News Highlights:
Forest cover: According to data accessed via the Right To Information Act India is lagging behind in the targets to increase the number and quality of tree- and forest-cover plantations set in the National Mission for a Green India (GIM)
Key takeaway:
National Mission for a Green India (GIM) is one of the eight Missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change.
National Mission for a Green India (GIM):
- About:
- Green India mission is one of the missions that come under the umbrella of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).
- Green India Mission was launched in 2014.
- The primary aim is to protect, restore and enhance India’s diminishing forest cover.
- Objectives of the Mission:
- To protect, restore and enhance India’s falling forest cover.
- To respond to climate change through a combination of adaptation as well as mitigation measures.
- To increase forest-based livelihood incomes.
- To enhance annual Carbon sequestration by 50 to 60 million tonnes in the year 2020.
- Targets:
- Enhancement of the ecological services provided by forests and non-forests, such as degraded grasslands, wetlands, and moderately dense, open forests (5 m ha).
- Scrub, moving agriculture zones, chilly deserts, mangroves, ravines, and abandoned mining regions need to be restored ecologically (1.8 m ha).
- Increased forest and tree cover in peri-urban and urban areas (0.20 m ha)
- Improvement of the forest and tree cover on marginal agricultural areas, follies, and other non-forest sites through agroforestry and social forestry (3 m ha)
- Management of public forests and non-forest regions (undertaken by the Mission) by community institutions
- Adoption of new energy-saving technologies and enhanced fuel-wood use efficiency by project area families.
- Diversification of the 3 million households that live in and around forests’ primary sources of income.
Statistics from RTI:
- Target:
- From 2015-16 to 2021-22, the Centre – based on submissions from 17 States – had approved a target of increasing tree/forest cover by 53,377 hectares and improving the quality of the degraded forest by 1,66,656 ha.
- 17 States noting tree/forest cover had increased by 26,287 hectares and forest quality improved in only 1,02,096 hectares as of December 31, 2022.
- Fund allocated:
- For executing these projects, the Centre had allocated ₹681 crores, but only ₹525 crores had been utilised.
- States with the largest forest cover:
- Madhya Pradesh had the largest forest cover, followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra.
- The top five States in terms of forest cover as a percentage of their total geographical area were Mizoram (84.53%), Arunachal Pradesh (79.33%), Meghalaya (76%), Manipur (74.34%) and Nagaland (73.90%).
- States with a significant shortfall in tree cover:
- States with a significant shortfall in tree cover include Andhra Pradesh, with a target of 186 ha but having only achieved 75 ha;
- Uttarakhand with a target of 6,446 ha but only 1,505 ha achieved;
- Madhya Pradesh is targeting 5,858 ha but delivering 1,882 ha;
- Kerala committed 1,686 ha but furnishing 616 ha;
- Punjab is unusually committed to 629 ha but has delivered 1,082 ha.
- India State of Forest Report-2021:
- As per the India State of Forest Report-2021, forest and tree cover in the country has increased by 2,261 square kilometres since the last assessment in 2019.
- India’s total forest and tree cover was 80.9 million hectares, which accounted for 24.62% of the country’s geographical area.
- The report said 17 States and Union Territories had more than 33% of their area under forest cover.
Pic Courtesy: Freepik
Content Source: The Hindu