Green India Mission – A Way to Enhance ECO-Systems

Kalpana Palkhiwala*

The National Mission for a Green India is one of the eight Missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change. The Green India Mission recognizes that climate change phenomena will seriously affect and alter the distribution, type and quality of natural resources of the country and the associated livelihoods of the people. GIM acknowledges the influences that the forestry sector has on environmental amelioration though climate mitigation, food security, water security, biodiversity conservation and livelihood security of forest dependent communities. The Key Innovations are the focus on quality of forests, ecosystem services, democratic decentralization, creating a new cadre of Community Youth as Foresters, Adoption of Landscape-based Approach and Reform Agenda as conditionality. Total Mission Cost is Rs 46,000 crore for a period of 10 years covering both Centre and States.

GIM puts the “greening” in the context of climate change adaptation and mitigation, meant to enhance ecosystem services like carbon sequestration and storage (in forests and other ecosystems), hydrological services and biodiversity; along with provisioning services like fuel, fodder, small timber and NTFPs. It will focus on quality of forests, ecosystem services and create a new cadre of community youth as foresters, adoption of Landscape-based Approach and Reform Agenda as conditionality.

The primary focus will be on improving density of forest cover, emphasizing on biodiversity, water and improved biomass, Carbon sequestration as co-benefit and addressing ecosystems like grasslands, wetlands, urban and peri-urban. Gram Sabha will be treated as overarching institution to facilitate implementation of the Mission activities at village level, nested as Polycentric Approach. A new cadre of community youth as foresters will build a skilled cadre of young “community foresters” from scheduled tribes and other forest dwelling communities. Interventions at scale (5000-6000 hectares) at a time, simultaneous treatment of forest and non forest areas and key drivers of degradation will be addressed under Adoption of Landscape-based Approach.

GIM’ aim is to respond to climate change by a combination of adaptation and mitigation measures, which would help to enhance carbon sinks in sustainably managed forests and other ecosystems; adaptation of vulnerable species/ecosystems to the changing climate; and forest dependant local communities in the face of climatic variability.

Mission Objectives

It plans to Increase forest/tree cover on 5 m ha of forest/non-forest lands  and improved quality of forest cover on another  5 m ha  (a  total of 10 m ha), improve ecosystem services including biodiversity, hydrological services and carbon sequestration as a result of treatment of 10 m ha, increase forest-based livelihood income for 3 million forest dependent households and  enhance annual CO2 sequestration  of 50-60 million tonnes by the year 2020

Mission Organization

The Mission will implement its strategy through a set of 5 Sub-Missions and cross-cutting interventions at National level, an autonomous society under MEF with  an inclusive governing council, the mission to develop systems for highest degree of accountability  will work. At State  and District Levels,  State Forest Development Agency (SFDA) and  District FDA linked to District Planning Committee will be revamped. Gram Sabha and its Committees will work at village Institutions level and in  Urban Areas, Ward level Committees /RWAs with support from Municipal organizations and the Forest Departments. Monitoring  will be done at  4 levels, namely self Monitoring by community and field staff, Remote Sensing and GIS, third party monitoring  by key indicators .

The actual implementation period of the Mission would spread over 10 years, coinciding with the 12^th and 13^th five year plan period. The Action Plan for the year 2011-12 is the  preparatory year of the Mission.

The Draft Green India Mission document was put on website for comments on 23rd May 2010.The draft was made available in 11 languages. 7 regional consultations were organized over a month and a half from 10th June to 15th July in Guwahati, Dehradun, Pune, Bhopal, Jaipur, Vizag and Mysore. Over 1450 people participated in the consultations and thousands of mails were received from Panchayats, community groups, academia, researchers, schools, government agencies, private sector, media and concerned citizens. The revised document was approved by the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change with certain observations.

*Deputy Director (M&C), Press Information Bureau, New Delhi.