Why many villages oppose a programme that rewards companies that plant trees

Tue, 19 May 2026 07:57:24 +0000

Hello,On paper, the idea of the green credits programme sounds reasonable. Companies can pay the government to afforest  “degraded” forest land, and earn green credits for doing so. They can then use these credits later to fulfill their own compensatory afforestation obligations when they use forest land for particular projects.But experts, and those who live in villages near these green credits sites, say that the programme is deeply flawed. Chief among the flaws is that many sites include lands that the villages have been using for years – when they are fenced off for the programme, locals lose access to them. Further, experts say, the focus on so-called degraded forests carries a risk of massively undervaluing the ecological importance of these sites."We had been tracking this policy since 2023, when it was first announced," said Vaishnavi Rathore, who visited Gujarat's Vyara tehsil to report on the programme.She noted with concern that affected villages in the area were not adequately consulted before the programme was rolled out. "Over three years, we followed the programme from paperwork to communities on the ground – which to me was the most crucial piece of the puzzle," she said. "It was disappointing to see that many people who knew the forests intimately, the species and their uses, did not even realise when and why these forests were taken away from them."You can read the story here.