According to Global Forest Watch, India has lost 2.33 million hectares of tree cover since 2000, equivalent to a 6% decrease in tree cover during this period.
- India has lost 4,14,000 hectares of humid primary forest (4.1 per cent) from 2002 to 2023, making up 18 per cent of its total tree cover loss in the same period. Between 2001 and 2022.
- Forests in India emitted 51 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year and removed 141 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. This represents a net carbon sink of 89.9 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year.
- An average of 51.0 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year was released into the atmosphere as a result of tree cover loss in India. In total, 1.12 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent was emitted during this period.
- Assam had the maximum tree cover loss at 324,000 hectares compared to an average of 66,600 hectares. Mizoram lost 312,000 hectares of tree cover, Arunachal Pradesh 262,000 hectares, Nagaland 259,000 hectares, and Manipur 240,000 hectares.
- From 2001 to 2022, Odisha had the highest rate of tree cover loss due to fires with an average of 238 hectares lost per year.
Tree cover and Forest cover
- The Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change defines ‘forest cover’ in India as “all lands, more than one hectare in area with a tree canopy density of more than 10%”, and ‘tree cover’ as “tree patches outside recorded forest areas exclusive of forest cover and less than the minimum mappable area of one hectare”.
- The ‘India State of Forest Report 2021’ defines tree outside forest (TOF) as “trees patches existing outside the recorded forest area irrespective of their size.”
- Since tree cover measures only non-forest patches that are less than 1 hectare, it is only a part of TOF.
- Considering the percentage of geographical areas of states and UTs, Chandigarh shows the highest percentage of tree cover (13.16%), followed by Delhi (9.91%), Kerala (7.26%) and Goa (6.59%).
