Summary:
“The focus of compensatory afforestation should be to carry out habitat creation, not merely plantation drives for numbers. Most of the time, they argue, plantation takes place in an area far from where the trees have been felled. “The reason why Delhi-NCR has recently witnessed several protests to safeguard tree cover is lack of transparency while carrying out compensatory afforestation. And besides, ensuring the survival of saplings planted during afforestation drives remains a major challenge.Further, many believe compensatory afforestation — plantation at one location to compensate for loss of green cover in another — has too many flaws. “While I feel that the policy of compensatory afforestation is well-defined, there is a need to device a mechanism to give more land to the forest departments..