Depletion & Conservation

Over the years, the area under forest cover has decreased steadily, as forests have been cleared for agriculture, industry, housing, and other development activities like the construction of roads, railways, and hydroelectric plants.

Since the beginning of civilization, as seen from the Indus Valley Civilization, people have been clearing land for agriculture to meet the food needs of the ever- growing population. Most forest communities follow a method of slash and burn or shifting cultivation, known as Jhum in the Indian subcontinent. They clear a patch of forest, cultivate crops on it, and abandon it the following season. Then they move on to a new area and follow the same pattern. They often return to the same area after a few years. This method is more common in the hilly regions. It is now believed that Jhum was a good method of cultivation as the land was left fallow for a long period. This allowed the forest to regenerate and the soil to stabilize. Once the trees are felled, the soil becomes less fertile as it removes the nutrient-giving vegetation layer. This also leads to severe soil erosion. If the land is left to regenerate, the forest re-grows and the soil becomes stable.

Today, though, this method of cultivation causes extensive damage to the area. Due to the increase in population, people are compelled to cultivate on the same plot of land more frequently as there is very little forest area available. Forests are also being converted to permanent settlements. Thus, forests cannot regenerate, and, in some cases, forest areas have become wasteland within a few years due to frequent cultivation.

Animals usually graze in forests. But if their number is large, they hamper regeneration when they trample on the young shoots and seedlings or eat them. This makes the soil prone to erosion.

Apart from forest loss, one also has to contend with forest degradation. Communities living in and around forests remove fuelwood from forests. As long as the population was low, the forest could meet the demand and yet remain healthy. But the increasing population has severely depleted the forest.

After independence India lost forest area in the following manner:

4696 million hectares forest land to non-forestry purposes

0.07 million hectares to illegal encroachment

4.37 million hectares to cultivation

0.518 million hectares to river valley projects

0.141 million hectares to industries and townships

0.061 million hectares to transmission lines and roads

Conservation measures

To conserve forest areas, the government launched joint forest management and social forestry schemes, with some success. But other conservation measures have to be taken to save the forests from further depletion and degeneration. Governments and communities should take steps to plant trees on a large scale. The community should be consulted and trees that will meet their requirements should be planted. People in the living in the rural and forestry areas should be sensitized to the damage dine to their surroundings by the felling of trees. They should be encouraged to cut branches, twigs and leaves of the trees for their daily requirements. Horticulture as an alternative source of income should be encouraged. People who still follow jhum cultivation should be taught land use and be motivated to adopt terrace farming and other methods of cultivation. All this, collectively, would halt the depletion of forest cover

Forest Cover

India is one of the 12 mega diversity countries having a vast variety of flora and fauna, commands 7% of world's biodiversity and supports 16 major forest types, varying from the alpine pastures in the Himalayas to temperate, sub-tropical forests, and mangroves in the coastal areas.

According to the State of Forest Report, published by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) in 1997, India has a recorded forest area of 76.5 million hectare or 23.3% of the total geographic area of the country. But the actual forest cover is 63.34 million ha (19.27% of the country's area) of which 26.13 million ha are degraded. There is another 5.72 million ha scrub in addition to the reported forest cover of 63.34 million ha. Thus, in total, 31.85 million ha forests in the country are degraded or open.

There are other woodlands established in small blocks (less than 25 ha) on non-forest lands which are not included in the forest cover estimates of the FSI because of limitation of interpretation of satellite data. FSI has taken up the Ground Survey of such areas under Tree Cover and it has already completed survey work in the state of Haryana. Based on the data of Ground Survey in Haryana, it has been estimated that an area equivalent to about 6.6 per cent of non-forest land is under Tree Cover. On extrapolation of this trend, one can arrive at the fact that an area equivalent to 17.5 million ha (6.6% of 265 million ha non-forest land of the country) non-forest land in the country are under Tree Cover. State of the World's Forests, 1995 published by the FAO has reported such wooded land in India as 17.7 million ha, which is very close to 17.5 million ha estimated above. Since tree plantation activities on private lands in some parts of the country are not as intensive as in Haryana, we can safely take this figure as 16 million ha. Having taken this area as 16 million ha together with Forest Cover assessed by the FSI, the total area under forest and Tree Cover in the country comes out as 79.34 million ha or 24.13% of the total area of the country, which is less than the National Goal of 33% area under forest or Tree Cover set by the National Forest Policy, 1988.