"As per the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2011, the forests and tree cover of the country is 23.81 per cent of the geographical area of the country," Minister of Environment and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
However, Natarajan said the forest cover of the country has "registered a marginal decline of 0.05 per cent as compared to the previous assessment published in ISFR 2009".
The Minister also informed the House that of the total forest cover, about 83,471 square km of area is Very Dense Forests with tree canopy density of more than 70 per cent.
Moderately Dense Forests with tree canopy density between 40 and 70 per cent cover an area of 320,736 sqkm, while 287,820 sq km constitute Open Forests, or those with tree canopy density between 10 and 40 per cent.
Replying to another query on degraded forest cover, the Minister said, "As per ISFR 2011, about 4.22 million hectare area is recorded as 'Scrub Forest' which is deemed as degraded." Read the full report here.
Source: Zee News, New Delhi.
