India’s net forest cover sees paltry rise of 156.41 sq km; decrease in mangroves and Western Ghats cover

The report was released by Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Saturday at the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun. Yadav said that the audit and analysis of forest cover were important for policy-making and protection.

Notably, even the small 0.05 rise in net forest cover was largely outside recorded forest areas (RFAs), which refer to reserved forests and protected forests. Of the 156.41 sq km increase, 149.13 sq km was outside RFAs and only 7.28 sq km was inside.

There has been a loss of 1,234.95 sq km of moderately dense forests, 1,189.27 sq km of open forests and an increase of 2,431.50 sq km of very dense forests.

An assessment of forest cover across the Western Ghats was done for the first time. It showed that the area earmarked as eco-sensitive by the Centre lost 58.22 sq km of forest cover since 2013. “Though very dense forests increased by 3,455.12 sq km, moderately dense forests and open forests decreased by 1,043.23 sq km and 2,480.11 sq km, respectively,” as per the report.

The ISFR is released biennially and involves forest cover mapping of the country using satellite data. Forest cover is defined as “all lands, more than one hectare with a tree canopy density of more than or equal to 10% irrespective of ownership, legal status and land use. Such lands may not necessarily be a recorded forest area. It also includes orchards, bamboo and palm.” The national mapping of forest cover spanned 751 districts for the latest report compared to 636 districts in the previous one.

Notably, natural disaster and hazard-resilient mangrove species have seen a decrease of 7.43 sq km in the country compared to 2021. The country’s total mangrove cover is 4,991.68 sq km, accounting for 0.15 per cent of the country’s total geographical area. A prominent decrease was recorded in Gujarat at a loss of 36 sq km, followed by a 4.65 sq km decrease in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The northeastern states continued to record a declining trend in forest cover and as per the 2023 assessment, the decrease was by 327.30 sq km. Only Mizoram recorded an increase of 178 sq km. The highest decline was seen across Nagaland, Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam.

Among states, the maximum rise in forest and tree cover was seen in Chhattisgarh (683.62 sq km), followed by Uttar Pradesh (559.19 sq km), Odisha (558.57 sq km) and Rajasthan (394.46 sq km). On the other hand, the maximum decrease was seen in Madhya Pradesh (612.41 sq km), followed by Karnataka (459.36 sq km), Ladakh (159.26 sq km) and Nagaland (125.22 sq km).

Inside RFAs such as reserved and protected forests, the maximum increase was in Mizoram (192.92 sq km), followed by Odisha (118.17 sq km), Karnataka (93.14 sq km), West Bengal (64.79 sq km) and Jharkhand (52.72 sq km).

Area-wise, the top three states with the largest forest and tree cover are Madhya Pradesh (85,724 sq km) followed by Arunachal Pradesh (67,083 sq km) and Maharashtra (65,383 sq km).

There is an increase of 81.5 million tonnes in the carbon stock of the country as compared to the last assessment.

The classification of forest cover used in the present report is based on tree canopy density, viz., Very Dense Forest (VDF) having canopy density equal to or more than 70 per cent, Moderately Dense Forest (MDF) having canopy density equal to or more than 40 per cent but less than 70 per cent, and Open Forest (OF) having canopy density equal to or more than 10 per cent but less than 40 per cent.