Getting basics wrong
The good news: India's forest coverhas more or less remained unchanged from the period 1991-93 to 1993-95. From 63.96 million hectares(mha), it is only marginally gone down to 63.34 mha,claims the ministry of environment and forest's (MEF) sixth State of Forest reports . But doubts persists as to how useful this data is and what it tells environmentalists, who would like to know how well India is protecting its natural forests and in which regions of the country these natural forests are most under stress and being eroded.
Now the bad news: the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) claims that, in 1990, India had a total forest cover of 70.63 mha, of which 51.73 mha were natural forests and 18.90 under plan
a year during the 1980s. While the natural forests cover went down (by 3.39 mha), the area under plantations went up dramatically (by 15.73). While MEF data refers to tree cover and includes plantations on farm and degraded lands (whatever could be observed by satellite), the FAO separately discusses natural forests and plantations. Thus, two conclusions emerged from the data:
- That little has changed between the 1970s and the 1980s in terms of destruction of natural forests, despite the creation of the MEFand the enormous interest that the environmental community has shown in forestry issues in the 1980s.
- That India's forests managers are allowing plantations to increase at the expense of the natural forest cover.
Frontier forests
India is one of the 28 countries in the world where there is "not much time' to protect its natural forests. The forests will be further threatened if prompt action is not taken, says The Last Frontier Forests: Ecosystems and Economies on the Edge , a study by the World Resource Institute.
About 99 per cent of India's original frontier forest