New Delhi, December 23 (IANS). Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Bhupendra Yadav said that compared to 2021, the total forest and tree area of the country has increased by 1,445 square kilometers. In this, 25.17 percent of the total geographical area is green area.
According to the present assessment, the total forest and tree area in the country is 8,27,357 square kilometers, which is 25.17 percent of the country’s geographical area. He said the forest area is about 7,15,343 square kilometers (21.76 percent), while the tree cover is 1,12,014 square kilometers (3.41 percent).
The top three states with the highest forest cover in terms of area are Madhya Pradesh (77,073 sq km), followed by Arunachal Pradesh (65,882 sq km) and Chhattisgarh (55,812 sq km).
The Minister also highlighted the near real-time fire warning and forest fire services provided by FSI using advanced technology while releasing the ‘India Forest Status Report 2023 (ISFR 2023)’ at the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun.
ISFR is brought out by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) on a biennial basis since 1987. India State of Forest Report 2023 is the 18th such report in this series.
The report said the top four states showing maximum increase in forest and tree cover are Chhattisgarh (684 sq km), followed by Uttar Pradesh (559 sq km), Odisha (559 sq km) and Rajasthan (394 sq km) . The top three states showing maximum increase in forest area are Mizoram (242 sq km), followed by Gujarat (180 sq km) and Odisha (152 sq km).
The report said the total mangrove cover in the country is 4,992 sq km.
FSI conducts in-depth assessment of the forest and tree resources of the country based on interpretation of remote sensing satellite data and field-based National Forest Inventory (NFI) and the results are published in ISFR.
The report includes information on forest cover, tree cover, mangrove cover, growing stocks, carbon stocks in India’s forests, forest fires and agroforestry.
To present a comprehensive picture of forest health at the country level, specific thematic information on forest cover and important characteristics of forests is captured in the ISFR.
–IANS
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