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Overall green cover rises, but northeast records a dip
Why in news?
- The forest cover in the country increased by 3,976 square kilometres (sqkm) but with the sharpest declines in the northeastern States of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Mizoram, according to the 2019 edition of the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) that was made public recently. At 7,12,249 sqkm, the forest cover constituted 21.67% of the nation’s geographical area or 0.12% more than last year.
More in news
- About India State of Forest Report (ISFR):
(1) A biennial exercise, assesses the forest and tree cover, bamboo resources, carbon stock and forest fires.
- Findings:
(1) Top three States showing an increase in forest cover: Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
(2) Growth of Tree cover:
(a) Patches of trees less than 1 hectare & occurring outside the recorded forest area, grew by 1,212 sqkm.
(b) Tree and forest cover together made up 25.56% of India’s area. In the last assessment it was 24.39%.
(3) Not a concern now
(a) Declines in the Northeast weren’t “yet a matter of concern.”- said the Environment Minister
(b) The States had a much higher proportion of forest than most States — Mizoram (85.4%), Arunachal Pradesh (79.63%) and Nagaland (75%) — and the declines in forest were still small.
(c) Centre had policies in place to address this over the long term.
(d) The decline in tree cover inside forests was due to tribal populations getting “land titles” (patta) and the rise in trees outside the forest area as due to an increase in tree plantation and afforestation activities.
(4) Quality of Forest: The report, however, shows that the quality of this forest — in terms of the canopy density of the trees comprising forest patches — is wavering.
(5) Forest cover:
(a) While 1,755 sq km of ‘moderately dense forest’ (MDF) became ‘Very dense forest (VDF), 2,782 sq km of MDF regressed into lower quality ‘open forest (OF),’ Scrub forest’ or ‘Non forest.’
(b) Forest cover within the Recorded Forest Area, or that which has been officially classified by States or the Centre as ‘forest,’ showed a 330 sqkm decrease, but ‘forest’ outside such recorded area increased by 4,306 sqkm.
(c) Trees outside forest was found to comprise nearly 29.38 million hectares, which was 36.4% of the total tree and forest cover in the country.
Sources
The Hindu