The Union Environment Ministry, which oversees the Green Credit Programme (GCP) and addresses concerns that it might encourage tree planting for financial gain, has clarified that ecosystem restoration must take precedence over tree planting. The GCP encourages organizations and individuals to invest in afforestation projects in “degraded” forest lands for “green credits.”
Thirteen states’ forest agencies have made 387 property parcels totaling about 10,983 hectares of degraded forest land available. The Environment Ministry’s independent Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) accepts applications from people and businesses seeking funding to “restore” these forests. State forest agencies will be in charge of the actual afforestation. After two years of planting and an assessment by the ICFRE, each of these planted trees may be eligible for one “green credit.” The funding group may claim these credits and utilize them in one of two ways: either to comply with current forest rules, which mandate that entities that divert forest land for non-forestry uses make up for it by donating an equivalent quantity of land elsewhere. could be used to fulfill corporate social responsibility obligations or to report under environmental, social, and governance leadership standards.
According to a senior Environment Ministry official, these credits were not tradeable at the time of writing. Nonetheless, the program’s stated goals are to “…incentivize environmental positive actions through market-based mechanism and generate green credit, which shall be tradable and made available for trading on a domestic market platform,” according to the GCP’s notified rules, which were first outlined in October 2023. It goes on to say that carbon credits might also be obtained if producing green credits resulted in a quantifiable decrease in or elimination of carbon emissions. Currently, several different separate marketplaces are used to exchange carbon credits.
Let the States tackle it :
States must use the criteria provided by the Environment Ministry in its most recent update, which was released on April 12, to determine the cost of restoring a damaged forest area. The previous criterion that a reforested landscape must have at least 1,100 trees per hectare has been modified by the Ministry, and States are now free to choose exactly how many trees are needed. Some degraded woods are not suitable for that level of density. Thus, Nameeta Prasad, Joint Secretary in the Environment Ministry, told The Hindu that shrubs, herbs, and grasses may be appropriate in some areas for repairing the environment. Native species will be prioritised, and seedlings that develop organically would be kept.
According to Ms. Prasad, public sector businesses that have registered to participate in the scheme thus far include Indian Oil, Power Grid Corporation, National Thermal Power Corporation, Oil India, Coal India, and National Hydropower Corporation. These businesses’ applications are now being reviewed.
She said that the scheme was still in its “pilot project” phase and that issues like how to quantify grasses and shrubs in terms of green credits were still being worked on. Furthermore, businesses may only use a fraction of the green credits available to them to offset their portion of the duties under compensatory afforestation. The equivalency of carbon credits and green credits, she continued, “were still being worked out.”
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