Important Highlights from the Forest Report

The State of Forest Report: Everything you need to know  

The State of Forest Report (SFR) is a biennial report which means it is published every two years. It was first published in the year 1987, the 2019 edition is the 16^th edition. The report is prepared by Forest Survey of India, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC). Satellite mapping of forests and trees is done to prepare this report.

Classification-

• Very Dense Forest with a canopy density of more than 70%,
• Moderately Dense Forest with a canopy density between 40-70% and
• Open Forest with a canopy density between 10- 40%.
• Tree cover includes all patches of trees less than 1 ha.

The 2019 report is just out and the trends it shows are quite dissatisfactory.

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Here are the important points-

• The Total Forest Cover has increased very minimally to 21.67% from 21.54%

• The tree and forest cover has increased to 25.56% from 24.39% in 2017.

• The top three states in forest cover were- Karnataka (1025 sq km), Andhra Pradesh (990 sq km)and Kerala (823 sq km0.

• Area wise, the largest forest cover was that of Madhya Pradesh. Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Maharashtra.

• The mangrove forest cover has also increased in states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Odisha.

• The north-eastern states (except Assam and Tripura) have seen a decline in the forest area.

• Forest cover in the hill districts of the country is 40.30% of the total geographical area of these districts. It has seen a 0.19% increase.
• The total forest cover in the tribal districts is 37.54% of the geographical area of these districts.

The report shows that India is very far from achieving the target set by the National Forest Policy of 1988- having 33% of the total area under forest and tree cover.

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