December is the follow-up month at TNM where we go back to headlines of the past for a status update. In this series, we strive to bring focus back to promises made by governments, revisit official investigations that should have been completed by now and exhume issues of public interest that lost steam over time.
Telangana government’s flagship conservation programme Telangana ku Haritha Haram (Green Garland for Telangana), which began in 2015, surpassed the set target of 230 crore seedlings in 2019 and has so far planted a total of 266 crore seedlings, according to official data. The government has so far spent a whopping Rs 8,511 crore on the project. It also allocated Rs 932 crore in the last budget.
While the data suggests the success of the massive tree planting exercise, increasing the per capita tree for Telangana, which has a population of four crore, by nearly 58 trees, the government has not revealed the survival rate of the plants, raising questions about its effectiveness.
The Forest Survey Report of 2021 found an increase in the forest and tree cover in India in the last two years, and the state of Telangana was identified as one the major contributors. As per the report, forest cover in Telangana increased to 632 sq km, which the state attributes to its afforestation initiative ‘Telangana ku Haritha Haram’ . Under the programme, launched in June 2015, the government took up massive tree plantation involving several agencies, intending to increase its forest cover from the existing 24% to 33%.
This year, the government could plant only 15.628 crore seedlings, out of which 8.651 crore seedlings were planted ‘outside forests’. This includes 2.866 crore seedlings planted ‘inside forests’ by artificial rejuvenation, 8.651 crore seedlings planted outside forests, and 3.388 crore seedlings planted in areas under the jurisdiction of Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDC).
The data showed that the government had aggressively planted seedlings between 2017 and 2018 when the state received bountiful rainfall. “The green cover has increased by 7.7% in the last eight years in the state,” says Principal Chief Conservator of Forests RM Dobriyal.
While the state has achieved one of its target’s to plant 230 crore seedlings by 2019, the survival rate of these plants have not been disclosed by the government. According to an official overseeing the project, a sample survey conducted by the forest department revealed that the survival rate of seedlings planted outside the notified areas was between 50-55%, while the average survival rate of plants under the forest department is 80-90%. The planted trees have been geo-tagged and Protection Committees formed to ensure the plants survive.
A total of 171.932 crore seedlings (nearly 65%) out of the 266 crore were planted outside the notified forests department, where the survival rate was around 50%. Compared to this only 30% of seedlings were planted inside forest areas (for artificial regeneration and rejuvenation). The assessment is based on a sample survey and it is unclear the results are uniform across the state.
“The survival rate of seedlings in Gram Panchayats are high at around 80%-90% since the Sarpanches and village-level officials are being held accountable. The new amendment in the Gram Panchayat Act has ensured that the project is being taken up seriously,” says G Ramalingam, Chief Conservator of Forests.
Under the new Gram Panchayat Act, the District Collector is empowered to remove the Sarpanch or the Municipal Corporation chief, if they do not ensure a minimum 80% survival rate of plantations in their jurisdiction.
Under the Gram Panchayat Act, each village should have a functioning nursery, and the village should have a ‘Green Action Plan.’ The government claims that 12,753 Gram Panchayats have nurseries, which will grow seedlings and use them for different kinds of plantations like avenue plantation, community plantation, institutional plantation, homestead plantation etc.
A total of 53 departments like Forests, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) and government functionaries from the level of district collectors and workers of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) were involved in the programme.
Purely looking at the number of tree plantations, the project can be called a success. But ecologists and conservationists have critiqued the method of these plantations. “These afforestation programmes are merely ‘plantations.’ They do not help the forest cover or help mitigate the climate change crisis. These are monoculture plantations which impact local ecology and biodiversity,” alleges Tushar Dash, a researcher working on forest rights.
Ecologists do not consider these mass plantations as a solution to absorb carbon and have argued that these ‘ecologically illiterate’ ideas can cause devastation. “Planting trees without addressing the social drivers that caused deforestation in the first place will not mitigate climate change because those same drivers will destroy planted forests or shift ecosystem destruction elsewhere,” says Forrest Fleischman who teaches at the University of Minnesota in his research paper .
In their overzealousness to bring more areas under the programme, there have been instances of uprooting trees in the wild and replacing them with seedlings distributed under the Haritha Haram programme. Many open areas were also planted with trees in a bid to increase the green cover. Conservationists are of the view that open ecosystems like grasslands and scrublands are, in reality, not 'wastelands' as the government classifies them. "These are highly productive and valuable common lands shared by local communities to graze livestock, or to gather food and fuel. Planting trees in such commons deprives pastoral and agro-pastoral communities of vital resources. Further, open ecosystems such as grasslands and scrub are also home to a unique range of plant and animal life, which are often tolerant of—sometimes, even dependent on—human uses such as livestock grazing, but are unable to survive when these open areas are planted over with trees," says MD Madhusudan, an independent researcher.
One of the objectives of the TKHH programme is ending forest land encroachment but this has led to violent confrontations. Farmers' organisations and tribals have alleged that the programme has become an excuse for the Forest Department to harass them. Recently, a Forest Range Officer from Bhadradri Kothagudem district, Ch Srinivasa Rao, was killed by two persons from the Guttikoya community when the FRO reportedly prevented them from removing the planted seedlings.
While the Adivasis claim ownership over ‘Podu’ lands (forest land used for shift agriculture), the forest department views them as encroachers of forest land. The state government is presently carrying out surveys to identify the owners of Podu lands and give them title deeds.
Former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests PK Jha says that the state government cannot give Pattas to the forest dwellers as the subject is under the concurrent list, but it can provide them with cultivation certificates.
“The state government can possibly give cultivation certificates for those who can establish that they have been doing agriculture in forest land before 2005. There is no provision in the Act to give certification for those who have occupied forest lands after 2005,” he says.
Tushar who has been studying the conflict between the Adivasis and the forest officials in Telangana says that the conflict is arising because the government is not recognising the traditional rights of the Adivasis and other communities dependent on forests.
“Most of the forest and land used for afforestation is used by communities. These are called degraded forest land. But at ground level, people have been using them. There are clear guidelines under the Forest Rights Act which mandates the government to work with the communities. The government should first discuss with the Grama Sabha and then proceed with the afforestation. The conflict is arising because the Telangana government is not acknowledging these rights,” he says.