Van Mahotsav 2025: Tree Planting or Ecological Farce?
This month, as every July, the country is ploughed to plant millions of tree saplings. This year, 1.46 billion saplings will be planted in a week, including seven million saplings in Delhi and 350 million in Uttar Pradesh. This is part of the Van Mahotsav (forest festival), which aims to increase green cover, counter deforestation and create environmental consciousness. This looks like a commendable task on paper: who doesn’t want more trees? They are, after all, valuable to urban biodiversity, sequester carbon and improve the quality of human life.
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But mass planting of trees raises some critical questions: Are the species being planted suitable for a particular landscape? Will they alter or destroy ecosystems termed “wastelands”, such as grasslands and deserts? Are local people adequately involved in decision-making? How does the planting of new trees make up for the loss of 16 per cent of its forest cover over the last decade? What percentage of saplings survive? Is there a contradiction between Van Mahotsav’s afforestation goals and ongoing deforestation driven by infrastructure projects, mining and agricultural expansion?
Old better than new
Deforestation cannot be countered by planting new trees, says Abi Vanak, director of the Centre for Policy Design at ATREE, Bengaluru. “Several studies have shown that old-growth forest ecosystems are far more diverse, more resilient and sequester far higher rates of carbon than new plantations.” The focus should first be on preventing the loss of existing forests and other ecosystems rather than trying to “compensate” for their loss by planting trees elsewhere, he adds. “Forests cannot be grown over a few years. They take decades or even centuries to reach their full functional capacity. Further, many studies have shown that natural regeneration or assisted natural regeneration is far better for restoring ecosystems than simply planting saplings.”
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Pradip Krishen, filmmaker, environmentalist and author of Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide, concurs: “Van Mahotsav needs to acquire a strong focus on ecological restoration on a national scale if it hopes to achieve any kind of substantive repair of the damage that is happening to our natural environment.” Sadly, ecological restoration is not even something that forest service probationers are taught during training, he adds. “There are severe shortcomings in the way compensatory afforestation is done in India, and until we learn to restore damaged environments meaningfully, all of it is merely naam-ke-vaaste (for the sake of the name).”
Also Read | Tree-planting campaigns: Why do they fail and what can we change?
Krishen cites Delhi as an example: “Delhi has at least four different kinds of ecology. A tree that might be expected to prosper in the Yamuna khadar will not survive on the rocky, thin-soiled Ridge. None of this gets factored into where trees are planted or what species are planted. And so, quite frankly, very little of the seven million trees are likely to survive.”
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A jamun or arjun tree, for example, grows alongside streams or where subsoil water lies not too deep, Krishen explains. “But a jamun or arjun will not grow on the Ridge. Still, it gets planted. It’s not rocket science, so it’s baffling why this kind of mistake keeps getting made.”
The Delhi government needs to ask some serious questions about what needs to be done if it really wants to make Delhi greener than it is, says Krishen. Planting millions of trees is not the answer. It needs to begin with raising huge nurseries of appropriate native tree species and mapping the land to be planted so that it gains an accurate idea of what to plant where. “As things stand, the agencies that do the planting such as the Forest Department are not trained or any good at this. Under the circumstances, the exercise will end up being like posturing because there will be very poor survival rates.”
Killing ONEs
Probably the most crucial aspect of any tree-planting or revegetation programme is the transformation of natural ecosystems where trees do not exist, says Abi Vanak: open natural ecosystems such as deserts, savannas, grasslands and scrublands.
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The survival rates of millions of saplings planted every year? It’s a “dismal picture”.
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement
“There seems to be a huge lack of clarity on the purpose of tree planting. Several international organisations have now adopted the slogan: ‘Right tree, right place, right reason and right season’,” says Vanak. “In many cases, trees may not be the solution to revegetation or restoration. We need to ditch the idea of ‘afforestation’ and instead adopt the principle of ecosystem restoration, which first needs to recognise the basal state of the ecosystem.”
Adivasis lose their forest rights
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The communities most affected by large-scale deforestation or loss of habitats are Adivasi or other forest-dwelling communities and pastoralist communities, says Vanak. “It is they who have the greatest stake in regenerating and restoring native habitats, and thus need to be empowered through the Forest Rights Act (FRA) to manage forests and grasslands under their community forest rights.” He gives the example of Odisha, where, ironically, local communities were prevented from accessing forests due to a plantation drive undertaken there.
