Banking on forests: assets for a climate cure?
The governance of forests in India has been a complex realm to unravel. Due to the multiple claims to ownership, jurisdiction and management of forests through India's modern history, forests have remained a subject of intrigue for all those trying to understand the complex legalities that have operated within a single space. It is in this arena that the legal processes for the diversion of forests for non forest use has been practiced. The strategies of valuation of and compensation of forest loss are central to forest regulation in India. They have converted forests into decontextualised, mobile and tradable commodities between regions. The present book seeks to explain how this is achieved and look at the continuity between the domestic regulation on forests and the new abstractions created by the climate change discourse in the form of REDD and REDD+. While the models of valuation differ, the effects on the commodification of forests deepen as greater mobility is created and trading across countries and continents is made possible through real time climate mitigation plan and forestry schemes.