-TheWire.in Unless consumer preferences shift to climate resistant crops, goals associated with the policy won’t materialize. On March 14, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) uploaded a draft of the National Forest Policy 2018, three decades years after the last such policy. The draft appears to be an attempt to shift the approach towards forestry in India – specifically, from a local community- and ecology-centric approach emphasised in the...

-Down to Earth States exploit the delay in the drafting of rules for the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act to assert rights over land claimed by communities under the Forest Rights Act More than a year after Parliament passed the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016 (CAF), the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) is yet to roll out the mandatory rules to implement it. In fact, the ministry in November...

-The Indian Express The current bill does not take into account any of the criticism voiced against an earlier version, proposed under the UPA government in 2013; it continues to ignore the Forest Rights Act. A recent controversial bill that outlines a framework for the utilisation of compensatory afforestation funds is being strongly contested and challenged by civil society actors. It raises important questions that are fundamentally connected to forests: Whose...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre is hopeful that the bill to utilize close to Rs 40,000 crore currently locked in the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) will be passed by wide consensus in the forthcoming winter session of Parliament. The funds have been lying utilized following a 2009 order of the Supreme Court and the government intends to ensure that they are accessed by states and...

-The Hindu The Compensatory Afforestation Bill has raised significant money, which must be used to restore existing forests rather than on artificial plantations On Parliament’s wooden desks, a Bill is knocking. The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill seeks to govern how forests will be raised, cut, and resurrected across India. It will be looking at how a fund of Rs. 38,000 crore, collected from cutting down forests, is to be used. Meant initially just...