Frontier India Current Affairs

Written on April 22, 2008 – 9:10 pm | by FICA |

Forest Survey of India stands as a sentinel of technical excellence and achieved many milestones by India since 1981. It is engaged in assessment of forest and tree cover of the country on biennial basis, inventorying of forests and Trees Outside Forests (TOF) for estimation of growing stock and other forests related assessments such as forest fire, shifting cultivation, wood consumption etc.

It also monitors the progress of afforestation under the National Afforestation Progrmme Scheme. FSI now uses sophisticated technologies which are continuously updated. The latest State Forest Report with this significant improvement describes the forest cover in three categories, namely Very Dense Forests (VDF), Moderately Dense Forests (MDF) and Open Forests (OF).

The tree cover estimates in the country in SFR 2005 is more accurate than before. The total forest cover of the country is 20.60 per cent of the geographical area of the country, which is 677088 sq. km. whereas the tree cover of the country has been assessed at 91663 sq. km.

In order to promote tree planting, various policies and measures have been undertaken. National Afforestation Programme, Gram Van Yojana, National Bamboo Mission, National Horticulture Mission and others are few of them.