Many experts have claimed that the latest government figures on India’s forests are “inflated” as they include bamboo plantations, coconut plantations and others as part of the forest cover.
The ‘India State of Forest Report 2023’, released on Saturday after a delay of almost a year, said that India’s total forest and tree cover has increased by 1,445 square kilometers from 2021 and reached 25.17 percent of the total geographical area in 2023.
However, forest area increased by only 156 sq km and most of the gain (149 sq km) occurred outside the recorded forest area (RFA), which refers to areas designated as forest in government records.
Weaknesses in government reporting
The overall results could have been stronger, especially since the government included bamboo and small trees (diameter 5-10 cm at breast height) in the ISFR 2023 tree cover estimate. The assessment also expanded to 751 districts, up from 636 in 2021.
Experts including Kerala’s former chief chief conservator of forests Prakriti Srivastava, conservationist researcher Kritika Sampath and former member of the National Board for Wildlife Prerna Singh Bindra claimed that the government counted and produced bamboo groves, coconut groves and others as part of the forest cover. Another flawed report with inflated data.”
They argued that such areas provide no ecological value for biodiversity and wildlife conservation.
The increase in tree cover (1,289 sq km) was also mainly due to the planting of rubber, eucalyptus, acacia and shade trees in mango, coconut, betel nut and tea and coffee plantations.
What is ‘one cover’?
Forest cover refers to all land with a tree canopy density greater than 10% and covering an area of one hectare or more, regardless of ownership or legal status. This includes natural forests as well as man-made plantations, orchards, and trees in urban and rural areas that meet size and canopy density criteria.
Tree cover is defined as patches of trees and isolated trees of less than one hectare outside the RFA.
“Mango contributes 13.25% to the tree cover,” they pointed out.
They said 1,488 square kilometers of unclassified forests were destroyed between 2021 and 2023 according to government data, but the ISFR 2023 said “there is no explanation for this”.
‘Unclassified forests’ are non-notified forests owned by the government.
Experts also said that the report did not establish the relationship between forest area (area designated as forest in government records) and forest area.
The report “clearly reflects that the data on both is not robust and therefore cannot be correlated”, experts said.
They claimed that they failed to comply with the Supreme Court’s order in the Lafarge case which called for digitization of forest maps, geo-referencing of Recorded Forest Areas (RFAs), and documentation of diverted forest land. Absence of these elements undermines the credibility of the report.
They said that forest lands diverted for dams, roads, railways and other such permanent constructions would be lost forever, but not erased from the record, “increasing the numbers”.
Debaditya Sinha, who leads the climate and ecology team at the Vidhi Center for Legal Policy, said India has lost 30,808 square kilometers of open and scrub forest, along with 14,073 square kilometers of medium-dense forests and 1,816 square kilometers of dense forests. uses
The report mentions carbon sequestration potential of 406.05 million tonnes from these degraded lands but is silent on non-forest uses, Sinha posted on X.
“In my understanding, these areas are already home to some of the country’s most important engineering projects – mines, highways, and strategic developments of national importance – and many are being planned or approved after the latest amendment to the Forest Protection Act,” he said.
Experts have expressed concern that only 40 percent of the geographical area in the hilly districts is forested, while the forest policy has set a mandatory 66.6 percent.
“This is very worrying as our soil health, ecological stability, resilience to landslides, floods depend on the mountain forests,” they said.
The increasing number of landslides and floods can be traced to the loss of forest cover in the hills, which is a poor reflection of the efforts made to ensure our environmental protection, experts said.
The FSI also analyzed forest cover changes in the ecologically fragile Western Ghats over the past decade and found an overall loss of 58.22 sq km in forest cover.
In this region, the Nilgiris reported the largest decline of 123 sq km. The hill range spread across Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu is known for its popular tourist spots.
The report shows that the forest area has decreased by 327.30 square kilometers in the northeastern region.
The country’s total mangrove cover is 4,991.68 sq km, which has declined by 7.43 sq km since 2021, the report said.
Medium dense forest and open forest categories have declined by 1,043.23 sq km and 2,480.11 sq km, respectively, over the last decade, despite gains in very dense forest.
published – December 23, 2024 at 05:56 PM IST