The State of Forest Report 2013 has shown an increase in forest cover in Delhi compared to 2011. Officials and ecological experts agree that this may be due to more plantations rather than improved conservation of dense forests.
The forest cover of Delhi has increased by 3.61 sq km to 179.81 sq km from 176.2 sq km in 2011. The highest increase in forest cover, an increase by 2.83 sq km, was in South-West Delhi. While the “Very Dense Forest” cover did not grow at all and was recorded the same at 6.76 sq km, “Moderately Dense Forest” decreased by a trifle 0.1 sq km, from 49.48 sq km to 49.38 sq km.
“From 2009 onwards, we have been focusing on over 280 hectares plantations in areas like Garhi Mandu and Bhati near Badarpur planting the slopes of former sand quarries with saplings. These saplings were not recorded in the previous survey as they were still very young. Now, some have grown three to 12 feet high and these are being captured by the satellites,” said a senior official in the Department of Forest. The biennial State of Forest Report records any plots of over one hectare with a tree canopy density of 10 per cent as forest cover. The spectral signature from leaves of trees gets captured by the satellites, explained forest officials.
While most of the increase in forest cover can be explained by the expansion of “Open Forest” from 119.96 sq km to 123.67 sq km and an increase in the area recorded as scrub from 0.7 sq km in 2011 to 2.24 sq km rather than greater dense forest cover, experts say this may still be a positive trend for two reasons.
“One, the trend in other States is that open forest and scrub have increased, while dense and moderately dense forest cover decreased, which means dense forest degraded into open forest. In Delhi, the data does not indicate this as the decrease in moderately dense forest is only 0.1 sq km, while dense forest remained constant. So, there was not much degradation in good forest. Two, it seems that the plantation efforts of the government have gone well and led to an increase in green cover,” said Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava, a forests expert with the Centre of Science and Environment.
“While plantations cannot replace natural forest, which act as complete ecosystems, the increase in green cover in the face of higher urbanisation pressure is a good trend. The macro trend will emerge better if one examines the NCR data where the maximum real estate development is on,” he said.
