversed. Now the state spends more than it can earn.

You might argue: so what? After all, this is merely a cost the nation is paying for ecological and water security. But the picture becomes more complex when you ask who really pays the cost for protecting our forests?

First, it is the forest-dependent states that bear the cost. They are already close to bankruptcy; loss of revenue from resources they possess cripples them further.

So, states cut vital social sector expenditures. Second, understand that it is the poorest in our country who bear the burden of conservation. Forest areas in India are enormously rich lands, but the people who live there are the poorest.

What we desperately need, therefore, are new ways of managing our forest wealth. First, we should determine which forests need to be protected, at all costs. These are regions of the country that have a high ecological value, or important water sources, or vital for species protection. These lands have to be managed for conservation only.

Second, we need to realise that this conservation will cost money. Therefore, we need to incorporate the principles of valuing forests for the tangible as well as intangible benefits these lands provide. And we must pay for these costs. We must pay to the communities who live in and around forest lands; they must be compensated for not using the resources.

In the remaining forest land what we could do is to revamp the conservation policies for forests. We need to plant trees, to also cut them. We need, quite literally, to make money on our forest wealth.

But we need to learn how to make money without destroying the forests. The truth is that vast swathes of forest land in the country lie underutilised and remain underproductive, simply because we have not learnt how to increase productivity by involving the people who use these increasingly degraded lands.

In short, we need a policy that values our forests and a policy that builds up the value of our forests. Our forests are too important to be left unused and uncared for.