India’s Deforestation

Forest in India covers about 76.2 m ha (million hectare), which constitute 23 per cent of the total geographical area (328 m ha) as against 33.3 per cent envisaged in the National Forest Policy of 1988. The most significant revelation is that the country is losing about 1.3 m ha of forest cover every year due to extension of cultivation, mining and establishment of wood based industries leading to indiscriminate felling of trees.

The annual rate of deforestation in India is one per cent, an extremely high rate of deforestation. During the last 30 years, around 24 lakh hectares of forest land has been diverted to agricultural purpose for meeting the increased demand of the growing population.

The observations reflect that India having just 2.5 per cent total geographical forest resources is sustaining around 16.1 per cent of the human and 18 per cent of the livestock populations of the World. India ranks low in terms of per capita availability (0.07 ha) as against World average of 0.8 ha per capita forest area.

Forest in India is under unbearable biotic pressure. Over-grazing and uncontrolled illicit felling for firewood and timber, interfere with regeneration operations and depleted the growing stock and nearly 37 m ha or 49 per cent are degraded.