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03/01/25 18:25 PM IST

State of Forest Report 2023

In News
  • The State of Forest Report (SFR) 2023 was released by Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav at the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun recently. 
Major findings
  • According to SFR 2023, 25.17% of India’s area is under forest and tree cover.
  • Of this, forests cover 21.76% of land and trees 3.41%. These figures represent marginal increases from 21.71% and 2.91%, respectively, as reported in SFR 2021. In absolute terms, the increase is 1,445 sq. km.
  • The National Forest Policy 1988, which governs green cover in India, requires 33% of the country’s geographical area to be under tree or forest cover.
  • Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Odisha led the list of States that increased forest and tree cover while Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Ladakh (UT), and Nagaland were the top four States where forest and tree cover has dropped.
Green cover
  • Forest cover in India means an area of a hectare or more, “with a tree canopy of more than or equal to 10%, irrespective of ownership and legal status,” per the report.
  • Likewise, tree cover refers to all tree patches that exist outside of forest area and which occupy “less than one hectare in extent, including all the scattered trees found in the rural and urban settings, and [are] not captured under the forest cover assessment”.
  • The SFR uses a mix of satellite data and details from the National Forest Inventory, plus ground-truthing to verify the information.
  • Forest cover estimates come from satellite data and growing and carbon stock estimates from the Inventory. The 2023 report uses satellite data from October to December 2021 and NFI data from 2017 to 2022.
Sensitive Areas
  • In 2014, the national government first notified the Western Ghats Eco-Sensitive Area (WGESA) along the country’s west coast under the Environment Protection Act 1986 for special protection.
  • According to SFR 2023, the Area has lost 58.22 sq. km of forests in the last decade.
  • While the cover of “very dense” forests increased, those of “moderately dense” and “open” forests fell.
  • “Very dense” forests have a canopy density of at least 70%, “moderately dense” forests of 40-70%, and “open” forests of 10-40%.
  • The Nilgiris forests are part of the WGESA and a UNESCO biosphere. Between 2013 and 2023, they lost 123.44 sq. km of forest cover.
  • The Nilgiris district also reported a fourfold increase in the number of forest fires from 2022-2023 to 2023-2024.
  • Mangroves — tropical trees in the intertidal zones of coastal areas — are withdrawing as well.
  • The report has estimated 0.15% of India’s total geographical area is under mangrove cover following an overall decrease of 7.43 sq. km from 2021 alone. Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra increased their State-wise share but Gujarat’s Kutch area reported a significant decrease.
  • These trees stabilise coastlines, mitigate erosion, encourage biodiversity, shield coastal communities from sea-level rise, and temper the fury of cyclones.
  • The Northeast occupies less than 8% of India’s total land area but more than 21% of its tree and forest cover.
  • Per SFR 2023, tree and forest cover in the region shrunk by 327.3 sq. km.
  • There have been reports in the press that at least part of the decline is due to conversion of forests for agricultural use.
SFR relation to Climate action
  • Exercises to understand how much carbon can be sequestered use the term carbon stock to denote all the carbon held in living and nonliving biomass in an ecosystem.
  • In a mature forest, for example, the carbon collects in the trees as they grow both aboveground and below, in the leaf litter surrounding the trees, in the deadwood, etc.
  • In 2022, India committed to increase its carbon stock by 2.5-3 billion tonnes “through additional forest and tree cover by 2030”. The current stock of this variety is around 30.4 billion tonnes.
  • According to SFR 2023, India increased its carbon stock by 81.5 million tonnes and the growing stock — the sum (by number or volume) of all the trees living/growing in forests  — by 4.25% between 2021 and 2023.
  • But experts have said the report doesn’t say anything about the quality of forests contributing to increases in forest cover nor provides data on the actual causes of forest degradation.
Source- The Hindu

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