Union Minister Bhupender Yadav Releases India State of Forest Report 2023
Union Minister Bhupender Yadav Releases India State of Forest Report 2023
Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Bhupender Yadav released the ‘India State of Forest Report 2023 (ISFR 2023) today at Forest Research Institute, Dehradun. The ISFR is brought out by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) on a biennial basis since 1987. FSI carries out 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 the ISFR. The India State of Forest Report 2023 is 18th such report in the series.
The report contains information on forest cover, tree cover, mangrove cover, growing stock, carbon stock in India’s forests, instances of forest fire, Agroforestry, etc. To present a detailed picture of the forest health at country level, special thematic information on forest cover and important characteristics of forests have been reported in the ISFR. As per the present assessment, the total Forest and Tree cover is 8,27,357sq km, which is 25.17 percent of the geographical area of the country. The Forest Cover has an area of about 7,15,343sq km (21.76%) whereas the Tree Cover has an area of 1,12,014 sq km (3.41%).
The Minister expressed happiness over the fact that as compared to 2021, there is an increase of 1445 sq km in the total forest and tree cover of the country. He also highlighted the near real time fire alerts and forest fire services provided by FSI using advance technology.
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MAJOR FINDINGS
● The Forest and Tree cover of the country is 8,27,357 sq km which is 25.17 percent of the geographical area of the country, consisting of 7,15,343 sq km (21.76%) as forest cover and 1,12,014 sq km (3.41%) as tree cover.
● As compared to assessment of 2021, there is an increase of 1445 sq km in the forest and tree cover of the country which includes 156 sq km increase in the forest cover and 1289 sq km increase in tree cover.
● Area wise top three states having largest forest cover are Madhya Pradesh (77,073 sq km) followed by Arunachal Pradesh (65,882 sq km) and Chhattisgarh (55,812 sq km).
● The total mangrove cover is 4,992 sq km in the country.
Besides providing vital information for monitoring the country’s forest and tree resources, the data given in the ISFR serves as a useful source of information for the policy makers, planners, State Forest Departments, research organisation, line agencies involved in various developmental works, academicians, civil society and others interested in natural resource conservation and management.