Restoration of ecosystem: Have tree planting efforts borne fruit?

In a recent article, the author and journalist Manu Joseph used the term “Low-stakes niceness” to describe the act of feeding animals that most Indians indulge in. In 2017, the Tamil Nadu government planted 68 lakh tree saplings across the State to mark the then Chief Minister Jayalalitha’s 68th birthday. A recent long-term study from Himachal Pradesh showed that more than half of the expenditure in plantation activities was wasted, either due to failure of plantations, or through planting trees in the wrong places. It thus follows that some of the biggest programmes run by the Indian government, including the Compensatory Afforestation programme, that promotes afforestation and regeneration activities as a way of compensating for forest land diverted to non-forest uses, may not be the most effective nature climate solution. Plantation targets set by governments and supported by the civil society at large thus have two major issues – lack of understanding of natural habitats and designing context specific interventions, and lack of monitoring/ evaluation of the interventions in terms of biodiversity conservation, water tables and well-being of local communities.