The government may just have ended the year on an uplifting note. India has got more forests, trees and mangroves now, than it had in 2017, the latest India State of Forest Report has revealed.
Official data suggests an increase of 3,976sqkm (.56 per cent) of forest cover, 1,212sqkm (1.29 per cent) of tree cover, and 5,188sqkm of forest and tree cover put together, in the past two years.
The latest report is based on a refined methodology and quality checks, and involves the use of digital techniques, Dr Subhash Ashutosh, director general, Forest Survey of India, said.
The states that have seen an increase of forest cover are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. The forest cover under the recorded forest area (RFA) has shown a slight decrease of 330sqkm (.05 per cent) , possibly due to the discrepancy in land titles given to forest dwellers, as Prakash Javadekar, Union minister of environment, forest and climate change said at a press conference. Nonetheless, the forest cover outside these zones has increased.
The northeast too, except Assam and Tripura, has seen a decrease of 765sqkm (.45 per cent) in forest cover. This is significant given that in terms of forest cover as percentage of total geographical area, the states of Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Manipur are on top.
The report also points to an increase in the mangrove cover by one per cent while bamboo bearing area has seen an increase of 3,229km, from 2017. Javadekar told reporters that this had been possible only because the restrictions on felling and planting of bamboo—a member of the grass family (but classified as a tree)—had been removed.
The new report also maps fire-prone forest areas of different severity classes, based of the frequency of the the fires. According to the report, 21.4 per cent of the forest cover of the country is extremely fire-prone. Results of the special study on fire-proneness of the states based on the forest fire alerts generated by the forest survey of India in the last 13 years have also been presented, and this information would enable the fire departments in these states to better manage and control the fires.
Dependence on fuelwood from forests is highest in the state of Maharashtra, whereas for fodder, small timber and bamboo, dependence is highest in Madhya Pradesh. The annual removal of the small timber by the people living in forest fringe villages is nearly seven per cent of the average annual yield of forests in the country, the report says.
