Forest covers data

In order to protect India's forest cover, authorities are attempting to collect accurate data on forests.

The data collection:

• India is one of the few nations with a scientific system for periodic forest cover assessment, which provides "valuable inputs for planning, policy formulation, and evidence-based decision-making".

• Since 19.53% in the early 1980s, India's forest cover has risen to 21.71% by 2021.
• With a notional 2.91% tree cover anticipated in 2021, the country's overall green cover presently stands at 24.62%, on paper.

Types of Forests in India:

The Forest Survey of India (FSI) classifies forest cover into four categories:

• Very Dense Forest: All lands having tree cover (including mangrove cover) of at least 70% canopy density.
• Moderately dense forest: All lands with tree cover (including mangrove cover) of canopy density between 40% and 70%.
• Open forests: It includes all places with tree cover (including mangrove cover) ranging in canopy density from 10% to 40%.
• Scrubs: All forest lands with poor tree growth mainly of small or stunted trees having a canopy density of less than 10%.

The Indian Forest Act of 1878 divides forests into three categories: reserved, protected, and village forests:

• Reserved forests:
  • They account for more than half of India's total forest area.
  • It has a certain degree of protection.
  • They are protected by state governments, as opposed to the Government of India, which oversees wildlife sanctuaries and national parks.
  • In these woods, the rights to extract timber, graze livestock, and hunt are prohibited, as is public admission.
• Protected forests: They are classified into two types: demarcated and undemarcated.
  • They have a limited amount of protection.
  • These are managed by the government, but certain activities such as hunting, grazing, and timber collection are permitted for people who live on forest boundaries and are partially or entirely reliant on forest resources for a living, provided they do not cause significant damage to the forests.
• Village forests:
  • Village woods are preserved and managed by local communities allocated by state governments.
  • Local communities may utilize it for timber or other forest products, grazing, recreation, planting, and so forth, subject to state government regulations.

Key highlights of the survey:

• In India, regardless of land use or ownership, any area of one hectare or more with a minimum tree canopy density of 10% is considered forest cover.
  • This disregards the standard set by the United Nations, which excludes forest areas that are primarily used for agriculture and habitation.
• Registered Forest Area is the term used to denote an area that has been declared as forest in India's revenue records or under forest law. Recorded Forest Areas, which are divided into Reserved, Protected, and Unclassified woods, make up 23.58% of India.
• Since 19.53% in the early 1980s, India's forest cover has risen to 71% by 2021. Adding in a hypothetical 2.91% tree cover projection for 2021, the country's overall green cover now stands at 24.62% on paper.
• Even though the forest department has planted extensively since the 1990s, the total area of thick forests in Registered Forest Areas in 2021 was just 9.96% of India.

Technology used:

• Satellite images are used for mapping forests in India.
• LiDAR-based forest survey:
• It is a remote sensing technique that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure range and varying distances.
• LiDAR works on a simple principle: fire laser light at an item on the earth's surface and calculate the time it takes to return to the LiDAR source.
• Applications: Lidar is commonly used to make high-resolution maps, with applications in surveying, geodesy, geomatics, archaeology, geography, geology, geomorphology, seismology, forestry, atmospheric physics, laser guidance, airborne laser swath mapping (ALSM), laser altimetry.