State Of Forest Report 2017

Released In February 2018

The forest cover has been classified according to the tree canopy density:

•Very dense forest: All lands with tree canopy density of 70% and above.
•Moderately dense forest: All lands with canopy density of 40% and more and less
than 70%.
•Open Forest: All lands with tree canopy density of 10% and more but less than
40%. More than 1 hectare area
•Scrub: Degraded forests land with canopy density less than 10%. 8th in terms of
yearly forest gain
•Non forests: The land which is not included in any of the above classes.
• Prepared by- The Forest Survey of India (FSI) ; conducted
once in 2 years
• Released by-The Ministry of Environment, Forest and
climate change
• Total forest and tree cover in India is 24.39 per cent of the
geographical area of the country.
• Tree cover is 93,815 sq.km (about 2.85% of the total Geo
Area)
• India’s total forest cover is 708,273 sq.km (about 21.54%
of India’s total Geographical Area)
• India- 10th in the world w.r.t forest cover
• There has been an increase of 6778 sq km or 0.94% in
forest covers at the national level
• Very dense forest: 2.99% of the total
geographical area.
• Moderately dense forest: 9.38% of the total
geographical area.
• Open Forest: 9.18% of total geographical area.

North East Forest Cover:

It comprises of 8 states and is one of the 18
biodiversity hotspots of the world. The region
with just 7.98% of the total geographical area of
the country accounts for one fourth of the forest
cover.
• the mangrove cover in the country is 4921 sq km which is 0.15% of the total geographical
area of the country
• The only category that has registered a decline in the latest assessment is the Moderate
Dense Forest.
• The latest ISFR report includes information about
water bodies in forests, a new feature.
• Rank 1 in Forest Cover- Madhya Pradesh
• Rank 1 in forest cover as a % of GA of the state-
Lakshadweep
• Rank 1 in increase In forest cover- Andhra Pradesh
• The total mangrove cover stands at 4,921 sq km
and has shown an increase of 181 sq km from 2015
to 2017.