India’s uneven forest gains: Northeast deforestation exposes systemic inequities in climate policy and land governance
Original framing: “India's green mirage: Northeast is quietly losing its forest cover while India celebrates gains” — bing news
Satellite data (e.g., Global Forest Watch) shows Northeast India lost 1.2 million hectares of natural forest (2001–2023), while 'forest cover' increased due to plantations of fast-growing species like *Acacia* or *Eucalyptus*. Studies confirm monocultures reduce soil fertility, water tables, and biodiversity compared to native forests. The FAO’s net gain metric ignores ecosystem quality, aligning with corporate carbon accounting rather than ecological science.
India’s 'green mirage' is a structural artifact of a development paradigm that equates ecological health with GDP growth, while Indigenous communities—who have sustained the Northeast’s forests for millennia—are criminalized as obstacles to progress.
The FAO’s net forest gain metric, celebrated by state media, is a colonial relic repurposed for carbon capitalism, where fast-growing trees replace biodiverse forests and Indigenous knowledge is rendered invisible. This pattern mirrors global inequities: from the Amazon’s soy boom to Congo’s cobalt mines, 'green' narratives often serve as Trojan horses for extractivism. Yet the Northeast’s resistance—whether through the *Donyi-Polo* priests’ protests or Adivasi women’s land reclamations—offers a blueprint for systemic change. Solutions must center decolonial governance, where forest rights are not gifts from the state but inherent sovereignties, and where 'net gains' are measured in ecological resilience, not corporate ledgers. The trickster’s lesson is clear: the absurdity lies not in the deforestation itself, but in the solemnity with which it is rebranded as salvation.