FOREST COVER DATA

1. Context

2. Forest and Tree Cover in India

• While the Forest Survey of India (FSI) started publishing its biennial State of Forest reports in 1987, it has been mapping India's forest cover since the early 1980s.
• India counts all plots of 1 hectare or above, with at least 10% tree canopy density, irrespective of land use or ownership, within forest cover.
• This disregards the United Nation's benchmark that does not include areas predominantly under agricultural and urban land use in forests.
• All land areas with tree canopy density of 40% and above are considered dense forests and those between 10-40% are open forests.
• Since 2003, a new category-very dense forest was assigned to land with 70% or more canopy density.
• Since 2001, isolated or small patches of trees less than 1 hectare and not counted as forest are assessed for determining a notional area under tree cover by putting together the crowns of individual patches and trees.

3. National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) and FSI data

• The National Remote Sensing Agency (NSRA) under the Department of Space estimated India's forest cover using satellite imagery for periods 1971-1975 and 1980-1982 to report a loss of 2.79% from 16.89% to 14.10% in just seven years.
• While reliable data on encroachment is unavailable, government records show that 24,380 sq km nearly the size of Haryana of forest land was diverted for non-forest use between 1951 and 1980.
• However, the government was reluctant to accept such a massive loss and, after much negotiations, the NRSA and the newly established FSI "reconciled" India's forest cover at 19.53% in 1987.
• Significantly, the FSI did not contest the NRSA finding that the dense forest cover had fallen from 14.12% in the mid-1970s to 10.96% in 1981, and reconciled it to 10.88% in 1987.

3.1 National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC)

• National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) at Hyderabad.
• It is responsible for remote sensing satellite data acquisition and processing. It is also responsible for data dissemination, aerial remote sensing and decision support for disaster management.
• National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) at Hyderabad has been converted into a full-fledged centre of ISRO since September 1, 2008.
• Earlier, NRSC was an autonomous body called the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) under the Department of Space (DOS).
• NRSC has a data reception station at Shadnagar near Hyderabad for acquiring data from Indian remote sensing satellites as well as others.
• NRSC Ground station at Shadnagar acquires Earth Observation data from Indian remote-sensing satellites as well as from different foreign satellites. NRSC is also engaged in executing remote sensing application projects in collaboration with the users.

3.2 Forest Survey of India (FSI)

• Forest Survey of India (FSI), is a premier national organization under the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, responsible for the assessment and monitoring of the forest resources of the country regularly.
• In addition, it is also engaged in providing the services of training, research and extension.
• Established on June 1, 1981, the Forest Survey of India succeeded the "Preinvestment Survey of Forest Resources" (PISFR), a project initiated in 1965 by the Government of India with the sponsorship of FAO and UNDP.

4. Loss of old Forest data

• In India, land recorded as forest in revenue records or proclaimed as forest under a forest law is described as a Recorded Forest Area.
• These areas were recorded as forests at some point due to the presence of forests on the land. Divided into Reserved, Protected and Unclassed forests, Recorded Forest Areas account for 23.58% of India.
• Over time, some of these Recorded Forest Areas lost forest cover due to encroachment, diversion, forest fire etc. And tree cover improved in many places outside the Recorded Forest Areas due to agro-forestry, orchards etc.
• In 2011, when the FSI furnished data on India's forest cover inside and outside the Recorded forest areas, it came to light that nearly one-third of Recorded Forest areas had no forest at all.
• Almost one-third of India's old natural forests over 2.44 lakh sq km (larger than Uttar Pradesh) or 7.43 % of India was already gone.

5. Shrinking of Natural Forests

• Even after extensive plantation by the forest department since the 1990s, dense forests within Recorded Forest Areas added up to cover only 9.96% of India in 2021.
• That is a one-tenth slide since the FSI recorded 10.88% dense forest in 1987.
• This loss remains invisible due to the inclusion of commercial plantations, orchards, village homesteads, urban housings etc as dense forests outside Recorded Forest Areas.
• The FSI provides no specific information on the share of plantations in the remaining dense forests inside Recorded Forest Areas.
• But its data offers some hints. Since 2003, nearly 20,000 sq km of dense forests have become non-forests.
• Much of that loss is compensated by nearly 11,000 sq km of non-forest areas that became dense forests in successive two-year windows since 2003.

6. Natural vs Man-made

• First, natural forests have evolved naturally to be diverse and, therefore, support a lot more biodiversity. Simply put, it has many different plans to sustain numerous species.
• Secondly, plantation forests have trees of the same age, are more susceptible to fire, pests and epidemics, and often act as a barrier to natural forest regeneration.
• Thirdly, natural forests are old and therefore stock a lot more carbon in their body and in the soil.
• In 2018, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) flagged India's assumption that new forests (plantations) reach the carbon stock level of existing forests in just eight years.
• On the other hand, plantations can grow a lot more and faster than old natural forests. This also means that plantations can achieve additional carbon targets faster.
• But compared to natural forests, plantations are often harvested more readily, defeating carbon goals in the long term.

7. India's Forest Cover

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