India today stands at a troubling crossroads. While it proclaims commitment to climate action, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development, vast tracts of its most critical forests are being quietly opened up for mining, infrastructure, and commercial projects—often without even knowing, with scientific certainty, what exactly is being lost.
Between FY 2016–17 and 2024–25, the Union Government has approved diversion of more than 1.61 lakh hectares of forest land for non-forest use, with over 78,000 hectares cleared in just the last four years, signalling a disturbing acceleration. Such large-scale and cumulative diversion of forests—India’s primary ecological life-support systems—directly implicates Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to life inclusive of the right to a clean and healthy environment. Under the Public Trust Doctrine, the State is merely a trustee of forests for present and future generations, not their owner to be progressively alienated in the name of development. Approvals granted without rigorous cumulative impact assessment, ecological equivalence, and inter-generational equity amount to a breach of this constitutional trust and reduce statutory forest protection to a formality, eroding the very foundation of environmental rule of law.
From Hasdeo Arand in Chhattisgarh to the Aravalli range in north India, from Dehing Patkai’s rainforests to the fragile forests of the Great Nicobar, the pattern is strikingly similar: forest land is diverted based on fragmented assessments, outdated surveys, diluted definitions, and project-by-project approvals that ignore cumulative ecological damage.
Forests by Clearance, Not by Science
At the heart of the crisis lies a basic failure—India still lacks a uniform, scientific, landscape-level identification of forests. Instead, decisions affecting millions of trees, water systems, wildlife corridors, and livelihoods are being taken using:
(i) Old unrelaible surveys
(ii) Administrative definitions – forests – recorded in order dated 21st Nov 2025 by Apex Court
(iii) Inconsistent state-level classifications
(iv) in some cases, agencies lacking core ecological competence – FSI lacks core competence as it could not finalise the definition of “Forest” in last 45 years which is pending before Apex Court.
The result is paradoxical: forests disappear on the ground, while files declare them “non-forest” on paper. – Classic example is Delhi’s Ridge admeasuring 7784 hectares as per judgment pronounced on 11th Nov 2025, substantial of which has been erased on ground.
The Aravalli range offers a stark example. Despite repeated judicial observations about vanishing hills, groundwater collapse, and ecological degradation, mining and construction continue under contested definitions of what constitutes the Aravalli itself. Without first identifying the forest, how can its safety ever be assessed?
Cumulative Impact: The Missing Link
Environmental clearances are routinely granted project-wise—one mine, one road, one railway line at a time. What is rarely examined is the cumulative impact: how multiple mining leases fragment a forest, how linear infrastructure slices wildlife corridors, how groundwater recharge zones collapse collectively rather than individually.
Forests are ecosystems, not plots on a map. Fragmentation destroys them as surely as clear felling.
The Cost Is Constitutional, Not Just Environmental
This is no longer merely an environmental concern; it is a constitutional one. Unchecked forest diversion strikes at:
- Article 21, which guarantees the right to life and a healthy environment.
- The public trust doctrine, under which the State is a trustee of natural resources.
- The rights of forest-dwelling communities protected under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
Development that erodes natural life-support systems is neither sustainable nor lawful.
Development Without Ecology Is Self-Defeating
Forests regulate climate, recharge aquifers, prevent floods, moderate heatwaves, and sustain biodiversity. Their destruction directly increases public spending on disaster relief, water scarcity, and health crises. What appears as “economic growth” on balance sheets re-emerges as ecological debt borne by citizens.
India does not need to choose between development and forests. It needs development informed by science, legality, and long-term national interest.
The Way Forward
Before another hectare is diverted, the country must insist on
- Fresh, scientific, landscape-level forest surveys
- Mandatory cumulative impact assessments
- Uniform and legally robust forest definitions
- Strict enforcement of tribal consent and wildlife corridor protections
Forests lost to flawed processes are lost forever. Courts, policymakers, and citizens must ask a simple but fundamental question: How can we protect what we have never properly identified?