By Dr. Gyan Pathak
India is still struggling to meet the target of the National Forest Policy set 35 years ago in 1988. In 2023, it could attain a forest and tree cover of only 25.17 percent against the target of a minimum one-third (33.3 percent) of the total land area of the country to maintain environmental stability, restore ecological balance and conserve natural heritage. Since then the climate change induced environmental crisis has aggravated and it is frustrating.
India’s State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2023 released on December 21 by Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav shows that the total forest and tree cover is 8,27,357 sq km, which is 25.17 percent of the geographical area of the country. Forest cover spans an area of 7,15,343 sq km (21.76 percent) whereas tree cover spans an area of 1,12,014 sq km (3.41 percent).
Nevertheless, the minister expressed happiness over a small comparison of the ISFR 2023 and ISFR 2021 and said that there was an increase of 1445 sq km in the total forest and tree cover of the country, which included only 156 sq km increase in the forest cover, but 1289 sq km increase in tree cover. He also highlighted the near real time fire alerts and forest fire services provided by FSI using advanced technology.
The minister, in fact, tried to convince the people about the performance of the government under PM Narendra Modi that is ruling the country for over a decade now by presenting a rosy picture. However, the ISFR 2023 presents a dismal state of affairs of the Union Ministry of Forest and Environment, and its performance in the one decade of the Modi rule.
The total forest and tree cover of the country as per 2013 assessment was 789,164 sq km which was only 24.01 per cent of the geographical area of the country. If it rose to only 25.17 percent in a decade, it was a dismal performance, especially when the climate crisis has aggravated to a serious level.
Forest cover in 2013 in India was 697,898 sq km which was 21.23 percent of total geographical area of the country with increased to only 715,343 sq km (21.76 percent) whereas the tree cover rose from 91,266 sq km, which was 2.78 percent, to 112,014 sq km (3.41 percent), it clearly shows the increase in forest cover was far worse than the increase in tree cover.
Forest is under the government while ownership of trees also includes private individuals or public in general, indicating that people are more serious than the government as far as forest and tree cover are concerned.
How hard has been India’s struggle for increasing forest and tree cover can be just imagined in the background that numerous schemes are being implemented by the government but with limited success, as the ISFR 2023 data shows which contains information on forest cover, tree cover, mangrove cover, growing stock, carbon stock in India’s forests, instances of forest fire, agroforestry, etc to present a detailed picture of the forest heat at country level, special thematic information on forest cover and important characteristics of forests.
It should be noted that to increase forest cover the Union Ministry of Forest and Environment provides technical and financial assistance to States/UTs under various Centrally Sponsored Schemes, namely Green India Mission (GIM), Forest Fire Prevention and Management Scheme, CAMPA, Nagar Van Yojana and other schemes such as National Afforestation programme as per the mandate of National Forest Policy 1988.
Green India Mission (GIM) activities were started in the Financial Year 2015-16 and its total cost is estimated to be around Rs 46,000 crore. It is also worth recalling the GIM is one of the eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).Lok Sabha was informed in July that the government so far released Rs 909.82 crore to seventeen states and one UT. During 2019-20 and 2023-24, the Union government had disbursed Rs 624.71 crore under this scheme alone.
Nevertheless, the present assessment also reveals that 19 states/UTs have above 33 percent of the geographical area under forest cover. Out of these, eight states/UTs namely Mizoram, Lakshadweep, A & N Island, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Manipur have forest cover above 75 percent.
Under the international agreements on Climate Change, India also has committed itself to create carbon sink in its forests. In the present assessment total carbon stock in the country’s forest is estimated to be 7,285.5 million tonnes. There is an increase of 81.5 million tonnes in the carbon stock of the country as compared to the last assessment.
Regarding achievement of the target under the Nationally Determined Commitments (NDC) related to carbon sequestration, the data shows that India’s carbon stock has reached 30.43 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, which indicates that as compared to the base year of 2005, India has already reached 2.29 billion tonnes of additional carbon sink as against the target of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes by 2030. (IPA Service)
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