India's forest, tree cover at 25.17% due to large scale plantation works: Govt to UN
The forest and tree cover of India is now 25.17% of its geographical area because of key national initiatives, the latest India State of Forest Report told the United Nations Forum on Forests at the UN headquarters in New York from May 5-9.
'India reported a consistent increase in forest and tree cover, now encompassing 25.17% of its geographical area as per the latest India State of Forest Report as a result of key national initiatives like the restoration of land under the Aravalli Green Wall, a 7.86% increase in mangrove cover over the past decade, afforestation of over 1.55 lakh hectares under the Green India Mission, and plantation of 1.4 billion seedlings under the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam (Plant4Mother) campaign,' the environment ministry said on Friday.
India also joined a high-level panel on 'Valuing Forest Ecosystems in National Policy and Strategy' at the UN, where it shared findings from pilot studies in Uttarakhand and Rajasthan, and tiger reserves.
These studies quantified ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, water provisioning, and biodiversity conservation using frameworks such as the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA). While acknowledging challenges in valuing non-market services, India emphasised the need to integrate ecosystem valuation into national planning for informed forest governance and long-term ecological sustainability.
India's forest and tree cover encompasses 8,27,357 sqkm — 25.17% of the country's geographical area — as of 2023, according to the India State of Forest Report released by the Union environment ministry in December last year. Of this, around 21.76% is forest cover whereas tree cover is around 3.41%.
The last such report, which is supposed to be released biennially, came out in 2021.
Compared to 2021, there is an increase of 1445 sqkm — an area as large as Delhi — in the total forest and tree cover of the country, the report said.
HT reported on December 24 that the country's green cover may be increasing according to the headline findings of the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2023, but the study also addressed the degradation of large tracts of forestland, increase in plantations and lack of clarity in status of so-called unclassed forests — all of which could have serious impacts on biodiversity, people dependent on forests and ecosystem services provided by old-growth forests, experts said.
According to the report released on Saturday, 40,709.28 sqkm of land has degraded between 2011 and 2021, from very dense and moderately dense to open forests.
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