India’s Forest area gain

Description

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Context: As per annual Economic Survey, India has increased its forest area in the past decade and ranks third globally in average annual net gain in forest area from 2010-2020. India added an average of 2,66,000 hectares of additional forest area every year during the period.

Key highlights:

Global scenario: The top 10 countries account for 66% of the world’s forest area are Brazil (59%), Peru (57%), Democratic Republic of Congo (56%) and Russia (50%).
India specific:
- Forests covered 24% of India’s total geographical area accounting for 2% of the world’s total forest area in 2020.
- Forest cover in terms of area under forests: Among Indian States, Madhya Pradesh with 11% of India’s total forest cover, had the largest area under forests in 2021, followed by Arunachal Pradesh (9%), Chhattisgarh (8%), Odisha (7%) and Maharashtra (7%).
- Forest cover to the geographical area: Mizoram (85%), Arunachal Pradesh (79%), Meghalaya (76%), Manipur (74%) and Nagaland (74%) were the top five States in terms of highest proportion of forest cover to the geographical area of the State in 2021.
- India’s increase in forest cover (2011-21) is attributed to enhancement in very dense forest cover, which rose by 20% during the period. Open forest cover also improved by 7% cent during the period.
- Most of the increases in India’s forests have occurred outside areas traditionally marked as ‘forest’ and consists of plantations and orchards.