C.R. Bijoy, researcher and activist and an expert on the FRA, asks how communities perceive Van Mahotsav: “First, it has nothing to do with van or mahotsav, which in many ways is integral to their rituals, festivals, traditions including around sacred places and sacred groves.” Second, he says, it is a State-sponsored tree plantation event ritualistically carried out mostly in select urban and rural areas keeping in mind visibility by involving institutions such as schools, government departments and banks in a target to fulfil the allotted targets. “But these do not have public participation by design: the public being the subject of decision-making, planning and execution. The public are but objects for receiving saplings.”
The programme “has never been inclusive”, says Bijoy. “It is a misnomer to call it a campaign considering it is falsely dubbed as afforestation and under the garb that tree plantation is environmentally sound, the more the better.”
Do saplings survive?
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What are the survival rates of these millions of saplings planted every year? Vanak says it’s a “dismal picture”. Even though a billion saplings may be planted, the survival rates tend to be so low that they are ineffective in meeting their objectives. A recent CAG report showed that in Uttar Pradesh, despite planting a staggering 101.35 crore saplings, satellite data showed an actual decrease in forest cover by approximately 100 sq km between 2017-2021. In Uttarakhand, they found only 33.5 per cent survival rate. In Odisha, 191 of 485 plantations failed.
Vice-Chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University Col. N.S. Santhosh Kumar taking class in the Miyawaki forest.
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement
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Krishen’s experience in Delhi confirms this: “Based on our relatively recent understanding of what works and what doesn’t, every single one of the eight or nine species of trees planted on the Central Ridge in the period from 1915-1924 died as soon as irrigation was withdrawn,” he says. “None of these species was adapted to surviving on thin, rocky soils. You just cannot go on looking after a tree with irrigation and nutrients on a large scale. The only practice that is likely to succeed is to plant appropriate species that are precisely matched to the natural ecology. This is a lesson that Delhi’s Forest Department has still not understood. Hopefully, it will do so soon.”
As for Delhi’s plan to develop Miyawaki forests across 20 acres, Krishen says it is a “terrible idea, more like dense hedges that are not just unsightly but hideously expensive. I am strongly opposed to it. I have seen several Miyawaki forests and they are unaesthetic and inappropriate.”
Vanak adds: “Miyawaki is an entirely alien concept to India, and should be fully shunned. Many restoration practitioners have heavily criticised this method, mainly due to the very high water use of this method.” In a country like India, which is mostly semi-arid, you cannot grow a rainforest everywhere, he adds. “Instead, trees that are suited to the local ecology need to be prioritised, and at densities that mimic natural systems. Not just trees, the focus now should shift to creating functional communities of plants, including herbs, grasses, shrubs and other biota.”
Festival vs global climate change
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Where does Van Mahotsav stand in the global context of climate change and India’s environmental commitments, such as its Paris Agreement targets?
Krishen is sceptical about India’s ability or even its desire to meet its environmental commitments. “I feel Van Mahotsav could play a really important role only if the government and the Ministry of Environment is willing to honestly confront the problems and shortcomings and then actively strive to remedy them.”
Redemption?
Can Van Mahotsav be redeemed? Can it evolve from a symbolic tradition into a transformative movement, with accountability and scientific rigour?
Also Read | Greenlight for destruction: Controversial forest Act opens door to unfettered deforestation
Bijoy believes it is not a remotely sensible vision. It is naive and deceptive, he says. “The transformation is possible only when the land and natural resources come squarely under the control of communities at the local level so that they, hitherto excluded people, can come together to take responsibility for ecologically sustainable management plans, and not be confined to the false narrative of trees. This will also mean the transfer of power from the colonial administration to the communities and institutions of democracy at the local level with the administration subordinate to and under the control of these institutions of democracy. In other words, political autonomy at the community level.”
Krishen has a more optimistic view about a redemption of Van Mahotsav: “Potentially, yes, definitely. But it needs genuine introspection and an ability to galvanise an apathetic forest department into learning all about ecological restoration.” Vanak says, “while the idea of a Van Mahotsav is good, he says, it needs to be sustained throughout the year and for years to come, rather than be made into a symbolic box-ticking activity”.
