Bengaluru: Karnataka has lost 64 SKKM forests that are quite dense, types that contribute 54% of the entire Ar-EA forest in the state, according to the Indian Forest State Report 2021 (ISFR) released on Thursday.
This is compared to the findings of the 2019 report.
The overall addition of 155 SQKM forest areas – mostly in the open-forest category – by Karnataka Pales compared to 1,000 SQKM countries have added in the previous survey period.
Apart from adding, the total forest cover in this country is only 20.2% of its geographical area, which is far less than a global recipe of at least 33% and the national average is 21.7%.
While the growth registered by Karnataka is the highest in this country in 2019, a relatively small increase this year still places the country between the top five.
In accordance with ISFR-2021, stating that reported the most growth was Andhra Pradesh (647 SQKM), Telangana (632 SQKM), Odisha (537 SQKM), Karnataka and Jharkhand (110 SQKM).
“The benefits of forest cover can be attributed to better conservation measures, protection, afforestation activities, tree plantations and agroforestry,” read the report.
The closure of open forest was very crowded, opened on satellite data, the report placed the total Karnataka forest cover at 38.730 SQKM compared with 38,575 SQKM during the previous survey period, with a growth of 0.4%.
Relatively, the total Indian forest cover was 7.13 lakh SQKM after recording 0.2% (1,540 SQKM) soared from 7.12 lakh sqkm before.
Of the 38,730 SQKM Forest cover in Karnataka, a very dense forest and open forest cover has increased, while the forest cover that is quite dense has shrunk.
Very dense forest cover increased by 32 SQKM to 4,533 SQKM; Open forest cover soared by 186 SQKM to 13,212 SQKM.
However, a 64-sqkm decline in the closure of sufficiently dense forest cover has offset a surge in open forest cover and reduced the overall increase.
The decrease in forest cover, according to the report, can be associated with “…
the transfer of cultivation, tree logging, natural disasters, anthropogenic pressure (humans) and development activities”.
Furthermore, the report shows that from 38,730 sqkm total forest cover in the state, 446 SQKM is outside the “recorded forest area”.
This mainly consists of forests that are ordered and protected forests.
This means that forest cover in forest areas recorded is only 38,284 SQKM, which is under 20% of the total geographical area of the country.
‘K’Taka lost 64 SQKM from the forest that was quite dense in 2 years’
