New Delhi: Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, today released the ‘India State of Forest Report 2021’ prepared by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) which has been mandated to assess the forest and tree resources of the country.
Sharing the findings, the Minister informed that the total forest and tree cover of the country is 80.9 million hectare which is 24.62 percent of the geographical area of the country.
As compared to the assessment of 2019, there is an increase of 2,261 sq km in the total forest and tree cover of the country.
The top five states in terms of increase in forest cover are Andhra Pradesh (647 sq km), Telangana (632 sq km), Odisha (537 sq km), Karnataka (155 sq km) and Jharkhand (110 sq km).
Area-wise, Madhya Pradesh has the largest forest cover in the country followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra.
In terms of forest cover as the percentage of total geographical area, the top five states are Mizoram (84.53 per cent), Arunachal Pradesh (79.33 per cent), Meghalaya (76 per cent), Manipur (74.34 per cent) and Nagaland (73.90 per cent).
The Minister expressed happiness over the fact that the present assessment reveals that 17 states/UT’s have above 33 percent of the geographical area under forest cover and stated that the focus of the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not just to conserve the forests quantitatively but to enrich it qualitatively.
The ISFR-2021 provides information on forest cover, tree cover, mangrove cover, growing stock, carbon stock in India’s forests, forest fire monitoring, forest cover in tiger reserve areas, above ground estimates of biomass using SAR data & climate change hotspots in Indian forests.
