Kerala wants debt for nature swap

Thiruvananthapuram: The state government has found a single-shot solution, Debt-for-Nature Swap, to simultaneously bring down two seemingly unrelated issues troubling the state: increasing debt and depleting forest cover. It has now asked the Centre to exchange a portion of the state’s burgeoning debt for the money the government pumps into conservation activities.

Debt-for-Nature Swap, generally used as incentive in international diplomacy, is an arrangement where a part of the debt of a poor nation is written off by advanced countries in return for local ecological initiatives. “The goal of ecological conservation will be better served if a state that invests in conservation is rewarded by a compensatory reduction in outstanding liabilities,” an official note prepared by the Environment Department said. The state government has asked for the introduction of the debt-swap arrangement for all the six Western Ghats states.

The official expectation is that the debt-waiver incentive will goad the state to spend considerably more on conservation. Though the state’s forest cover is around 17,300 sq km, dense forests are found only in 1,442 sq km. And for over 37 per cent of the forests, the canopy cover is less than 40 per cent.

The state’s request has acquired urgency after various sub-groups set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests under the new dispensation, and also others like the High-Level Working Group (HLWG) under nuclear scientist Dr K. Kasturirangan have recommended such an arrangement. The HLWG, for instance, wants the six states to work out a financial arrangement with the Centre. “The financial arrangement should be of the nature of a debt for nature swap,” the report says.