Reflecting the intense competitive spirit that often characterises welfare programmes, the West Bengal Chief Minister has set an ambitious target of planting 7.2 crore saplings in 2026 under Aranya Saptaha and the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam initiative. He has explicitly cast this as a response to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister’s 26-crore plantation pledge, turning tree-planting into a high-visibility inter-State contest. While this political competition successfully elevates green issues to high-stakes governance, and two years of promised aftercare, alongside stricter anti-felling measures, are welcome commitments, fundamental strategic flaws remain.

This commendable policy decision, however, overlooks a fundamental truth: forestry cannot be one-size-fits-all. West Bengal, with an 18.96% forest cover, has nearly three times the forest cover of Uttar Pradesh. These States operate in entirely different ecological realities. While Uttar Pradesh’s landscape is largely plains-dominated with low forest density, West Bengal is home to rich and complex ecosystems. From the fragile Himalayan foothills and lateritic sal tracts to the tidal Sundarbans mangroves, the State’s ecological health hinges on preserving biodiversity, not just adding block plantations. 

Furthermore, West Bengal already owns the blueprint for success. Historic, community-led initiatives in Bankura and Arabari in Paschim Medinipur, long considered the Mecca of community forestry, proved that joint forest management effectively halts degradation. By ensuring that local communities protect forests and share in the economic benefits, the State helped guide India toward community forestry as a proven pathway for ecological restoration. Today, however, that legacy stands at a crossroads.

Even if West Bengal adopts a forest restoration model that includes active restoration such as planting trees at ecologically appropriate sites, the State must first resolve several critical bottlenecks to make restoration efforts genuinely effective. The most fundamental prerequisite is readiness with quality seedlings at scale, which typically requires a lead time of at least 18-20 months in the nursery to ensure robust planting stock for large programmes. Equally serious is the human resource gap. With more than 60.5% of forest guard, 55.6% of forester, and 32.6% of ranger posts vacant as per the Annual Report 2022-23, effective field-level implementation will remain constrained unless staffing is urgently strengthened.

In such a situation, the State has to combine rapid recruitment with an institutional reset — realigning priorities, tightening oversight, and investing in training, equipment, and field support as core interventions rather than afterthoughts. To make forest restoration truly participatory and durable, West Bengal must revitalise its foundational community institutions — specifically its joint forest management committees (JFMCs). Today, nearly 4,000 such committees manage about 5-6 lakh hectares, involving several lakh forest-fringe households. Despite this massive footprint and proven track record, the movement has slowed and many committees have gone dormant because their pro-people ethos has eroded in recent years.

Restoring public enthusiasm requires backing existing JFMCs with clear, legally guaranteed economic incentives and stronger institutional support, and mobilising more agile grassroots platforms, such as women-led self-help groups (SHGs).

Furthermore, to rectify the pervasive lack of accountability that compromises existing plantation programmes, the government must mandate absolute transparency. Every restoration site must be geo-tagged with precise spatial coordinates and logged on a public Web dashboard. Crucially, plant survival rates must be verified through mandatory annual audits led by independent academic institutions, eliminating departmental self-reporting and ensuring genuine institutional accountability. 

Finally, adequate and predictable finance must be anchored in a robust utilisation mechanism. The State should operationalise a strict “30/70 green budgeting rule”: roughly 30% of the allocation should support initial restoration work including planting, while the remaining 70% is allocated for subsequent maintenance, including protection to secure long-term survival and genuine ecological outcomes.

West Bengal’s ambition to expand its green cover is both necessary and timely at this time of climate uncertainty and challenges. However, West Bengal does not need to borrow a model from the States having contrasting ecological features, as the path to resilient forests does not lie in counting saplings but in nurturing and restoring the lost glory of ecosystems. By shifting its focus from top-down plantation drives to restoration processes, and from bureaucratic metrics to genuine community partnership, West Bengal can once again lead by example — showing that the future of forestry lies not in sheer numbers, but in biodiversity, participation, and long-term resilience. After all, true success in forestry is not measured in saplings planted, but in forests that survive. In an era of climate extremes, forests must be treated not as political milestones to be showcased, but as living systems that require patience, science, and community participation.

Mohan Chandra Pargaien is a former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Adviser, Singareni Collieries Company Ltd., Telangana