Context

CAMPA: the fund manager to manage proper Afforestation

About

• To promote forestry activities and boost afforestation across the nation, the central government on Thursday released a fund of Rs 47,436 crore.
• Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar handed over the CAMPA funds to various states.
• These funds are meant to be used by states to implement agro-forestry in non-forest land to compensate for felled forest.

More on the topic:

• State Governments will utilize this fund for the enhancement of forestry activities to achieve the objectives of the Nationally-Determined Contributions (NDCs). The objective of the NDCs is to increase its forest and tree cover. This will help in an additional carbon sink equivalent to 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by the year 2030.
• The top four states that received the highest CAMPA fund are Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand.
• The fund will be utilised in important activities which will include the Compensatory Afforestation, Catchment Area Treatment, Assisted Natural Regeneration, Forest Fire Prevention, Wildlife Management, and Control Operations, Soil and Moisture Conservation Works in the forest, Improvement of Wildlife Habitat, Management of Biological Diversity and Biological Resources, Research in Forestry and Monitoring of CAMPA works, etc.

CAMPA:

• The apex court of India ordered for establishment of Compensatory Afforestation Fund and Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) in 2001.
• CAMPA was established for the management of Compensatory afforestation fund. The is allocated in accordance with CAF Rules.
• The utilization of fund could be done only as per the provisions of the CAF Act and CAF Rules.
• The Act envisages
• establishing the National Compensatory Afforestation Fund and a State Compensatory Afforestation Fund for each of the states;
• receiving funds (from user agency) in national level and state level Funds for compensatory afforestation, net present value of forest and other project specific payments;
• spending the monies thus collected primarily for afforestation to compensate for loss of forest cover, regeneration of forest ecosystem, wildlife protection and infrastructure development and
• establishing the national and state level fund management authorities to manage respective Funds.