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HomeIndiaGovernanceIndia’s forest cover grows, but picture looks grim in northeast

India’s forest cover grows, but picture looks grim in northeast

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The northeast is home to one-fourth of India’s green cover; the decrease is attributed to shifting cultivation and development activities.

New Delhi: India’s total forest cover is increasing slowly even as the picture continues to look grim in the northeast, home to one fourth of the country’s green cover.

The total forest area has grown marginally to 21.54 per cent (7,08,273 sq kms) from 21.34% in 2015, according to the latest India State of Forest Report (ISFR) released  Monday.

There are just nine contiguous patches, which are spread over 10,000 hectares each and comprise 40 per cent of India’s forest cover. The largest patch lies in the northeast and covers 1,58,439 sq km.

Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala have been critical to this increase with their strong focus on plantation activities around forest areas.

However, the situation continues to worsen in the northeast which is constantly seeing its rich forest cover shrink as shown by forest survey reports since 2013.

In fact, the top five states which have seen the sharpest decline are in this region. The IFSR 2017 records a loss of 630 sq kms of forest cover in NE – with Mizoram losing 531 sq kms, Nagaland 450 sq kms, Arunachal Pradesh 190 sq kms, Tripura 164 sq kms and Meghalaya 116 sq kms.

“The northeast is home to one fourth of the Indian forest cover and is faced with a decrease in its green cover to “shifting cultivation and developmental activities,” says the IFSR report.

The fine print

The good news is that there has been an increase in the ‘very dense forest’ (VDF) category (lands with tree canopy of 70 per cent and above) of about 9,525 sq kms with Karnataka adding the most to this segment. However, the fact that there is a loss of 4,421 sq kms of ‘moderately dense forests’ (tree canopy density of 40-70 per cent) is a cause for concern.

In fact, the decrease in MDF and huge open forests have been identified as areas that need to be addressed on priority in order to increase India’s forest cover.

The area under VDF, MDF and open forests now stands at 98,158 sq kms, 3,08,318 sq kms and 3,01,797 sq kms respectively.

India has also shown an increase of 39 million tonnes in its carbon stock taking the total stock to 7083 million tonnes in 2017.

The NE also contributes heavily to India’s carbon sequestration with very high per hectare carbon stock and soil organic carbon.

While conceding there was a decline seen in the green cover in the northeast, environment minister Dr Harshvardhan observed that these states already have 70 per cent of their area under forest cover. He said the issue was being looked at closely.

Forest cover in the hill districts in NE, J&K, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh is about 40 per cent of the total geographical area of the districts and has seen an increase of 754 sq kms. Another 86 sq kms of tree canopy has been added to tribal districts.

Besides, total bamboo bearing areas in the country has also increased by 1.72 million hectare while the mangrove cover has grown by 181 sq kms due to considerable conservation efforts.

Small patches of trees less than 1 hectare in extent also count, says the IFSR and this is a category topped by Maharashtra followed by Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. In terms of percentage of geographical area, Daman and Diu leads with 9 per cent tree cover, followed by Chandigarh at 8.77 per cent, Goa at 8.73 per cent and Delhi and Kerala both at 7.62 per cent.

Another good news is that water bodies inside forest cover have also increased by 2,467 sq km in the past decade with Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh showing the increase.

Globally speaking

A global comparison shows that India is at the 10th place in terms of forest area. While India’s tree canopy is seen as 22 per cent of its geographical area, Peru at the ninth place has 58 per cent of its country area under forests. However, India is at the eighth place in terms of its annual forest cover gain — a green race led by its neighbour China.

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