IWN Report — Tuesday, 1 July 2026

For decades, a patch of open grassland in Maharashtra had a reasonable chance of being classified as a “wasteland” — degraded, unproductive, awaiting trees. A government resolution (GR) issued on 7 May 2026 has, quietly but explicitly, changed that. GR No. SAVVI-2025/PR.KR.11/VANE-11, issued by Maharashtra’s Revenue and Forest Department as part of the state’s Green Maharashtra Commission, contains two clauses that conservationists working on open ecosystems have been waiting years to see in writing.

Page 5, Clause 2(14) states: “Plantation will be avoided in grassland and wetland areas, allowing natural ecosystem regeneration.” Page 11, Clause 8(3) goes further: “In wetlands, grasslands, and biodiversity-sensitive areas, tree planting should not be carried out. Ecologically appropriate restoration should be undertaken instead.”

The same GR that announced the Maharashtra government’s 300-crore tree plantation drive, it turns out, also formally protects grasslands and wetlands from it.

Why “wasteland” matters

The word has done enormous damage. Across India, open natural ecosystems — grasslands, savannas, scrublands, semi-arid plains — have long been misclassified as degraded land awaiting improvement, which in practice has meant planting trees on them at scale. The logic was well-intentioned: more trees means more green cover, more carbon sequestration, more shade. The ecological problem is that grasslands are not degraded forests. They are distinct, ancient ecosystems with their own biodiversity, their own hydrology, and their own communities of species that cannot survive under a closed canopy.

Planting trees on a grassland does not restore it. It destroys it — altering visibility, disrupting prey dynamics, eliminating nesting grounds, and converting open habitat into something that looks greener on a satellite map but supports a fraction of the species the grassland did. Trenches dug alongside plantations compound this: they trap and corner wildlife, making animals like blackbuck and chinkara more vulnerable to attacks by free-ranging dogs.

This is not a fringe argument. It is the scientific consensus among grassland ecologists, and it has been made repeatedly to governments at every level. What it has rarely been, until now, is a government resolution.

The species that depend on it

The GR specifically identifies the biodiversity that qualifies grassland patches for protection: the Indian Grey Wolf, Chinkara, Blackbuck, Bengal Fox, Harriers, Sandgrouse, Indian Courser, Larks, Great Indian Bustard, and Lesser Florican, among others. The framing matters: if these species are present on a patch of land, that land qualifies for protection under the GR’s provisions.

Several of these are species in serious trouble. The Great Indian Bustard is Critically Endangered, with fewer than 200 individuals believed to survive, almost all in Rajasthan’s grasslands and a small population in Maharashtra. The Lesser Florican is Endangered, its grassland breeding habitat having been dramatically reduced by plantation drives and agricultural conversion over the past three decades. The Indian Grey Wolf — Maharashtra’s own grassland apex predator — has no protected area specifically designated for it anywhere in India.

The GR does not create new protected areas. But it does give anyone aware of a grassland patch at risk from plantation or trenching a specific, citable government document to take to the local Forest or Revenue Department officer, and ask for formal recognition of the site as a biodiversity-sensitive zone.

What the GR does and doesn’t do

It is worth being precise about what GR No. SAVVI-2025/PR.KR.11/VANE-11 actually changes. It sets out policy intentions and operational guidelines for Maharashtra’s 300-crore plantation mission rather than creating enforceable legal protections equivalent to a wildlife sanctuary notification. Its clauses on grasslands and wetlands are significant as policy commitments — they put the government on record as opposing tree planting in these ecosystems — but their force depends on implementation, departmental compliance, and whether the communities and conservationists who know where these patches are can make use of them. Writing to your local forest or revenue officer, citing the GR number and requesting recognition of a specific patch as a biodiversity-sensitive zone, is now a formally grounded action.

Sources: Down To Earth · Down To Earth (tree plantation rethink) · The Grasslands Trust India

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