If the pristine Polo forest of Sabarkantha had not been violated, and two tribals killed in police firing on Wednesday, probably the state authorities would not have understood the gravity of the new Tribal Rights Act. Top officials of Gujarat forest department may feel surreptitiously despondent that the new Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, would "directly affect' the forest cover in the state, which is below 10 per cent. But, the state tribal department considers the new act as an "opportunity' to empower forest dwellers. A senior official of the state tribal department, implementing the chief minister's 15-point Vanbandhu programme with a projected investment of Rs 15,000 crore over the next five years, believes that, if properly implemented, the green area in the reserved forests can actually go up. He said, "An experiment in South Gujarat has successfully shown how horticulture plantation in the predominantly tribal areas has economically benefited tribals. Agro-forestry can now show the way to forest areas.' The cultivation under the so-called Vadi Project, said this official, is taking place on 50,000 hectare (ha), benefiting thousands of families, mainly tribals of Valsad, Dangs and Narmada districts. "All this has been happening in the non-forest area, and has actually considerably improved the green cover, too,' he added. The tribal department, which began with the experiment some five years ago by encouraging tribal farmers to sow cashew, mango and papaya, will also encourage agro-forestry. The department hopes to follow the "Andhra model', where the tribals in the forest areas of Srikakulam and Visakhapatnam were given rights to plant cashew, mango and coffee sharply increasing the green density of Andhra forests, seven years ago. "The model can be even more successful in Gujarat. We can provide processing facilities as well, as we have done in the non-forest areas, taking advantage of the new Act,' the official said. A section of the forest department admits that the department would not lose green cover as much as the forest area under its fiefdom for long. "Though it is forest land where the tribals cultivate, there are obviously no trees on them,' a senior forest official said, requesting anonymity. If the state forest officials are to be believed, there are 25,000 to 30,000 tribals whose land would have to be regularized under the new Act. "With majority of forest dwellers owning 1.5 ha land on an average, the maximum forest land the department would lose would be around 45,000 ha.