Despite numerous forestry programmes at the central and state levels, India has lost 728 sq km forest between 2002 and 2004, according to the latest national survey on forest cover.

The State of Forest report, 2005,  shows that only 23.4 per cent of the total land mass is under forest and tree cover. Compared to the figure in the 2003 report, the percentage loss in green cover amounts to 11 per cent.
The National Forest Policy of 1988 mandated the government to increase the forest and tree cover to one third of the country’s total land mass. In the hills and mountainous regions the bar was put at two-thirds of the land.

However, the latest forest survey makes it explicit that the centre is nowhere close to its targets in the hills where the total forest cover is only 38.85 per cent, Dr Devendra Pandey, director general of Dehradun-based Forest Survey of India (FSI) said after releasing the report at a conference here on Tuesday. 

While the FSI chief cited tsunami, construction of large dams and bamboo flowering and shift cultivation as the main reason for loss of forest in Andaman and Nicober islands, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattishgarh, Nagaland and Manipur, he did not clarify why the forest departments’ efforts did not bear fruit.

The loss is the maximum in moderately dense forest cover – trees with 40-70 per cent canopy cover – where 1409 sq km was lost. Since there were marginal gain in the dense forest and a gain of 630 sq km in open forest, the overall loss has come down to 728 sq km of forest.