Here's Why The Govt Claims That India's Forest Cover Is Intact Despite Rapid Urbanisation

As the world is trying to find out ways to reverse, or at least stop climate change, there is much debate of shrinking forest areas in some parts of the world. In India, the civil society organisations are trying to make sure that the forests are preserved with full dedication and involvement of the government agencies.

Since Independence, India has consistently been under forest cover of roughly 20 per cent and India¡¯s State Of Forest Report 2017 says the forest cover in India has surpassed the 20 per cent mark and has reached to 21.54 per cent while registering an increase of 0.21 per cent or 6,778 sq km compared to the last ISFR report 2015, taking the total forest cover to 70,82,72 sq km out of total geographical area of 32,87,459 sq km.

Reuters

But, how is it possible that a country whose population increased by four folds (330 million to 1.3 billion) has been able to increase its forest cover despite massive land allocation for agricultural, residential and industrial purpose, which is must in order to sustain such a huge population?

The answer lies in the mechanism of forest area measurement, its definition and timely changes in what we call a ¡®forest¡¯.

Categories of forest

The forest cover is measured by dividing the green area into three categories- Very Dense Forest (VDF), Moderately Dense Forest (MDF) and Open Forest (OF).

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While Very Dense Forest implies that the tree canopy density of 70 per cent or above, MDF refers to the canopy density of 40 per cent or more but lesser than 70 per cent and Open Forest means the canopy density with 10 per cent or more. The Scrub is another category of forest which implies to the canopy density of less than 10 per cent. And the canopy density of measured is the standard 1-hectare area.

Basic definition

ISFR report 2017

The definition implies that if the area has only 10 per cent canopy density, it will be deemed as forest and most of the orchards across India fall into this category.

Indian vs the World Forest Cover

India¡¯s forest cover is 708,273 sq km and roughly it means that three states- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana under complete green cover. It looks good if we imagine, but the real picture takes the green out and leaves it paler than ever before.

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According to 2015 ISFR, the forest cover increased by 3,775 sq km-six times the size of Mumbai as compared to 2015, IndiaSpend reported on July 2017.

At the same time, the World Bank had come out with data where the forest area globally decreased to the percentage point to 30.8 per cent over 25 years to 2015.

More districts mapped

Another reason why the forest cover looks increase at least on paper is that this time more districts have been mapped in comparison to the last ISFR report.

The 2015 assessment report had covered 589 districts across the country and the report in 2017 covered 633 districts.

Plantation like orchard, tea and coffee planting included

reuters

The latest report shows an increase in forest covers and various factors can be attributed to this increase. For example, this tea plantation, coffee cultivation, and orchards have also been included in the coverage and most of these have a planting density of over 40 per cent which certainly adds to the MDF.

15 states/union territories are 33 per cent forest

Of the 21.5 per cent of India categorised as forest cover, and 9.3 per cent and 9.1 per cent is under MDF and OF respectively and only 2.9 per cent is under VDF category.

Around 21 per cent of the total forest cover in Arunachal Pradesh falls under VDF which makes it the state with the highest percentage in VDF category. Similarly, Chhattisgarh has the highest percentage of MDF forest with 10.4 per cent.

ISFR

Forests are spread over more than 33 per cent of the 15 states /UTs. And seven states/UTs account for 75 per cent of the forest with Madhya Pradesh (2.3 per cent) and Arunachal Pradesh (2 per cent) have the highest proportion of forests as a percentage of country¡¯s total area.

Lakshadweep with 90.3 per cent, Mizoram with 86.3 per cent and Arunchal Pradesh with 79.9 per cent have the most land under forest cover.

Green vs forest

Despite such a massive increase in population, industrialisation and urbanisation, how come India¡¯s forest cover has sustained or even increased in recent times?

The ISFR uses satellite images to identify green cover as forest and it doesn¡¯t discriminate between natural forests, plantations, thickets of weeds such as juliflora and lantana, and longstanding commercial crops such as palm, coconut, coffee, or even sugarcane.

In 1980s the satellite imagery would fail to map land units smaller than 4 sq km thus it used to miss the smaller portions, but now the satellite imagery catches a green patch as small as 1 hectare and any unit that shows 10 per cent canopy density regardless the variety of greenery is considered forest. Therefore, the millions of plots that earlier went unnoticed now add on to the forest cover.

For example, the first ISFR that came in 1987 recorded that only 15 sq km of forests in Delhi, while the latest report found that Delhi has forest cover in 192 sq km which is 13 fold increase in 30 years. Imagine it.