The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change recently released the State of Forest Report 2021. It is called the ISFR, 2021. The report says that there has been a continuous growth of forest cover in India. The current forest cover of India is 7,13,789 square kilometres.

Increase in Forest Cover

• In the last two years, the forest and tree cover has increased by 1,540 square kilometres.
• Around 21.71% of the land area is under forest cover. In 2019, it was 21.67%.
• Tree cover in the country has increased by 721 square kilometres. Tree cover is the patches of trees in the land size less than one hectare. They occur outside forest area.

State – wise forest cover

• Telangana has shown the highest increase in forest cover of all the states. Here the forest cover has increased by 3.07%. Followed by Telangana, in Andhra Pradesh, the forest cover has increased by 2.22%. At the third place is the state of Odisha. In Odisha, the forest cover has increased by 1.04%. The increase in these states is due to agroforestry and plantation.
• The states with forest loss were Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya.
• The state with highest forest cover is Madhya Pradesh. It was followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra. This ranking is area – wise, that is, states holding largest amount of forest land.
• The states with highest percentage of land cover of forest were Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur and Nagaland. This is percentage of forest land in the total land area of the state.

Mountainous states

• Jammu and Kashmir lost very dense forest. It now has 4,155 square kilometres of very dense forest. In 2019, it had 4,270 square kilometres of very dense forest.
• The state of Himachal Pradesh forest area has increased by 9 square kilometres. However, the moderately dense forest in the state has decreased.
• The Himalayan states such as Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and Uttarakhand are to record maximum increase in temperature mainly due to forest cover loss.
• The north eastern states are to face extreme rainfall due to forest cover loss.

Mangroves

They have increased by 17 square kilometres. The total mangrove cover in India is 4,992 square kilometres.

Forest Fires

In India, 35.46% of forest cover is prone to forest fires. Of this, 11.51% are highly prone, 7.85% are very highly prone, 2.81% are extremely prone.

Climate Change

45% to 64% of forests in India are to experience climate change by 2030. The highly vulnerable climate hot spots are all forests except those in Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and Nagaland. Of all the forest areas, Ladakh will be affected the most.