The exuberance of the government of India and the forest bureaucracy, in particular, surrounding the India State of Forest Report 2021 is understandable. Going by plain facts, the latest assessment by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) says that the country has added about 1,540 sq km of forest cover as compared to the 2019 assessment. Several states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Karnataka and Jharkhand have contributed majorly to the increase in forest cover. Currently, India’s forest cover stands at 7,13,789 sq km or 21.71% of the total geographical area.
The continued good show on this front is attributed to effective conservation strategies apart from well-implemented afforestation programmes. However, not everyone agrees with the feel-good factor the statistics bring. Scratch the surface and one finds that India’s green cover in very dense forest (VDF) and open forest (OF) categories have grown but the country has lost about 1,582 sq km in the moderately dense forest (MDF) bracket. This, analysts point out, is a cause of concern. At least 11 states have reported a decline in total forest cover whereas 21 have recorded a loss in MDF. The continuous loss in the moderate forest over the years must be arrested at once.
More important are questions that are being raised about assessment methodology, definition of a forest, map data and their verifiability. After the self-congratulatory phase that followed the release of the ISFR 2021, experts have come out in open not only dissecting the outcome of the survey and the way data is generated, but also claim that India may have been losing critical forests over the years contrary to what the biennial report suggests.
The claim that green cover in the open forest category includes even commercial plantations deserves a fresh look. Besides, states such as Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram have recorded a decline in forest cover. The Centre must bear this in mind as the Northeast is a critical region from a biodiversity point of view. With climate change impacts being felt across the sectors and future of the coming generations at stake, there is no room for complacency and the country could well do with more transparency.