Planting Saplings, Killing Forests: India's Great Environmental Hypocrisy

On World Environment Day, India plants millions of saplings for the camera. Politicians pose with shovels, celebrities post messages about saving the planet, government departments launch plantation drives, and social media fills with photographs of tiny green shoots symbolizing hope.Then the cameras leave.

The next day, chainsaws and bulldozers return to forests.

Ancient trees are felled for coal mines, highways, railways, transmission lines, industrial corridors, and urban expansion. Forests that have evolved over centuries disappear in months, while newly planted saplings are showcased as proof of environmental commitment.

Few contradictions define India's environmental policy more starkly than this .

As the country grapples with record-breaking heatwaves, worsening water scarcity, biodiversity decline, and increasingly erratic weather patterns, this contradiction is no longer merely ironic. It is dangerous.

India does not suffer from a shortage of plantation drives.

It suffers from a shortage of political courage to protect existing forests.

The numbers reveal the scale of the problem. Government data presented in Parliament shows that more than 1.73 lakh hectares of forest land were diverted for non-forest purposes between 2014 and 2024. Mining alone accounted for over 40,000 hectares, making it the single largest driver of forest diversion. More than 99,000 hectares were diverted in just the last five years.

Behind these statistics lie some of India's most ecologically valuable landscapes.

In Hasdeo Arand in Chhattisgarh, one of central India's largest contiguous forest ecosystems, coal mining projects continue to threaten dense forests that support elephants, rich biodiversity, and thousands of Adivasi families. Despite years of local resistance, mining expansion remains an ongoing concern.

In the Great Nicobar Island, environmentalists have raised alarms over a mega infrastructure project involving a port, airport, township, and power facilities in one of India's most fragile island ecosystems.

Across parts of Odisha, mining activities continue to exert pressure on forests that are both biodiversity-rich and critical for local communities.

These are not isolated examples.

They reflect a development model that often treats forests as expendable assets rather than irreplaceable natural infrastructure.

To justify such losses, India relies heavily on a mechanism called compensatory afforestation.

The principle appears straightforward. If a forest is cleared for development, trees will be planted elsewhere to compensate for the damage. This idea forms the basis of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA ), which collects money from project developers to offset forest diversion.

On paper, it sounds sensible.

In practice, it rests on a deeply flawed assumption: that a natural forest can be replaced by planting new trees.

Science tells us otherwise.

A forest is not simply a collection of trees. It is a complex ecological system built over centuries. It contains wildlife, pollinators, fungi, microorganisms, medicinal plants, soil networks, water systems, and intricate biological relationships that cannot be recreated through plantation drives.

When a mature forest is destroyed, an entire ecological civilization disappears.

Planting saplings elsewhere does not bring it back.

Yet many compensatory plantations consist of monocultures or plantation-style forestry. Rows of eucalyptus or other commercially useful species may increase tree counts on government records, but they do little to restore biodiversity, wildlife habitat, groundwater recharge, or ecological resilience.

A forest is a living ecosystem.

A plantation is often little more than a tree farm.

The second problem is implementation.

Over the years, audit reports have repeatedly highlighted delayed plantations, poor monitoring, inadequate maintenance, missing records, and low survival rates of saplings. What appears green on paper often looks very different on the ground.

Success is frequently measured by the number of saplings planted rather than the health of ecosystems restored.

Environmental accounting replaces ecological accountability.

The most disturbing example emerged from Uttarakhand.

A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General found that approximately ₹13.86 crore of CAMPA funds had been spent on items and activities unrelated to afforestation, including iPhones, laptops, refrigerators, office renovations, litigation expenses, and VIP-related expenditures.The implications are staggering.Money collected because forests were destroyed was not fully used to restore forests.It was used to purchase gadgets and administrative comforts.If afforestation funds can be diverted so casually, the credibility of the entire compensatory afforestation framework comes into question.

The deeper problem, however, is philosophical

India's environmental governance increasingly sends a troubling message: destroy first, compensate later.But nature does not function according to accounting principles.

A 300-year-old forest cannot be recreated through a plantation drive.

An elephant corridor cannot be replaced by a spreadsheet.A watershed cannot be restored through paperwork. A biodiversity hotspot cannot be compensated by planting saplings hundreds of kilometres away.

CAMPA was never intended to become a licence for forest destruction. Yet increasingly it risks functioning as an ecological balancing sheet where ancient ecosystems are converted into monetary liabilities and then written off through plantation targets.

That is not conservation.

It is environmental bookkeeping. This debate is often framed as a choice between development and conservation. That framing is outdated.Forests are not obstacles to development.

Forests are developing.

They are India's natural air-conditioners during heatwaves, natural reservoirs during droughts, natural flood-control systems during extreme rainfall, and natural carbon sinks in a warming world.

Every hectare of natural forest lost weakens the country's climate resilience.

The true cost of forest destruction rarely appears in project reports. Society pays that bill later through floods, droughts, water shortages, crop losses, and climate disasters.

The first principle of environmental policy should therefore be simple: protect existing forests before talking about planting new ones.

Dense natural forests, wildlife corridors, biodiversity hotspots, and tribal forest landscapes should receive the highest level of protection. CAMPA funds must be fully transparent, independently audited, and monitored through satellite verification. Local communities and Gram Sabhas should play a central role in oversight. Most importantly, restoration efforts should prioritize native species and natural regeneration rather than monoculture plantations designed to inflate statistics.

This World Environment Day, India must move beyond photo opportunities.

Planting trees is important.Protecting forests is indispensable.

A sapling planted today may take decades to mature. A natural forest cut today is lost instantly.

The greenest tree is not necessarily the one planted for a photograph.

It is the one that was never cut down.

The real environmental pledge for June 5 should be simple and uncompromising:

Protect forests first. Plant trees second. And hold CAMPA accountable for every rupee, every sapling, and every hectare lost.