The latest amendments to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, have been widely criticised for diluting the legal safeguards applicable to forest lands. Incidentally, this coincides with the union government’s ascendant focus, demonstrated especially through international fora and commitments, on the climate problem and on nature-based solutions to development challenges. This narrative also finds expression in the newly inserted preamble of the Act using the vocabulary of sustainable development and carbon neutrality. However, the effect of the amendments has been the (re)definition of forests to narrow their scope, in addition to encroaching on the definition of “non-forest purpose” thereby enabling diversions for a number of questionable purposes.