New Delhi || 21-12-2024
Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, 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%).
Minister Yadav 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.
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).
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.
