Greenery in every corner of India in two years! Big good news for the country related to environment

New Delhi: A good news related to environment has come out in India. During the last two years, both tree cover and forest cover have increased in the country. However, compared to tree cover, there has been only a slight increase in forest cover. Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Singh on Saturday released the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2023 in which this claim was made. According to ISFR report, the country’s forest and tree cover has increased to 25.17 percent. In 2021 it was 24.62 percent. Now the total forest cover in the country has become 7 lakh 15 thousand 342.61 square kilometers. This is 21.76 percent of the geographical area of ​​the country. At the same time, tree cover is also 3.41 percent of the total geographical area of ​​the country. Now the total forest and tree cover of the country is 8 lakh 27 thousand 356.95 square kilometers. For the first time, big trees from agroforest land have also been included in this report. It is noteworthy that the ISFR 2023 report of Forest Survey of India has been delayed by about a year. This report should have come last year itself. This report provides an assessment of the growing stock, trees planted outside the forest area, mangrove cover, bamboo and forest carbon stock.

Tree cover increased in five states, decreased in only five

While on one hand forest and tree cover has increased in five states, it has also decreased in five states. It has increased in Chhattisgarh, UP, Odisha, Rajasthan and Jharkhand. It has reduced in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Nagaland, Bihar and Tripura. According to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, forest and tree cover has increased the most in Chhattisgarh.

It has increased by 684 square kilometers in Chhattisgarh, 559 square kilometers in Uttar Pradesh, 559 square kilometers in Odisha and 394 square kilometers in Rajasthan. Talking about forest cover, it has increased the most in Mizoram by 242 square kilometers, in Gujarat by 180 square kilometers and in Odisha by 152 square kilometers. If seen in terms of area, Madhya Pradesh has the largest forest and tree cover. MP has 85,724 square kilometers of forest cover, Arunachal Pradesh has 67,083 square kilometers and Maharashtra has 65,383 square kilometers of forest cover.

Data also came on forest fires

The issue of forest fire has also been covered in this report. According to the report, the highest number of 21,033 fire cases have been reported in the forests of Uttarakhand. After this, 20,973 cases of forest fire were reported in Odisha and 18,950 in Chhattisgarh. Talking about the districts, 7042 such incidents took place in Gadchiroli of Maharashtra, 6399 in Alluri Sitarama Raja of Andhra Pradesh and 5018 in Bijapur of Chhattisgarh.