Environment Ministry’s plan to lease India’s degraded and ruined forests to pulp and paper companies have drawn sharp criticism from environmental activists who say that this decision will leave millions of forest dwellers and tribals homeless and without livelihood.
With insufficent funds to meet target of covering a third of India by 2012 Environment Ministry plans to invite private players especially from Pulp and Paper sector, to help grow forests.
Under the Multi-Stakeholder Partnership for Forestation, the
government is planning to invite bids for areas with a tree cover of less than 10 percent under a contract that these companies will farm trees in return of making paper pulp.
Administrators say that this project will benifit both enviornment and the industry as well as provide employment to millions of people who live off mearge forest resources but social activists are not fully convinced.
The forests do not belong to the state or industry and cannot be owned or traded.An enormous number of people live off minor forest produce and they will lose their homes and their livelihoods if the big corporates move in and get their way, said Shankar Gopalakrishnan of the Campaign for Dignity and Survival, an umbrella organisation of forest community groups.
Equal Partners ?
More than 40 million people depend on country’s resource rich forest areas making a living from activities like cattle grazing, collecting firewood and simple farming.Analyst’s say that India’s economic boom has led to an increase in number of middle class consumers who demand paper product’s like tissue paper, tea bags and filter paper, leading to suge in demand for raw materials.Supporters of the project say that with the enforcement of this scheme the paper industry will get forest land for which it had been lobbying for years and forest dwellers will get employment.
The local communities would be equal partners and contracts would be negotiated upfront and hardwired into a legal contract which would be enforceable by all sides,” said Prodipto Ghosh, India’s former environment secretary.
According to the plan hundreds of thousands of hectares of degrded forests will be leased to paper and pulp industries .While tha plan mentions protecting and safeguarding the tradiational rights and customs of local communities activists allege that language used is vague and hazy and does not provide any guarantees.
We are completely opposed to the idea,
The government says that local people will benefit, but there are cases where state-owned paper industries have done this under a similar scheme and the people have not been given jobs or not had access to land they once lived on said Monali Zeya Hazra of the Centre for Science and the Environment, a New Delhi-based think-tank.
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Via:Reuters
