New Delhi, April 5 -- A statutory advisory panel under India's environment ministry has approved a plan to offset the clearing of a massive tract of contiguous jungle in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli by planting replacement forest 1,000 kilometres away, in 23 fragmented patches, on land the government's own data shows is already largely forested. The forest proposed for diversion is a single unbroken 937-hectare block within the Bhamragad Reserve Forest - a southern tropical dry deciduous jungle dominated by teak and bamboo, supporting Indian gaur, sloth bear, leopard, dhole, tiger and the central Indian giant squirrel, where approximately 123,000 trees could be felled to make way for an iron ore project. The block straddles a critical wildlife corridor linking the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Chandrapur district and the Indravati Tiger Reserve across the border in Chhattisgarh. Within 10 kilometres lie 40 villages, home to over 15,000 people - largely Gond and Madia tribal communities holding community forest resource rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. The recommendation to clear the forest land was made by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), the statutory body under the Union environment ministry that evaluates proposals to divert forest land, to M/s Lloyds Metals And Energy Limited for the exploration, excavation and recovery of low-grade iron ore in the Etapalli range of Gadchiroli, according to committee minutes reviewed by HT. Stage-I clearance - an in-principle approval that stipulates conditions, including compensatory afforestation, which must be fulfilled before Stage-II formal diversion approval can be granted - was accorded on May 12, 2025. The FAC's most recent meeting, on March 23, 2026, was convened specifically to approve a change to that compensatory afforestation condition - replacing an earlier, abandoned site with the current 23-patch configuration. The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, requires compensatory afforestation for any forest diversion: new plantation to offset what is cleared. When non-forest land is unavailable in the same district, a replacement site may be identified elsewhere - but should, under environment ministry guidelines, remain as close as possible to original site. Gadchiroli, in eastern Maharashtra near the Chhattisgarh border, has 76% forest cover, leaving little non-forest land available, the FAC noted. The approved replacement site lies in Ratnagiri district on Maharashtra's Konkan coast - on the western flank of the Sahyadri mountains, roughly 1,000 km from Gadchiroli and on the other side of the Western Ghats - spread across 23 fragmented patches in nine villages covering 1,012.95 hectares. The distance, however, is not the sharpest problem. The environment ministry's own forest cover analysis shows that of those 1,012 hectares, 150 carry very dense forest and 583 moderately dense forest - together accounting for nearly three-quarters of the designated area. A further 144 hectares are classified as open forest, defined by the Forest Survey of India as land with 10% to 40% canopy cover. The majority of land identified for compensatory afforestation, in other words, already has forest on it. The ecological character of the two sites diverges further. Gadchiroli's forests are dry and deciduous, receiving about 1,000 mm of annual rainfall. The Konkan replacement patches occupy the wetter, west-facing slopes of the Sahyadri range - tropical moist deciduous and semi-evergreen terrain with considerably higher rainfall and lateritic plateaus. The replacement land adjoins the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve, notified in 2010 and recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Western Ghats, and falls within the proposed Western Ghats Eco-Sensitive Area. The current configuration is itself a fallback. The earlier replacement site - 990.265 hectares in Ovali village, also in Ratnagiri - was abandoned after land acquisition failed. The 23-patch arrangement was subsequently approved by the regional office of the environment ministry, which described the land as "mostly contiguous" and noted its proximity to the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve. "The idea that destruction of a single contiguous 937-hectare patch of dense forest can be offset by 23 fragmented patches in a completely different ecological zone is untenable," said Sharachchandra Lele, distinguished fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment. "The FAC itself notes that a majority of the land already has forest cover. How this qualifies as 'afforestation' is unclear." Lele also noted that forest diversion in areas where tribal communities hold Forest Rights Act entitlements requires gram sabha - village council - consent, as mandated by the Supreme Court in the 2013 Niyamgiri bauxite mining case. Documents on the Parivesh portal show that Lloyds Metals sought a certificate from the Gadchiroli district collector stating that gram sabhas had resolved that no tribal population or forest dwellers hold rights over the forest land in the project area. In approving the project, the FAC pointed to Gadchiroli's active classification as a Left-Wing Extremism-affected district under the ministry of home affairs and to the project's proximity to Lloyds Metals' existing Surjagarh Iron Ore Mines - proximity that reduces transport distances for low-grade ore and lowers associated emissions. A wildlife conservation plan worth Rs.1,204.20 lakh has been stipulated: Rs.610 lakh to be spent by the company within the project area and Rs.594.20 lakh by the state forest department in the buffer zone. The PRO office at the Gadchiroli plant of Lloyds Metals and Energy Limited said that "the company has secured all required statutory permissions for the project, including those related to compensatory afforestation."...