‘Green bonus’ likely for States to protect forest cover

The State governments may soon be entitled to a “green bonus” for protecting and expanding their forest cover.

“We are looking at evolving a new mechanism to reward states for maintaining the forest cover and also provide incentives to expand it,” said Mr Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest.

The MoEF has suggested that along with Central grants through the Planning Commission or Finance Commission, the States should be given additional “green bonus” for protecting and expanding forest cover. It is the responsibility of the State governments to protect forests, which act as carbon sinks sequestrating green house gases. “We need greater sensitivity by the State government on this issue,” Mr Ramesh said.

A recent survey showed that 21 per cent of India’s geographical area was under forest cover. Two per cent of the area had high density forest cover, while 10 per cent had medium density and the remaining nine per cent was degraded forest.

Protecting forest cover is important and that the country cannot afford to lose it, especially the ecological hotspots such as the Western Ghats, North East, Himalayan ranges among others. States such as Karnataka, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh that have large areas of forest cover were making valuable contribution to the national eco-system, Mr Ramesh said.

Further, Mr Ramesh said that there was a need to monitor continuously as to how much of greenhouse gases have been absorbed by the forest cover. ISRO has started monitoring the absorption of greenhouse gases and would expand the network of stations in different parts of the country.

Preliminary estimates by MoEF suggest that about 10 per cent of the country’s annual green house gases were absorbed by the forest cover. “There is a need to measure and monitor on a continuous basis,” Mr Ramesh added

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