The total forest cover in Andhra Pradesh has gone up by 647 sq km, taking to the total forest cover to 29,784 sq km. This is as per the recently released the 17th India State of Forest Report.
With this, Andhra Pradesh stands first in the category of increase in forest cover in the country. A.P. is followed by Telangana (632 sq km), Odisha (537 sq km), Karnataka (155 sq km) and Jharkhand (110 sq km.)
In the State, East Godavari leads with the maximum forest cover of 5,121 sq km, followed by Kadapa with 4,376 sq km, Visakhapatnam (3,773 sq km), Prakasam (3,333 sq km) and West Godavari with 3,273 sq km.
Coming to increase in the forest cover over 2019, Nellore has taken the lead with an increase of 127.27 sq km, followed by East Godavari with 127.10 sq km. West Godavari recorded an increase by 123.91 sq km, followed by Chittoor (73.25 sq km) and Vizianagaram with 61.59 sq km. The total dense forest in the State is around 1,994 sq km, followed by 13,928 sq km of moderately dense forest and 13,861 sq km of open forest. The total scrubs recorded is 8,276 sq km.
Though the total dense forest has retained its total spread, there is a slight drop by 10 sq km in moderately dense forest over the 2019 report. But there is substantial increase of about 657 sq km in the open forest category.
The reports also states that red sanders bearing forest in the State is around 1,085 sq km, dry teak forest cover is about 551 sq km and mangroves is around 404 sq km.
Though there is no depletion or increase in the mangroves, there is a slight drop in the dry teak forest extent by about 0.12%. But on the brighter side, there is an increase in the cover of red sanders bearing forest cover by about 0.25% over the 2019 ISFR.
As per the latest ISFR report, of the 29,784 sq km of forest cover, 24,239 is under recorded forest area (RFA) and 5,545 is outside the RFA.
Tree cover goes up
The tree cover in the State has also gone up from 3,914 sq km to 4,679 sq km. And the dominant species of trees outside the trees outside forests (TOF) continue to be Mangifera Indica or mangoes with a relative percentage of around 28 of the TOF.
