The Environment Ministry is likely to release an update on the state of forests in India in December, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Saturday.
The India State of Forest Report (ISFR) is a biennial exercise to estimate the forest cover, the density of forest vegetation, tree cover across States, and the progress of plantation outside regions officially designated ‘forest.’
Mapping, surveys
The exercise involves both satellite mapping and surveys to map increase or decrease in forest cover. Mr. Javadekar was addressing a meeting of Forest officials and Ministers on the utilisation of the Compensatory Afforestation Funds. The law prescribes how the funds collected by the Centre from industrial projects for razing forests can be used by States. Forest Ministers from Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura were present.
“There are nearly 12 crore trees planted over the last five years and we will be giving yearly updates on how they are progressing. Details on how States are progressing with improving forest cover will be available in the report next month,” Mr. Javadekar said.
Director-General (Forests), Siddhanta Das, told The Hindu that all the data on the ISFR was ready.
The latest ISFR, or the report of 2017, was released in February 2018, after a delay of nearly three months.