Advertising
This month, as every July, the country is ploughed to plant millions of tree saplings. This year, 1.46 billion saplings will be planted in a week, including seven million saplings in Delhi and 350 million in Uttar Pradesh. This is part of the Van Mahotsav (forest festival), which aims to increase green cover, counter deforestation and create environmental consciousness. This looks like a commendable task on paper: who doesn’t want more trees? They are, after all, valuable to urban biodiversity, sequester carbon and improve the quality of human life.
But mass planting of trees raises some critical questions: Are the species being planted suitable for a particular landscape? Will they alter or destroy ecosystems termed “wastelands”, such as grasslands and deserts? Are local people adequately involved in decision-making? How does the planting of new trees make up for the loss of 16 per cent of its forest cover over the last decade? What percentage of saplings survive? Is there a contradiction between Van Mahotsav’s afforestation goals and ongoing deforestation driven by infrastructure projects, mining and agricultural expansion?
Old better than new
Deforestation cannot be countered by planting new trees, says Abi Vanak, director of the Centre for Policy Design at ATREE, Bengaluru. “Several studies have shown that old-growth forest ecosystems are far more diverse, more resilient and sequester far higher rates of carbon than new plantations.” The focus should first be on preventing the loss of existing forests and other ecosystems rather than trying to “compensate” for their loss by planting trees elsewhere, he adds. “Forests cannot be grown over a few years. They take decades or even centuries to reach their full functional capacity. Further, many studies have shown that natural regeneration or assisted natural regeneration is far better for restoring ecosystems than simply planting saplings.”
Pradip Krishen, filmmaker, environmentalist and author of Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide, concurs: “Van Mahotsav needs to acquire a strong focus on ecological restoration on a national scale if it hopes to achieve any kind of substantive repair of the damage that is happening to our natural environment.” Sadly, ecological restoration is not even something that forest service probationers are taught during training, he adds. “There are severe shortcomings in the way compensatory afforestation is done in India, and until we learn to restore damaged environments meaningfully, all of it is merely naam-ke-vaaste (for the sake of the name).”
Also Read | Tree-planting campaigns: Why do they fail and what can we change?
Krishen cites Delhi as an example: “Delhi has at least four different kinds of ecology. A tree that might be expected to prosper in the Yamuna khadar will not survive on the rocky, thin-soiled Ridge. None of this gets factored into where trees are planted or what species are planted. And so, quite frankly, very little of the seven million trees are likely to survive.”
A jamun or arjun tree, for example, grows alongside streams or where subsoil water lies not too deep, Krishen explains. “But a jamun or arjun will not grow on the Ridge. Still, it gets planted. It’s not rocket science, so it’s baffling why this kind of mistake keeps getting made.”
The Delhi government needs to ask some serious questions about what needs to be done if it really wants to make Delhi greener than it is, says Krishen. Planting millions of trees is not the answer. It needs to begin with raising huge nurseries of appropriate native tree species and mapping the land to be planted so that it gains an accurate idea of what to plant where. “As things stand, the agencies that do the planting such as the Forest Department are not trained or any good at this. Under the circumstances, the exercise will end up being like posturing because there will be very poor survival rates.”
Killing ONEs
Probably the most crucial aspect of any tree-planting or revegetation programme is the transformation of natural ecosystems where trees do not exist, says Abi Vanak: open natural ecosystems such as deserts, savannas, grasslands and scrublands.
The survival rates of millions of saplings planted every year? It’s a “dismal picture”.
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement
“There seems to be a huge lack of clarity on the purpose of tree planting. Several international organisations have now adopted the slogan: ‘Right tree, right place, right reason and right season’,” says Vanak. “In many cases, trees may not be the solution to revegetation or restoration. We need to ditch the idea of ‘afforestation’ and instead adopt the principle of ecosystem restoration, which first needs to recognise the basal state of the ecosystem.”
Adivasis lose their forest rights
The communities most affected by large-scale deforestation or loss of habitats are Adivasi or other forest-dwelling communities and pastoralist communities, says Vanak. “It is they who have the greatest stake in regenerating and restoring native habitats, and thus need to be empowered through the Forest Rights Act (FRA) to manage forests and grasslands under their community forest rights.” He gives the example of Odisha, where, ironically, local communities were prevented from accessing forests due to a plantation drive undertaken there.
