India, despite pressures from its growing population and rapid urbanisation, has managed to hold on to its forest cover from 2011. Released Tuesday, the latest biennial State of Forest Report of the Forest Survey of India reveals that the cover has grown by a modest 5,871 sq km?at nearly 6.98 lakh sq km, it now makes for a little over 21% of India?s geographical area. While most of the statistics from the report bring cheer?the very dense forests (canopy density more than 70%) have grown marginally, the hills and tribal districts are greener, registering cover expansion of 40 sq km and 2,396 sq km, respectively?it is the sharp decrease in the moderately dense forests (canopy density between 40% and 69%) that is concerning. These forests shrunk by nearly 2,000 sq km between 2011 and 2013.
This loss, according to the report, was the severest in the north-eastern states, with shifting cultivation?the practice of stripping a patch of land of its green cover and cultivating it for a season before leaving it fallow for the subsequent cropping season and creating a new patch?largely responsible for it. With increasingly shorter crop cycles, the shaving off of fresh patches of forests has increased in frequency. This has caused the growing stock level in forests to fall as well, meaning nature reclaiming the lost cover has become that much difficult. The problem herein is the loss is incurred for an activity of much lower economic value, and more wasteful of productivity, than, say, mining, which is partly behind the shrinking of green cover in other states such as Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
More than anything else, a developing country like India needs its forests as they function as the largest and the most efficient carbon sinks. Which is why the government has to work on a plan to reclaim lost forest ground?as per the 1988 National Forest Policy, the target is to cover 33% of the country?s geographical area ?and to wean people away from low-value livelihoods that contribute to deforestation.