Context:

India's climate discourse is undergoing a significant shift. The new framework of Green India Mission (GIM) further strengthens this concept. Now the goal is not just to increase the number of trees, but to restore the ecological balance. Scientists have warned that India's dense forests are losing their photosynthesis and carbon-absorbing capacity due to rising temperatures and dry soil. This means that if forests are the country's climate shield, this shield is now gradually weakening.

A Warning from the Scientific Community:

• • A 2025 multi-institutional study by IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bombay, and BITS Pilani sent a strong signal: dense forests across India have experienced a 12 percent decline in photosynthetic efficiency. This decline is not abstract. It directly affects how much carbon forests can absorb and how resilient they remain under rising climate stress.
  • The study attributes this drop mainly to two factors: higher temperatures and increasingly dry soil conditions. Together, they weaken the ability of forest canopies to perform photosynthesis at optimal levels. Even in areas where the canopy remains dense or where tree plantations have increased, the functioning of forests has deteriorated.
  • The study challenges an older assumption that expanding forest cover alone would guarantee a stronger carbon sink. India has added forest and tree cover steadily—from 24.16 percent in 2015 to 25.17 percent in 2023—but the capacity of these forests to act as long-term carbon sinks is slipping. The scientific message is simple: not all green cover performs equally, and ecological quality must now take priority over sheer area.

Green India Mission: Evolving from Plantation to Restoration:

• • The Green India Mission was launched in 2014 as part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change. Its original goals were to increase forest and tree cover over 5 million hectares and improve the quality of forests on another 5 million hectares. Between 2015 and 2021, plantation and related activities were carried out over 11.22 million hectares, supported by funding of about ₹575 crore across 18 states.
  • The revised roadmap broadens the scale and ambition of the Mission. India now aims to restore 25 million hectares of degraded forest and non-forest land by 2030. This is directly tied to India’s climate commitment of creating an additional carbon sink of up to 3.39 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent by the end of the decade.
  • The new plan places special emphasis on ecologically fragile and biodiversity-rich regions such as the Aravalli ranges, Western Ghats, Himalayan catchments, and mangrove belts. It encourages state-specific restoration models, integration with other government schemes, and collaboration with scientific institutions.
  • However, the blueprint recognises that achieving large-scale restoration demands more than plantation targets. It requires deeper reform in how India designs, manages, and evaluates its forest landscapes.

The Persistent Gaps: 

1. Community Participation

• • • Nearly 200 million people rely on forests for fuel, fodder, livelihoods, and cultural identity. The Forest Rights Act (2006) legally secures the rights of forest-dwelling communities to manage and protect their habitats. Yet, in many regions, plantation drives have bypassed local communities entirely ignoring their consent, customary practices, or land claims.
    • This has created distrust, legal disputes, and in some cases, active resistance. Without community participation, restoration efforts often fail to survive beyond the initial planting phase.
    • Some states have tried to correct this. Odisha’s model integrates Joint Forest Management Committees into planning and revenue-sharing, giving communities a direct stake. Chhattisgarh has experimented with planting native species that support tribal livelihoods, such as mahua, and reviving degraded village lands with biodiversity-friendly approaches.

2. Ecological Design:

• • • For decades, plantation drives favoured fast-growing monocultures like eucalyptus and acacia. While these species expand canopy cover quickly, they often drain groundwater, displace native biodiversity, and become vulnerable to heat stress and fires.
    • The revised GIM stresses the use of native, site-appropriate species. But this requires skilled ecological planning and trained field staff. India has training institutions in Uttarakhand, Coimbatore, and Byrnihat that could be mobilised to build this capacity.
    • Some states are already showing results. Tamil Nadu has nearly doubled its mangrove cover in just three years, demonstrating how site-specific restoration strengthens both carbon storage and coastal protection.

3. Financing and Fund Utilisation

• • • The financial landscape for restoration is large but underutilised. The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) holds around ₹95,000 crore, yet fund usage varies sharply across states. Delhi used only 23 percent of its approved CAMPA funds between 2019 and 2024, reflecting issues of capacity, planning, and monitoring.
    • GIM itself operates with modest allocations and depends heavily on CAMPA’s support. The challenge is not merely securing funds, but deploying them efficiently for long-term ecological outcomes rather than short-term plantation numbers.

New Tools and Innovations:

·        Himachal Pradesh has launched a biochar initiative that generates carbon credits while reducing forest fire risks.

·        Uttar Pradesh has planted over 39 crore saplings this year and is exploring ways for village councils to participate in carbon markets.

·        The Aravalli Green Wall project seeks to regenerate eight lakh hectares across 29 districts to combat desertification, creating a 5 kilometre buffer zone around the hills.

India’s Larger Land Degradation Challenge

• • India’s restoration push is also shaped by the wider problem of land degradation. Around 97.85 million hectares—nearly one-third of the country’s land—was degraded in 2018–19. Restoring degraded land is essential not only for climate commitments but also for soil health, water security, and livelihood systems.
  • Government assessments suggest that restoring open forests is among the most cost-effective ways to sequester CO₂. The Forest Survey of India estimates that improving 15 million hectares of open forests could sequester nearly 1.89 billion tonnes of CO₂.
  • India has already created an additional carbon sink of 2.29 billion tonnes CO₂ equivalent between 2005 and 2021. Meeting the 2030 target of 3.39 billion tonnes will require accelerating this trajectory through high-quality restoration.

What India Needs Next:

·        Communities must be placed at the centre of planning and monitoring so that restoration becomes socially legitimate and ecologically informed.

·        Forest departments need training and incentives to prioritise ecological productivity rather than plantation counts.

·        The central government can improve transparency by creating public dashboards that track survival rates, species composition, fund utilisation, and community participation.

·        CAMPA guidelines can be broadened to support participatory approaches, adaptive management, and long-term ecological monitoring.

·        Research institutions and civil society can help design scientifically robust and community-friendly restoration plans.

Conclusion:

India’s ambition to restore 25 million hectares by 2030 marks one of the world’s largest ecological restoration programmes. But the IIT-led study makes one fact unavoidable: the health of India’s forests is declining under climate stress, and past approaches are no longer enough. The future of India’s climate strategy depends less on how many hectares are planted and more on how deeply and intelligently they are restored. If India prioritises ecological resilience, invests in local capacity, and places communities at the heart of restoration, the Green India Mission can evolve from a policy scheme into a genuine national transformation.