The Union environment ministry seems to have found a way to persuade states to make amends for encroachment of forest lands over three decades, beginning 1950. At the ministry's parliamentary consultative committee meeting on Tuesday, the ministry said it plans to regularise forest lands which were encroached upon before the enactment of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. But this will be subject to a provision. The states will have to afforest land area equal to that which has been diverted for non-forestry puposes.