By IANS
New Delhi : India has not lost much of its forest cover since 2002. It stands at 20.6 percent of the country’s total land area, the Forest Survey of India (FSI) said here Tuesday.
Releasing the latest State of Forest Report (SFR), Director of FSI Devendra Pandey said only 0.11 percent reduction in forest cover has taken place since 2002, “which means India’s forest cover has remained more or less stable”.
The survey report is dated 2005, and covers changes in forest cover between 2002 and 2004.
The main losses to forest cover, according to Pandey, were due to the December 2004 tsunami that devastated large tracts of forests in the Andamans, and also due to submergence of forest areas when large dams were built in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Pandey said that very dense forests cover 1.66 percent of India’s geographical area, moderately dense forests cover 10.12 percent and open forests 8.82 percent.
Very dense forests have a canopy density of over 70 percent, moderately dense forests have 40-70 percent and open forests have less.
According to the 2005 report, Madhya Pradesh has the largest area under forest cover – 7.6 million hectares, which is 11.22 percent of the country’s forest cover. Other states with large forest cover are Arunachal Pradesh (10.01 percent), Chhattisgarh (8.25 percent), Orissa (7.15 percent) and Maharashtra (7.01 percent).
The northeastern states have a quarter of the country’s forests though they constitute less than seven percent of the country’s geographical area, Pandey said.
The report points to one major area of concern – the government’s own policy says the country’s 124 hill districts should have at least two-thirds of their area under forest cover. However, only 38.85 percent of the area of these districts is under forest cover. Even if one excludes areas at an altitude above 4,000 metres – where trees do not grow – the percentage goes up only to 52.4 percent.
The country’s 188 districts with tribal majorities have done better, with 36.81 percent of their areas under forest cover. These districts account for around 60 percent of India’s forests.
Pandey said India has 0.44 million hectares covered by mangroves, nearly half in the Sundarbans of West Bengal, followed by 21 percent in Gujarat and 14 percent in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
He expressed concern that the next SFR would show a major decline in forest cover in the northeastern states due to the ongoing flowering of bamboo in parts of the region. Bamboo flowers once every 50 years, after which the existing plant dies.
The report shows that apart from forests, another 9.17 million hectares – 2.8 percent of India’s total area – is under tree cover. The total volume of wood in the country is estimated at 6.22 billion cubic metres, of which 4.6 billion cubic metres falls within the forests.
Explaining the delay in releasing the report, Pandey said interpretation of satellite imagery and verification of data through field visits had taken time.