The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) will soon recommend three-tier plantation for ecological restoration in coal mine areas, the model which Coal India (CIL) subsidiary Bharat Coking Coal (BCCL) has already adopted to give forest cover to exhausted mines.
Three-tier plantation involves planting grass, shrubs and trees on a closed mine, through which an actual forest can be made over a period of 10 years. CIL and its subsidiaries as a matter of general practice only plant trees to restore forests, which they clean up for mining.
“Successful implementation of the three-tier plantation scheme would enable the MoEF to relax its norms of environment and forest clearance since there would be a guarantee of restoring an actual or even better forest cover after a coal mine is abandoned,” BCCL chairman-MD TK Lahiri said.
MoEF has classified unfragmented forest landscapes having gross forest cover of more than 30% and weighted forest cover of more than 10% as ‘No Go’ area. Fragmented forest landscapes having gross forest cover of less than 30% and weighted forest cover of less than 10% have been categorised as ‘Go’ area.
The coal ministry is of the view the MoEF should consider all coal blocks without reference to ‘Go’ and ‘No Go’ but the MoEF stipulations want to make clear that though ‘Go-No-Go’ has an indicative value, it wants to prioritise coal mining causing least possible damage to forests and wildlife. So, the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 needs to be taken into account while granting approvals for coal minim.
An MoEF official said the government is stuck between the need for making available more coal bearing areas for enhanced coal mining and the need to protect the Forest (Conversation) Act 1980. So a three-tier forest cover may be a solution to this problem because under the mechanism, an actual forest can be created in 10 years if an existing forest is cleared for coal mining.
BCCL has implemented two projects in Tetlmari and Damuda ghutway on pilot basis, where it has developed 15 hectares as a model forest.
Dr Raju EVR, BCCL’s deputy general manager, environment, said BCCL took the initiative of creating an actual forest in 2011 and engaged Delhi University’s ex vice chancellor CR Babu and Dehradun’s Forest Research Institute as consultants. The forests have already started supporting bio- diversity.
MoEF now wants to showcase these projects as model projects so that all coal companies adopt the pattern and create an actual forest cover.
The MoEF will organise a workshop in Delhi in January to promote BCCL’s initiative of creating an actual forest with grass, shurbs and trees, Raju said. CIL’s subsidiary plans to bring 50 hectares of abandoned mines every year under actual forest cover.
