Has India’s Forest Cover increased over the years?
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
July 24, 2019
A recent NASA study highlighted the increase in green cover in both
India & China. But is the increase in India’s forest cover due to
afforestation or increase in intensive cropping?
NASA had recently released satellite pictures and results of a study which highlights the enhanced green foliage of India and China andstated that the two of the world’s most populous countries were at theforefront in ameliorating the green cover. This is in direct contradiction to thegeneral conception of degradation of forest resources as a result of overexploitation and large population.
As per this study, about 42% of the contribution to the green cover inChina has been through the implementation of programs aimed at conservingforests and expanding them in an attempt to curb soil erosion, reduce airpollution and bring down the effects of climate change. An approximate of 32%and 82% of the difference in greenery in China and India respectively have beenattributed to the intensive cultivation of food crops to feed the growingpopulations of the two countries. Despite there being not much of a differencein the area of land under cultivation since 2000s, both these neighbouringcountries have managed to increase their green foliage as well as the foodproduction.
While this might sound good to the ears, there are a lot of complexitiesaround this.  For instance, intensivecropping in India where the irrigation requirements for agriculture are mainlymet through extraction of groundwater resources will end up in the depletion ofthe ground water resources. This can have serious implications on the greencover and environment in the future. In this story, we look at the data about India’sforest cover and the agriculture intensity.
Difference between Forest Cover and
Forest Area
The data on forest cover & forest area is compiled by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) in the biennial Indian State of Forests Report. As per this report, ‘forest cover’ includes all the land in the country where the density of tree canopy is greater than 10% projected vertically on the horizontal ground within a minimum areal extent of one hectare. It should be noted that no distinction is made here on the grounds of land ownership, legal status and the origin of the tree crops. In other words, only the green cover is recorded in the satellite as forest cover; be it private plantations or dense foliage in private abandoned land. It also does not take into consideration those stretches of land that has been statutorily notified as forest by the government but, does not have adequate green canopy.
Forest areaon the other hand is used to refer to those geographical areas of land whichcome under the management of the forest department such as reserved forests,protected forests and unclassified forests as mentioned under the provisions ofthe Indian Forest Act, 1927. This considers the legal status of the land. The categorisationmade by the government is based on various factors in order to ease thegovernance.
India ranks 10th in the
world in terms of the forest and tree cover
In terms offorest & tree cover, India ranks 10th in the world with 24.39% of the country’s geographical area underforest & tree cover. As per the government’s press release, this is despiteIndia accounting for only 2.4% of the global surface area. Further, the pressrelease states that the cover sustains the needs of 17% of global humanpopulation in addition to 18% of the global livestock population.
The total forest cover of India has witnesseda gradual increase since 2001. Over the span of 16 years, there has been anincrease of 32,735 square kilometres, about 4.8%. While this is the case withthe forest cover in the country, the extent of forest area has been waveringexcept for the phase from 2007 to 2011. The forest area has shot up in 2003 andcame down in 2005. This discrepancy can be associated with the variation inrecording of data in Karnataka. The scenario in 2013, where there has been aslight increase is because of the categorisation of more land under forest areaby the forest department. There has been a sharp fall by over 7,255 square kilometresin 2015. A major contributor to this fall is Mizoram, where the land underforest area has come down from 16,717 square kilometres to 5,641 squarekilometres- an abrupt decline to one third of the original area. In the sameyear, Mizoram faced the largest number of forest fire incidents in the country-a whopping 2,468. Madhya Pradesh has the largest forest area- 94,689 squarekilometres, which constitutes 12.3% of the total forest area of the country. Thesame state has the largest forest cover in the country as well- 77,414 squarekilometres which again contributes to a little less than 11% of the totalforest cover. When expressed as the percentage of forest cover in terms ofgeographical area of the state, Lakshadweep tops the list with 90.33% forestcover.
The data fromthe FSI clearly indicates that while the forest cover has increased by around5% in the last 17 years, the forest area has marginally reduced. This is inline with the NASA finding that the increase in green cover in India is largelydue to intensive cropping.
Total forest cover of India by around 5% in the last
17 years
As per FSI, the forest cover is classified into the following on thebasis of the tree canopy density:
Non forest is another category which includes all the land that do notfall in the above categories including water.
A class wise look into the segregation of forest cover reveals that there has been a substantial increase of 79.87% in the category of Very Dense forests in the last 12 years. Even Open Forest areas and Scrub have increased by 4.1% and 19.5% respectively. Meanwhile, the area under Moderately Dense Forest has come down by 24,329 square kilometres. As of 2017, Very Dense Forests constitute 3% and Scrubs constitute only 1.4% while Moderately Dense and Open forests constitute 9.38 and 9.18 % of the total geographical area. Non forests comprise of 77.1% of the total geographic area in the country.
The total forest cover of India including mangrove forest area hasincreased by around 5% in the last 17 odd years and there has been proportionaldecrease in the total Non-Forest area.
Overall cropping intensity in India is up from 131% to
142% in 14 years
There has been a notable increase in the annual cropping intensity in India over the years, to feed the large population. The reportreleased by NASA has also highlighted this fact.
Cropping intensity refers to the raising of a number of crops (totalcropped area) from the same field during an agriculture year. In spite of thefluctuation in some years, the overall cropping intensity has gone up from131.1% in 2000-01 to 142% in 2013-14,  anincrease of 10.9% in 14 years. It has to be noted that the increase in croppingintensity happened when the area under cultivation has remained more or lessthe same (around 140 million hectares) during this period.
About 43% of the land area  inIndia is under cultivation. It should be kept in mind that, despite there beingmore agricultural land, cultivation does not take place everywhere. The productionof grains, fruits, pulses etc. have increased over the years and these cropshave added to the green foliage as reported by NASA.
Forests have a wide plethora of services and values associated withthem, be it social, cultural, scientific or economic and therefore contribute enormouslyto the human population. Though the green/forest cover has increased, it has tobe remembered that the loss in natural vegetation and damages inflicted uponthe biodiversity and the environment still need to be looked into. Thesustainability of the agriculture also remains a question mark. One of thetargets of the Sustainable Development Goal 15: Life on Land aims at promoting the implementation of sustainable management of alltypes of forests. It also stresses on halting deforestation and adhering tomeasures to restore degraded forests while substantially increasing afforestationand reforestation at the global level.