- The Nagar Van (Urban Forests) YOJANA aims to develop 200 Urban Forests across the country in the next five years.
- Warje Urban Forest in Pune (Maharashtra) will be considered as a role model for the Scheme.
- The Scheme enforces people’s participation and collaboration between the Forest Department, Municipal bodies, NGOs, Corporates and local citizens.
- These urban forests will primarily be on the existing forest land in the City or any other vacant land offered by local urban local bodies.
Finances:
- The finances for the scheme will be paid for by the CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) Act, 2016) funds.
- The CAF Act was enacted to manage the funds collected for compensatory afforestation which till then was managed by ad hoc Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA).
- Compensatory afforestation means that every time forest land is diverted for non-forest purposes such as mining or industry, the user agency pays for planting forests over an equal area of non-forest land, or when such land is not available, twice the area of degraded forest land.
- As per the rules, 90% of the CAF money is to be given to the states while 10% is to be retained by the Center.