Case Of The Missing Forests : 61,500 square kilometers Of Forests Are Missing in India

Representation pic. Photo by Renaldo Matamoro on Unsplash

• The difference between forest area in government records and the actual existing forest area in India is 61,500sq.km. These are the Missing Forests. 
  
  
• In Telangana state, which recorded one of the biggest positive changes in forest cover as per ISFR-2021(632sq.km), forests are missing over 6,474sq.km. 

V.Nilesh | Hyderabad

There has been a lot of hoopla recently in the media on the numbers reported in the India State of Forest Report-2021 (ISFR-2021) published by the Forest Survey of India (FSI). I present to you in this blog the case of missing forests in India.

According to the ISFR-2021, India's forest cover increased by 1,540 square kilometers(sq.km) in 2021 compared to 2019. In the same period, Telangana state's forest cover increased by 632sq.km, one of the biggest positive changes recorded among all states. 

While this minuscule increase in forest cover has become the most spoken about datapoint from ISFR-2021 in the media, a careful reading of the report reveals a lot of underlying gloom in the data that it presents.

The Case of Missing 61,500 square kilometers of Forests in India

Here's some information you weren't made aware of by the media - India's actual forest cover as studied through satellite images by the FSI is 61,500 sq.km less than the combined geographical area officially recorded by the Governments of various States and Union Territories as "forest."

What do I mean?

The ISFR provides data on 'Recorded Forest Area as per the State's records' — a state's total geographical area recorded officially as 'forest' — under the Indian Forest Act, 1927 or Acts passed by state governments. 

All the States and Union Territories of India officially recognize 7,75,288sq.km area as 'forest' according to the ISFR-2021. As part of its biannual exercise of measuring forest areas in India through satellite imagery, the FSI could identify only 7,13,789sq.km of forests in 2021, which means across 61,500sq.km area where forests must exist as per government records, there are no forests! 

How much is 61,500sq.km? It is 10,000sq.km more than the landmass of Bangladesh! 

In the case of Telangana, the Recorded Forest Area by the state government is 27,688sq.km, whereas the forest area identified by FSI in 2021 was 21,214sq.km. So over 6,474sq.km of the area where forests should have existed, there are none! 

Pathetic Forest Cover in States Ranking High on Industrialization 

Industrialization does not seem to be treading a sustainable path in the states that take pride in their economic model.

Among the top-11 states of India ranked according to Gross Value Added by their factories in the Annual Survey of Industries-2017, in three states, the forest cover is less than 10% — Gujarat, Haryana, and Rajasthan. Except for Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh, forests don't even cover a quarter of their geographical area in the other eight states. 

States in Descending Order of Gross ValueAdded by Factories as per Annual Survey of Industries-2017	Forest Cover (Percentage of Geographical Area that is Forests)	Recorded Forest Area as per the State's records (in square kilometers)	Existing Forest Area as Reported in the ISFR-2021 (in square kilometers)	Missing Forests (Area in square kilometers)
Maharashtra	16.51	61,952	50,798	11,154
Gujarat	7.61	21,870	14,196	6,944
Tamil Nadu	20.31	23,188	26,419	NA
Karnataka	20.19	38,284	38,730	NA
Uttar Pradesh	6.15	17,384	14,818	2,566
Haryana	3.63	1,559	1,603	NA
Rajasthan	4.87	32,863	16,655	16,208
Uttarakhand	45.44	38,000	24,305	13,695
Madhya Pradesh	25.14	94,689	77,493	17,196
Telangana	18.93	27,688	21,214	6,474
Andhra Pradesh	18.28	37,258	29,784	7,474

As you can see in the table above, of the top-11 industrial states of India, except Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Haryana, there is a massive difference between the Recorded Forest Area and the existing forest area as per the ISFR-2021. The other eight states have 81,711sq.km of missing forests, which is a little more than the landmass of Belarus.

Why are these forests missing? Well, hopefully, a journalist interested to know the answer to this question would take it up and ask the forest department officers about it. Although one answer I'm sure about is deforestation and encroachment of forest areas.

Every edition of the ISFR reports a minor rise in the forest cover across various states of India. These improvements won't amount to much until all states recover the entire area of the missing forests, till the forest area existing on ground as seen through the satellite imagery is close to the Recorded Forest Area in government records. And even that would be just a beginning towards the long-term goal envisaged by the National Forest Policy of India, of having 33% of the country's geographical area under forest cover.

Ends/