The article talks about how these reforestation projects can easily be scammed, because people will get paid to plant but will set the hillsides on fire, and then claim that all their planted
trees were burned up. Once planted, who is responsible to see the trees continue to grow?
I'd much rather see the government reward individual farmers for planting and maintaining new trees on their
land. When no one owns the trees, no one maintains the trees. But if you give people incentive to improve their land and plant trees on it, they'll make sure that they stay alive and that goats don't mow them down. Perhaps they could even sign 30 year lease agreements with farmers to take over degraded land and pay them to improve that land with trees,
water catching
earthworks, and
carbon capturing agro-forestry. Any produce that comes off the land would be kept by the farmers, so long as they do not cut down the trees.
In fact, you wouldn't have to pay them --- just give them access to training and free resources like tools, trees and long-term leases with the option to buy the land they've regenerated.
India
should take a page out of China's play book and copy the work the Chinese did on the Loess Plateau. The work they've been able to accomplish and the regeneration of this desert to productive, green farm land and forests is absolutely stunning.