Afforestation, restoration and conservation outside protected areas

Prelims and Mains

An OECM is the name for land that lies outside the formal protected area network and still conserves biodiversity in situ over the long term, which is how conservation is counted once it stops at no boundary.

• An OECM counts whoever owns the land, which is what separates it from a notified protected area.
• OECMs count towards Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which is the 30x30 pledge.

Prelims and Mains

The Mission was written to improve the forest that already stands as much as to add new cover, and the auditor measured it against both.

• It targets 1.4 million hectares of improved forest quality, and as much again in added cover.
• It runs on public money and is meant to converge with CAMPA and the rural employment scheme.
• The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audited it in 16 States and Union Territories from 2015-16 to 2024-25 and found it far behind its own targets.
• Forest quality improved over 0.11 million hectares and forest cover rose over 0.03 million hectares in that decade.
• Weak convergence with CAMPA and the rural employment scheme, thin funding and poor monitoring are blamed.

Prelims and Mains

The other way of paying for planting is to price it: land restored to a set standard earns a credit, and the credit discharges somebody's obligation to plant.

• The programme was notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 on 12 October 2023, and is run by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE).
• Its plantation method was notified on 22 February 2024 and revised on 29 August 2025.
• State forest departments register the degraded parcels restored, and that registry and the credits earned on it sit on a public dashboard.
• A credit follows five years of restoration and a canopy density of at least 40 per cent, the line at which forest stops counting as open and counts as moderately dense.
• A credit is usable once, against compensatory afforestation, a statutory plantation requirement or a corporate social responsibility (CSR) obligation.

Prelims and Mains

The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority holds and releases the money paid by users of diverted forest land, under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016.

Mains

A sponge city holds rain where it falls, through wetlands, parks, permeable paving and retention ponds, instead of piping it away through drains that fail in a heavy spell.