BANGALORE – A report published last month by India’s Environment Ministry has sparked public debate between environmentalists and the government over what a forest is and where the country’s climate priorities are.
The biennial India State of Forest Report for 2021 states that the country’s forest cover has increased by 1,540 sq km over the past two years to approximately 714,000 sq kilometers, more than a fifth of its total area.
The Forest Survey of India (FSI) has long defined “forests” as “any lands greater than one hectare in size with tree canopy density of over 10 per cent”. This includes road, rail, and canal side plantations, rubber and tea and coffee plantations, et cetera.
Environmentalists quickly pointed to the fact that FSI’s celebration of increased forest cover was questionable due to how it defined forests.
Mysore Doreswamy Madhusudan, an ecologist, stated in a Twitter thread that the “problematic, perverse redefinition” equated natural forests – vital for biodiversity and livelihoods- with tea gardens and city parks.
The Environment Ministry has stood by its position. Ministers wrote op-eds defending their position, stressing that they adhere to international standards. They argued that plantations also have an ecological value and told Parliament that they don’t plan to alter any definitions.
However, environmentalists warn this could lead to inaccurate measurements of forest cover in India.
The State of Forest report recognizes that only 2 percent of the increase of forest cover since 2019 was caused by natural forests, or recorded forest areas.
Global Forest Watch, an online tracker by the World Resources Institute, estimates that India’s natural forests have declined each year since 2002.
Dr Madhusudan stated that satellite data from India’s National Remote Sensing Centre also indicates a decline in natural forest cover.
He gave the example of Sonitpur, a district in the north-eastern state Assam where massive forest destruction is “plainly evident” in satellite imagery.
He claimed that the official survey had recorded an “utterly mystifying rise” by counting thousands upon thousands of hectares in private tea estates as forests.
Surveys have designated many human settlements, tea estates and coconut farms, as well as other monocultures like eucalyptus plantations in Naxalbari, West Bengal, Valparai, Tamil Nadu, and heavily populated islands of Lakshadweep, as “moderately dense forests” or “very dense forests”.