A major change the bill proposed was to exempt private and deemed forests from the ambit of the FC Act. It says that tree plantations or reforestation on lands not recorded as forests in government records will not be covered under the Act. But what are these forests?

The exemption is for forests grown on private lands and for deemed forests that are essentially government lands and have tree cover that falls under the dictionary meaning of forest.

What does it mean?

That the diversion of these forests for setting up industries will no longer require a forest clearance certification, a process already in place.

At the outset, the Ministry wants to circumvent the directions of a 1996 Supreme Court order — in the landmark TN Godavarman Thirumulpad vs Union of India case — where the court observed that private forests and deemed forests must come under the purview of the FC Act.

Now, with the proposed change, it will be much easier for private forest developers and state governments to chop trees from such forests. However, this is not the first time that the Ministry has eased the clearing of forests for projects.

In June last year, the Ministry notified Forest (Conservation) Rules, 2022, by tweaking the previous rules. The rules relaxed some conditions for forest clearance certification and compensatory afforestation obligations for public and private entities seeking forest lands.

In an analysis of the new rules in @frontline_india, our researcher @prudhvirr revealed how the ministry allowed the exchange of private and deemed forests for compensatory afforestation at reduced costs.

Read the complete article here.

The new rules also introduced a land bank scheme termed Accredited Compensatory Afforestation (ACA) lands. In this scheme, private and deemed forests can be considered ACA lands which can be swapped for compensatory afforestation.

Under the previous rules, if compensatory afforestation was planned in private and deemed forests, companies were mandated to plant trees on twice the area of actual forest cleared. But now ACAs with areas equal to the cleared forest would be enough.

The bill is embroiled in controversy now. It was referred to a joint committee in the parliament and is being contested by the opposition parties. In a letter to the vice president, @Jairam_Ramesh
, Congress MP and former Environment minister registered his opposition.

By sending the bill to the committee, Ramesh who chairs the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science & Technology, Environment, Forests & Climate Change claims that the government is bypassing the existing standing committee to avoid a detailed examination of the bill.