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A few years from now, if you want to register your car in Maharashtra, the Regional Transport Office will not ask for just your insurance papers but also your Tree Credits!
A tradable certificate on the lines of carbon credits, tree credits get generated when one tonne of carbon dioxide is prevented from entering the atmosphere.
Polluting industries and sectors such as paper, saw-mills and construction, for instance, would be mandated to obtain tree credits for getting different approvals from Government.
Tree credits seek to ensure that environmental damage caused by vehicular pollution, for instance, gets compensated by planting of trees in the State. The credits further generate revenues for the farmers, helping them maintain the trees.
Minimum support price
Mr Tasneem Ahmed, Chief Conservator of Forest and Maharashtra Government's Director General of Social Forestry, told Business Line that the Forest Department will soon approach the State Government with a proposal for creating a mechanism to generate tree credits.
It will create an alternative to carbon credits and other tradable instruments such as Renewable Energy Certificates of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and Perform Achieve and Trade scheme of Bureau of Energy Efficiency
“Today, the clean energy and Carbon Credit business is dominated by the large companies. Poor farmers have no role to play but with tree credit, farmers will get money and also ensure carbon sequestration,” Mr Ahmed said.
Credits for individuals and industries would be left to market forces, but there would be a minimum support price for the credits so that farmers will get their dues if the market dips, he said.
At present, farmers cut their trees after three years, under the social forestry programme, and get six instalments of cash from the Government in this period. With tree credits, the farmer gets money only after five years, Mr Ahmed said.
Under the guidance of the Forest Department, the tree planting would be logged using satellite imagery, and monitored online.
Commenting on the development, Carbon Credit expert Mr Anmol Jaggi of Gensol Consulting said tree credit is a good scheme but enforceability is a question mark. It also needs to be seen whether the trees survive the timber mafia, he said.
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