Forest report is curated to present a skewed picture of India’s tree cover – Times of India

The 2021 India State of Forest Report (ISFR) paints fairly a rosy image of our inexperienced cowl however many environmentalists level out that it doesn’t replicate the variety and complexity of our forests. Kanchi Kohli, senior researcher on the Centre for Policy Research and environmental coverage professional, talks to TOI about why its methodology is flawed and must be reviewed
What do you make of the ISFR report displaying a rise in forest cowl?
The reply to this query lies in one other query. Does the ISFR replicate the standing of India’s forests or is it merely a quantification of inexperienced cowl largely based mostly on satellite tv for pc information? Clearly it’s the latter. Forests have a social life and an ecological existence. They’re as a lot an financial asset as they’re a cultural actuality. A state of forests report must replicate forests with all their complexities, which it doesn’t do. As a substitute, it’s a stack of numbers that current a skewed and distorted image in regards to the state of India’s forests. It’s curated to incorporate monoculture plantations and fruit orchards as forest cowl to indicate compliance with home forest coverage and worldwide local weather targets. It doesn’t provide you with an understanding that forests are about water, meals safety, and are dwelling to many non-human species.
What are a few of your points with the methodology?
For over a decade, coverage researchers and ecologists have been questioning the dearth of scientific rigour and public scrutiny of the information introduced within the studies. This contains the Forest Survey of India’s obsession with utilizing tree cover density as the first matrix of calculating forest cowl. In 2019, the FSI additional revised its methodology to incorporate timber outdoors formally recorded forests. My colleague Manju Menon and I’ve identified that ISFR studies use state-level tree inventories to calculate tree cowl in rural and concrete areas. This can be a extremely unreliable supply of knowledge as a result of in most states, tree censuses are both incomplete or non-existent. However the issues don’t finish there. In response to the 2021 evaluation, M D Madhusudan, a reputed wildlife biologist, has identified how the studies don’t simply present a brand new evaluation however usually “return and tweak forest cowl values of earlier years”.
Are you able to clarify the issue with counting on tree cover density to gauge forest cowl?
The FSI classifies kinds of forests as very dense (above 70% and above tree cover), reasonably dense (40%-70%), open forest (10%-40%) and scrub forests with poor tree development (lower than 10%). Mangrove forests on the coasts are a definite class, not lined by the above standards. Nonetheless, tree density shouldn’t be the one parameter to evaluate what’s misplaced or gained. That is for 2 causes. First, all forest varieties are distinctive of their composition within the biodiversity, wildlife or livelihood use that they help. Open forests of central India could have lesser tree cowl than dense forests within the Western Ghats, however that doesn’t imply they’re much less essential from the standpoint of biodiversity or wildlife. Second, the tree density measure tends to skew the loss and acquire ratio. A monoculture plantation could determine as a acquire whereas an open forest that’s dwelling to tribal communities and an essential wildlife habitat could be misplaced to a mining or infrastructure venture.
What are the implications of defining a industrial coconut plantation or a fruit orchard as a forest?
It provides a totally distorted image of the standing of forests. Equally worrying is the inclusion of compensatory afforestation areas as forest cowl. These plantations are being raised to offset the diversion of enormous forest areas for non-forest makes use of corresponding to mining, highways, dams or ports. In lots of components of the nation, forest-dependent communities are disadvantaged of their rights each by forest diversion resulting from financial growth and to accommodate authorized compliance to offset this loss. All these plantations could be included as forest cowl however disguise all that they’ve displaced.
Some consultants have known as this report an train in greenwashing. Do you agree?
There’s advantage on this response as such an evaluation hides greater than it reveals. You don’t get a way of what truly exists on lands recorded as forests and really feel cheated {that a} neighbourhood monoculture plantation is taken into account as essential as a biodiverse forest. What’s essential is that this remark shouldn’t be new, it has been provided to successive governments for over a decade, however little has modified.
Despites its flaws, are there sure learnings we are able to take away from the ISFR?
A biennial state of forest report is a crucial initiative. Nonetheless, its intent and methodology each require a critical overview. We’re a rustic the place forest governance has recognised the mental property and governance rights of forest-dwelling communities. We’ve signed worldwide treaties that require us to control wildlife commerce and guarantee knowledgeable consent of communities whereas accessing bio assets in forest areas. Our state of forest studies need to replicate the complexity and variety of Indian forests. It should cease short-sighted quantification of lands with tree cowl, and inclusion of lands which don’t have any forests on them.