Why in news?
- The Forest Advisory Committee, an apex body tasked with adjudicating requests by the industry to raze forest land for commercial ends, has approved a scheme that could allow “forests” to be traded as a commodity
More information
- It allows the Forest Department to outsource one of its responsibilities of reforesting to nongovernment agencies.
- In the current system, industry needs to make good the loss of forest by finding appropriate non- forest land equal to that which would be razed.
- It also must pay the State Forest Department the current economic equivalent called Net Present Value of the forest land .
- The proposed ‘Green Credit Scheme’ allows agencies they could be private companies, village forest communities — to identify land and begin growing plantations.
Forest advisory committee works under Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).
