It is time to formulate an unambiguous and universally accepted definition of forests to get a true picture of the country’s forest resources. Analyse in the light of state of forest report 2019 (200 Words)
Refer - Business Standard
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 5 years
KEY POINTS
· While the country’s overall green cover has increased by 5,188 sq km an area of the size of Delhi and Goa put together the existing forests are thinning and several north-eastern states and other regions inhabited largely by tribals have lost some of their forests.
· This bodes ill for the livelihood security of the large forest-dependent population. It also has socio-economic, and law and order implications as many of these tracts are controlled by Naxalites.
· Worse still, the loss of forests in the north-east is attributed, among other factors, to clearance of forests for the illegal cultivation of poppy, a crop used widely to raise resources to finance the militancy. Well-advised strategies are, therefore, called for to prevent diversion of forestland to any non-forest use other than essential infrastructure and developmental programmes in these regions.
· It inspires confidence in fulfilling or reaching fairly close to the country’s commitment under the Paris Climate Agreement to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3.0 billion tonnes in the forest sector by 2030.
· However, given the slow pace of expansion in the forest cover, cumulatively just over 2 per cent in the past three decades, hitting the ultimate goal of having 33 per cent of the geographic area under forests and trees seems a tall order.
· The inclusion of plantations in the forest data can, indeed, be blamed on the lack of a proper definition of forests.
· Each organisation sets its own parameters for treating a piece of land as forest. The Forest Survey of India, which prepares the biennial State of the Forests report, counts any patch of land as forest if it is more than one hectare in size and has a tree canopy density of above 10 per cent, irrespective of the ownership or legal status of the land.
· States have their own norms for defining a forest. In some states an area once listed as a forest in the revenue records remains so even if it loses its entire vegetation.
· It is, therefore, time to formulate an unambiguous and universally accepted definition of forests to get a true picture of the country’s forest resources.
JSJ 5 years
Please provide your valuable comments
IAS Parliament 5 years
Good attempt. Try to link with Paris climate agreement. Keep Writing.
Shivangi 5 years
Please review. Thank you.
IAS Parliament 5 years
Good attempt. Keep Writing.
HB 5 years
IAS Parliament 5 years
Try to mention about the Paris climate agreement. Keep Writing.
Shantanu tiwari 5 years
Plz review
IAS Parliament 5 years
Good answer. Keep Writing.
