The funds are collected as compensation money from projects that divert forest land for non-forest use and are to be used to reforest new land – in essence create forests where there aren’t any. The rules are strict and CAMPA funds cannot be used for payment of salaries, travel allowances and medical expenses but are meant solely for reforestation purposes, as the aim is to bring more land under forest cover. A great initiative, especially as the world is losing a major part of the Amazon rain forest that is going up in flames. The Chief Minister has tweeted that Goa is committed towards effective and proper utilisation of the funds received under CAMPA. There, however, exists a problem and that is the bad news.
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Over the past years Goa has been finding it difficult to identify vacant or unused land to reforest. Funds received in the past under CAMPA were not utilised as no land was available for the aforestation programme. Those were small amounts and the Centre had even stopped releasing funds to the State as they were not being utilised. The challenge for Goa now is massive as it has received, not small sums from the Centre, but a huge amount of Rs 238 crore and so has to somehow scour the land for parcels of it that can be used to create forests. Ironically, while the government has been finding it difficult to find land for reforestation, an NGO last month was able to plant 5,000 saplings in a single day in a bid to improve the tree cover.