C.R. Bijoy, researcher and activist and an expert on the FRA, asks how communities perceive Van Mahotsav: “First, it has nothing to do with van or mahotsav, which in many ways is integral to their rituals, festivals, traditions including around sacred places and sacred groves.” Second, he says, it is a State-sponsored tree plantation event ritualistically carried out mostly in select urban and rural areas keeping in mind visibility by involving institutions such as schools, government departments and banks in a target to fulfil the allotted targets. “But these do not have public participation by design: the public being the subject of decision-making, planning and execution. The public are but objects for receiving saplings.”
The programme “has never been inclusive”, says Bijoy. “It is a misnomer to call it a campaign considering it is falsely dubbed as afforestation and under the garb that tree plantation is environmentally sound, the more the better.”
Do saplings survive?
What are the survival rates of these millions of saplings planted every year? Vanak says it’s a “dismal picture”. Even though a billion saplings may be planted, the survival rates tend to be so low that they are ineffective in meeting their objectives. A recent CAG report showed that in Uttar Pradesh, despite planting a staggering 101.35 crore saplings, satellite data showed an actual decrease in forest cover by approximately 100 sq km between 2017-2021. In Uttarakhand, they found only 33.5 per cent survival rate. In Odisha, 191 of 485 plantations failed.
Vice-Chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University Col. N.S. Santhosh Kumar taking class in the Miyawaki forest.
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement
Krishen’s experience in Delhi confirms this: “Based on our relatively recent understanding of what works and what doesn’t, every single one of the eight or nine species of trees planted on the Central Ridge in the period from 1915-1924 died as soon as irrigation was withdrawn,” he says. “None of these species was adapted to surviving on thin, rocky soils. You just cannot go on looking after a tree with irrigation and nutrients on a large scale. The only practice that is likely to succeed is to plant appropriate species that are precisely matched to the natural ecology. This is a lesson that Delhi’s Forest Department has still not understood. Hopefully, it will do so soon.”
As for Delhi’s plan to develop Miyawaki forests across 20 acres, Krishen says it is a “terrible idea, more like dense hedges that are not just unsightly but hideously expensive. I am strongly opposed to it. I have seen several Miyawaki forests and they are unaesthetic and inappropriate.”
Vanak adds: “Miyawaki is an entirely alien concept to India, and should be fully shunned. Many restoration practitioners have heavily criticised this method, mainly due to the very high water use of this method.” In a country like India, which is mostly semi-arid, you cannot grow a rainforest everywhere, he adds. “Instead, trees that are suited to the local ecology need to be prioritised, and at densities that mimic natural systems. Not just trees, the focus now should shift to creating functional communities of plants, including herbs, grasses, shrubs and other biota.”
Festival vs global climate change
Where does Van Mahotsav stand in the global context of climate change and India’s environmental commitments, such as its Paris Agreement targets?
Krishen is sceptical about India’s ability or even its desire to meet its environmental commitments. “I feel Van Mahotsav could play a really important role only if the government and the Ministry of Environment is willing to honestly confront the problems and shortcomings and then actively strive to remedy them.”
Redemption?
Can Van Mahotsav be redeemed? Can it evolve from a symbolic tradition into a transformative movement, with accountability and scientific rigour?
Also Read | Greenlight for destruction: Controversial forest Act opens door to unfettered deforestation
Bijoy believes it is not a remotely sensible vision. It is naive and deceptive, he says. “The transformation is possible only when the land and natural resources come squarely under the control of communities at the local level so that they, hitherto excluded people, can come together to take responsibility for ecologically sustainable management plans, and not be confined to the false narrative of trees. This will also mean the transfer of power from the colonial administration to the communities and institutions of democracy at the local level with the administration subordinate to and under the control of these institutions of democracy. In other words, political autonomy at the community level.”
Krishen has a more optimistic view about a redemption of Van Mahotsav: “Potentially, yes, definitely. But it needs genuine introspection and an ability to galvanise an apathetic forest department into learning all about ecological restoration.” Vanak says, “while the idea of a Van Mahotsav is good, he says, it needs to be sustained throughout the year and for years to come, rather than be made into a symbolic box-ticking activity”.
