The priority order in NFP 1988 (Environment > Community > Tribal > Industry) represented a complete reversal from the British-era 1894 policy and even the 1952 policy, both of which treated forests primarily as revenue/timber sources. The 1988 reversal was driven by a simple ecological insight: India’s forests had been severely depleted because industrial and revenue interests always took precedence. Rivers were drying up. Soil erosion was catastrophic. The policy was saying: forests are first and foremost ecological infrastructure. Their role in maintaining water cycles, preventing floods, sequestering carbon, and supporting biodiversity is more valuable than any timber they can produce. The Draft 2018 policy’s emphasis on “production forestry” worries environmentalists because it risks walking back this philosophy — treating forests again as a resource to be exploited rather than an ecosystem to be maintained.

Compensatory afforestation rests on a flawed equivalence: the assumption that a new plantation can replace an old forest. Critics call this greenwashing because: (1) Ecosystem irreplaceability: A 100-year-old forest has soil, mycorrhizal networks, wildlife corridors, genetic diversity, and hydrological functions that a monoculture plantation of 5-year-old eucalyptus trees cannot replicate. (2) Monoculture problem: Companies typically plant single species (teak, eucalyptus, poplar) for commercial value. These have low biodiversity and don’t restore ecological functions. (3) Location mismatch: The new plantation is often in a completely different geographic and ecological zone from the cleared forest — a Western Ghats evergreen forest cleared for a mine is “compensated” by planting teak in Rajasthan. (4) Timeline: No legal deadline for when the compensatory plantation must be established — projects can clear forests immediately while replacement happens slowly or not at all. (5) Legitimisation: By providing a “legal” mechanism to clear forests, CAMPA has arguably made it easier to approve large infrastructure projects through ecologically sensitive areas — legitimising what would otherwise be resisted as pure deforestation.

Before 2017, bamboo was classified as a “tree” under the Indian Forest Act 1927 — even when grown outside forests on private land. This meant a farmer who planted bamboo in her own field needed government permission to harvest it. In practice this was: (1) Bureaucratically impossible for small farmers; (2) Often led to corruption (needing bribes for permits); (3) Made bamboo cultivation economically unviable since you couldn’t monetise what you grew. The result: India, which has the world’s richest bamboo diversity (136 species), was importing bamboo products from China. The 2017 amendment to the Indian Forest Act 1927 removed bamboo grown outside forests from the definition of “tree” — farmers can now grow, harvest, transport, and sell bamboo freely on their own land. Combined with the Restructured NBM (2018-19) which provides subsidies and market linkages, this has been transformative for bamboo as an agricultural crop. India has also begun promoting bamboo as a steel substitute in construction, as an eco-friendly packaging material, and as a component in the textile industry. ISFR 2023 shows bamboo area growing by 5,227 sq km — partly attributed to this policy change.