In the Media
India: Forest cover falls to 23.81% of total area
February 08, 2012
HT Media
India’s environment ministry has blamed Maoist rebels and shifting cultivation practised in the country’s north-east for a drop in forest cover.
Forests and trees covered slightly less than one-fourth of the country’s geographical area, a decline of 0.03 percentage point from the previous assessment in 2009, according to the biennial forest report. The decline also reveals that the government has failed make any progress on its oft-repeated promise to bring one-third of the country under trees.
“There’s been significant loss in one district in Andhra Pradesh—Khammam,” environment secretary T. Chatterjee said. “That’s partly due to encroachment by Naxalites, which makes measurement and access difficult as well as harvesting of plantations that take time to harvest.”
Between the forest reports of 2003 and 2007, there was a nearly 10 million ha jump in forest and tree cover that saw it rise from 20.55% to 23.84% of the country’s geographical area. For the first time ever, forest officials also estimated the area under bamboo plantsand the carbon trapped within the forests. They estimated these at 13.96 million ha and 6,663 million tonnes, respectively.
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Keywords: Asia, carbon sink, forest cover, greening India, India