Economic growth versus climate balancing: some reflections on the sustainable management of forest resource in India

Abstract

Designing of a sustainable forest policy is of extreme importance in our present world where the process of rapid economic growth is causing imbalance in the climatic cycles by denying ecosystems sufficient time for adaptation and the socioeconomic systems adequate opportunity for mitigation. In this paper, the forests are considered highly resilient natural resource that plays a major role in reducing the impact of global climate change through carbon sequestration, heat absorption, watershed protection, acid deposition, etc. This paper examines the prospect of sustainable forest management for an emerging economy like India, where forest coverage has gone up over the last three decades in spite of population growth, rapid urbanization, and fast economic growth.