Date : 14 Jan 2022
India State Of Forest Report 2021 Released
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- Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, today released the ‘India State of Forest Report 2021’, a biennial report, prepared by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) which has been mandated to assess the forest and tree resources of the country.
- 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.
- In 2021, the total forest and tree cover in India is 80.9 million hectares. This is over 24.60 percent of the geographical area of the country; an increase of 2,261 sq km in the total forest and tree cover of the country in last two years.
- He said that it is encouraging to note that 17 states and union territories have above 33 percent of the geographical area under forest cover.
- 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 percentage of total geographical area, the top five States are Mizoram (84.53%), Arunachal Pradesh (79.33%), Meghalaya (76.00%), Manipur (74.34%) and Nagaland (73.90%).
- Maximum increase in forest cover witnessed in Andhra Pradesh (647 sq km) followed by Telangana (632 sq km) and Odisha (537 sq km).
- 17 states/UT’s have above 33 percent of the geographical area under forest cover.
- Total mangrove cover in the country is 4,992 sq km. An increase of 17 sq Km in mangrove cover has been observed in last two years.
- Top three states showing mangrove cover increase are Odisha (8 sq km) followed by Maharashtra (4 sq km) and Karnataka (3 sq km).
- Total carbon stock in country’s forest is estimated to be 7,204 million tonnes and there an increase of 79.4 million tonnes in the carbon stock of country in last two years. The annual increase in the carbon stock is 39.7 million tonnes.