The Promise and the Politics of Rewilding India
Excerpt from this story from The New Yorker:
India, like much of the rest of the world, is in ecological tumult. Between 1880 and 2013, some forty per cent of its forest cover disappeared. It has lost a third of its wetlands in the past few decades, and a third of its grasslands in just a ten-year span. A fifth of its tree species may be threatened with extinction. Krishen’s work has emerged as a showcase for restoring biodiversity to ravaged places—a practice known as ecological restoration, or, more colloquially, “rewilding.” It is based not on industrial-scale quick-fix planting projects but on a near-fanatical attunement to the specifics of local ecosystems and the livelihoods of their people. Rewilders strive to undo some of the environmental damage inflicted over the centuries by humans—the most invasive species of all.
The United Nations, in yet another call to immediate action on the climate crisis, designated 2021-30 the “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.” But there is no consensus on exactly how to enact repairs. The only thing everyone agrees on is the value of trees. They serve as carbon sinks, provide habitats and food, reduce water pollution, and prevent erosion. Still, some twenty-five million acres of forest are destroyed every year, by clear-cutting or fire, usually to make way for mines, grazing land, crops, and tree plantations, for timber, palm oil, and other products.
Most funding thus goes to guilt-absolving projects that promise to plant billions of trees—in the Amazon, the California redwood forests, the Sahel, and many of India’s twenty-eight states. In January, 2020, the World Economic Forum announced an initiative to plant a trillion trees. Bank of America, Mastercard, Microsoft, and the National Forest Foundation, among others, declared their support. Conservation International and MyTrees, which plan to help restore seventy-three million trees in Brazil, urge, “save trees, win prizes: Get rewarded for helping the planet every month!” The media, looking for feel-good stories, has routinely broadcast such measures. A National Geographic headline announced, “India Plants 50 Million Trees in One Day, Smashing World Record.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi relishes such headlines. Developing nations like India are in an especially painful bind: coping with cascading environmental catastrophes while pursuing rapid industrial growth. Modi claims to have found a way to do both. At the U.N.’s 2019 climate summit, he pledged to restore sixty-four million acres of degraded land by 2030. He also oversees one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. India will soon overtake China as the most populous nation, with more than 1.4 billion people. Although it contributes only seven per cent of global CO 2 emissions, it is the third-largest polluter, after China and the U.S. At present, seventy per cent of its electricity comes from coal. The government recently predicted that India’s demand for electricity would double in the next decade.