The need to regenerate our forests is acute.
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Green cover in India - Challenges and Solutions
- Forest cover: According to State of the World’s Forests report 2020 released by UNEP and FAO, since 1990, around 420 million hectares of forest have been lost through deforestation, conversion and land degradation.
- Why restore: Restoration is about bringing back the degraded or deforested landscape to its original state by various interventions to enable them to deliver all the benefits. It helps to improve ecological functions, productivity and create resilient forests with multifarious capabilities. India has 10 bio-geographical regions and 4 biodiversity hotspots sheltering 8% of the world’s known flora and fauna but nearly 18% of the global human population depends on it. To combat this, India joined the Bonn Challenge with a pledge to restore 26 MHA of degraded and deforested land by 2030. The year 2021-2030 is declared as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
- Challenges in restoration: First, planting without considering the local ecology and in wrongful places could be disastrous for local biodiversity. Nearly 5.03% of Indian forests are under protection area management needing specific restoration strategies after local research.
- Encroachment and grazing is linked to the livelihood of local communities as well as degradation of forests.
- There is an intricate link between poverty and environmental degradation as highlighted at the first UN global conference on human environment.
- Lack of adequate financing is one of the major concerns for the success of restoration. Conflict of interests among different stakeholders is even more challenging.
- Poverty angle: Local research duly considering ecological aspects, local disturbances and forest-dependent communities is vital to formulate guidelines for locally suitable interventions. The participation of local communities with finances for incentives and rewards such as Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMC) is essential. Alternate ways of financing such as involving corporates in restoration activities with ongoing land-based programmes of various departments can help to make it easy for operation. An inclusive approach of active engagement of stakeholders including NGOs, awareness and capacity building of stakeholders is needed.
- Knowledge Centre:
- Types of forests - Forests can be classified in many ways, for example in terms of the biome in which they exist, combined with leaf longevity of the dominant species (evergreen or deciduous). Forests may be composed predominantly of broadleaf trees, coniferous (needle-leaved) trees, or mixed. Boreal forests occupy the subarctic zone and are generally evergreen and coniferous. Temperate zones support both broadleaf deciduous forests (e.g., temperate deciduous forest) and evergreen coniferous forests (e.g., temperate coniferous forests and temperate rainforests). Warm temperate zones support broadleaf evergreen forests, including laurel forests. Tropical and subtropical forests include tropical and subtropical moist forests, tropical and subtropical dry forests, and tropical and subtropical coniferous forests. Physiognomy classifies forests based on their overall physical structure or developmental stage (e.g. old growth vs. second growth). Forests can also be classified more specifically based on the climate and the dominant tree species present, resulting in numerous different forest types (e.g., Ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir forest).
- Biggest forests - Amazon rainforest (5,500,000 km2) spread over Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela; (2) Congo Rainforest 2,000,000 km2 spread over Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon; (3) Atlantic Forest 1,315,460 km2 spread over Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay; (4) Valdivian Temperate Rainforest 248,100 km2 spread over Chile, Argentina; (5) Tongass National Forest 68,000 km2 in the United States; (6) Rainforest of Xishuangbanna 19,223 km2 in China; (7) Sunderbans 10,000 km2 in India and Bangladesh; (8) Daintree Rainforest 1,200 km2 in Australia; and (9) Kinabalu Park 754 km2 in Malaysia.
- Indian forest cover - According to the 2019 report, the total forest cover of the country is 712,249 square kilometres (21.67 percent of India’s total geographical area) slightly up from 708,273 sq. km (21.54 percent) in 2017. The tree cover of the country is 95,027 sq. km (2.89 percent of the total area) again slightly up from 93,815 sq. km. (2.85 percent) in 2017. “Forest cover” includes all tree patches which have canopy density more than 10 percent and area of one hectare or more in size, irrespective of their legal status and species composition. The term “Recorded Forest Area” (RFA) is used for lands which have been notified as “forest” under any government Act or rules or recorded as “forest” in the government records.
- EXAM QUESTIONS: (1) Explain the reason for rapid deterioration in forest cover in India, in recent years. (2) What is the relationship between the various tribes that inhabit forests in India and their ecological surroundings? Explain.
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