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♤ India has a strong and rapidly growing afforestation programme. The afforestation process was accelerated by the enactment of the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, which aimed at stopping the clearing and degradation of forests through a strict, centralized control of the rights to use forest land and mandatory requirements of compensatory afforestation in case of any diversion of forest land for any non-forestry purpose.
♤ In addition an aggressive afforestation and sustainable forest management programme resulted in annual reforestation of 1.78 mha during 1985-1997, and is currently 1.1 mha annually. Due to this, the carbon stocks in Indian forests have increased over the last 20 years (during 1986 to 2005) to 9 -10 gigatons of carbon (GtC).