The India State of Forest Report 2023 (ISFR 2023) is out, showing an increase in the forest cover of the country. However, it has failed to dispel doubts cast over the expansive definition – “forest cover” – that includes commercial plantations, palms, and bamboo groves.
The ISFR 2023, released on December 21 by the Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, showed a 156-square-kilometer (sq km) increase in India’s forest cover from 2021. There had been an increase of 1289 sq km in tree cover during the same time. Together, the forest and tree cover of the country now stands at 8,27,357 sq km, which is 25.17 percent of the geographical area (forest cover 7,15,343 sq km (21.76%) and tree cover 1,12,014 sq km (3.41%)). Experts, however, suggest that planting trees does not necessarily mean a forest is being restored.
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“The government’s definition of “forest” encompasses commercial plantations, orchards, and even bamboo – which actually belongs to the grass family – and therefore these biennial forest surveys cannot quantify how much natural forest has been restored,” said a retired forest official requesting anonymity. “Our national forest policy aims for trees on 33% of the country’s area, and the policy includes schemes of single-species plantations that have quick growth but low value for overall biodiversity. The success of forest restoration efforts cannot be measured by tree cover alone. In fact, forests have decreased in some of India’s most biodiverse areas,” he added.
The ISFR has been brought out by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) using satellite imagery and field data on a biennial basis since 1987 and has been critical to understand the country’s forest resources.
India’s 19 states/Union Territories (UTs) have above 33 percent of their geographical area covered under forest, with Lakshadweep on top of the list with 91.33 percent, followed by Mizoram (85.34 percent) and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (81.62 percent). On the other hand, Tripura has recorded the maximum decrease (116.90 sq km), followed by Telangana (105.87 sq km), Assam (86.66 sq km), Andhra Pradesh (83.47 sq km), and Gujarat (61.22 sq km).
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Plantations are not forests
Shrinking forest cover, especially of dense natural forests, stands to raise pollution levels and seriously impact climatic conditions. To gain in forest/tree cover and thereby achieve annual sequestration of 50-60 million tonnes by 2020, the Green India Mission was launched in 2015. The country has also pledged to restore about 21 million hectares of forest by 2030 under the Bonn Challenge. A report released in 2018 by the government of India and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) claimed around 10 million hectares was under restoration.
The gain in forest cover in the latest assessment has largely been involving commercial plantations and not natural forests. In fact, in the race to score in the carbon market, the government has facilitated grabbing of burdened forest lands by private companies for industrial plantations, which could not be termed as healthy for our country’s natural forests as well as climate commitment.
Monoculture plantations are termed as “green deserts,” leading to ecological damage that could result in a reduction in the number of species, destruction of breeding sites, and degradation of ecosystems and affect the socio-economic scenario. Conversion of chunks of natural forests into monoculture industrial plantations would further devastate local ecosystems that are complex and sensitive.
Scientists have already warned of native forests declining at an alarming pace. “Native forests are pooled with exotic tree plantations, such as eucalyptus, acacia, rubber, or teak plantations, which have very limited value for endangered biodiversity. If one subtracts plantations from total forest cover, then native forests have actually declined at an alarming pace.”
Plantations cannot replace the biodiversity value of native natural forests. Large-scale change in the land use patterns with destruction of forest cover has already inflicted irreparable damage to the region’s forests and critical wildlife habitats with large-scale endemism and famed biodiversity.
Forest loss in Northeastern states
The reasons for a decrease in forest cover in the northeastern states are listed as shifting cultivation, agriculture expansion, rotational tree felling, natural disasters, other biotic factors, and most importantly, the diversion of forest land for developmental projects. Forests perform critical ecological functions, but the conversion of natural forests into monoculture industrial plantations devastated local ecosystems. Eucalyptus, acacia, and other exotic trees were introduced in India from the eighteenth century by British foresters. In Assam, teak monocultures as a source of timber replaced Sal forests. In recent years, huge tracts have been cleared for oil palm plantations in the ecologically fragile Northeast.
The ISFR 2023 showed a decrease of 327.30 sq km in forest cover in the northeastern region. Among the five states of the country showing the maximum decrease of forest cover are the two northeastern states – Assam and Tripura. Although other northeastern states – Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, and Nagaland – had lost forest cover, the present assessment showed these states managed to retain over 75 percent of their respective geographical area under forest cover.
Even with a record maximum decrease, Tripura could still retain 50 percent of her geographical area under forest cover. The only exception has been Assam. The State’s forest cover has decreased by over 83 sq km between 2021 and 2023, stated the India State of Forest Report 2023. Assam’s total forest area has been 28,313.55 sq km, which is 36.10 percent of the state’s total area, while the area under tree cover is 10,718.28 sq km, bringing the total forest and tree cover area to 30,415.01 sq km.
Although slight gains were recorded in the Very Dense Forest (VDF) category, Moderately Dense Forest (MDF) saw declines in the last decade. As per the report, between 2021 and 2023, MDF inside recorded forest area for Assam has decreased by 134.32 percent and scrub by 18.41 percent.
The Assam government failed utterly to align with the nation’s promise of carbon neutrality that calls for additional tree and forest cover by 2030 at a massive scale and on an urgent footing. Indiscriminate felling of trees in the name of infrastructure development, failure to bring more areas under the protected area network, make protected areas free of encroachment, failure to protect native forests, and restore degraded forests are some of the major setbacks.
Loss of native forests seriously impacting biodiversity
Assam’s dense forest cover, which accounts for the region’s famed wildlife and overall biodiversity, stands only at 4.07 percent. A substantial portion of the State’s dense forests has been lost forever in the past three decades to large-scale encroachment and illegal logging. Without any effective protection mechanism, Reserve Forests (RFs) and Proposed Reserve Forests (PRFs) have been under large-scale organized encroachment, often having political backing.
In 2018, state government data revealed that 22 percent of Assam’s total forest land had been under encroachment. The Land Revenue Regulation (Amendment) Act, 2019, was passed to free forest land from encroachment. Officers were asked to submit reports on encroachments in their respective divisions. But the actual rate of shrinkage of dense forest cover due to encroachment was hard to find in government reports. The ground reality has been far more devastating than what the reports reveal and alleged to have been camouflaged.
Land-use changes severely impacted wildlife habitats in the last two decades. Wildlife corridors are an important means of ensuring larger habitat availability to species and also genetic exchange within and between populations.
“Long-ranging animals like elephants that migrate over large areas of land – where changes to water supply, vegetation, and weather can endanger the giant mammals. The escape route for mega-herbivores and mega-carnivores (Elephas maximus and Panthera tigris tigris) cannot be termed as good and contiguous in the case of the Kaziranga National Park. The chains of tea estates dotting the western, northern, and western sides of Karbi Hills Massif and the National Highway 37 are the mistakes of colonial history which are irreversible,” said Dr. Abhijit Rabha, retired Principal Chief Conservator of Forests. A formidable territory of Kaziranga falls under the jurisdiction of this hills district.
“The wild free-ranging elephants are highly restricted by energy, water, silence, and security issues. The space with a large tract of land with variegated forest patches, the phenology of those that had been in sync with the migration pattern, is almost gone due to socio-political developments,” added Dr. Rabha.