Global Forest Watch Report

15.04.2024

Global Forest Watch Report

Why in the news?                                                                                                                                     

            The latest data from the recent Global Forest Watch monitoring project shows that India has lost 2.3 million hectares of tree cover between 2001 and 2023.

Important points:

• According to Global Forest Watch India lost 414,000 hectares of moist primary forest (4.1%) from 2002 to 2023. This is 18% of its total. There is loss of tree cover during this period.

Conclusion of Global Forest Watch data:

• Latest data shows that Assam, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur accounted for 60% of the total tree cover loss during this period.
• Assam had the highest loss of trees at 324,000 hectares, while the average was 66,600 hectares.
• 312,000 hectares of tree cover was destroyed in Mizoram, 262,000 hectares in Arunachal Pradesh, 259,000 hectares in Nagaland and 240,000 hectares in Manipur.
• India has lost 2.33 million hectares of tree cover since 2000, which is equivalent to a six percent decline in tree cover during this period.
• From 2002 to 2023, 4,14,000 hectares of moist primary forest (4.1 percent) was lost in the country, which is 18 percent of the total tree cover loss over the same period.
• Between 2001 and 2022, India's forests will emit 51 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year and remove 141 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
• This represents a net carbon sink equivalent to 89.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
• Tree loss in India resulted in an average of 51.0 million tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere per year.
• The data showed that 95 percent of the loss of tree cover in India from 2013 to 2023 occurred within natural forests.
• There has been a 9% decline in the tropical region compared to 2022 last year.
• Last year the world lost about 37,000 square kilometers (14,000 sq mi) of tropical primary forest, an area almost the size of Switzerland.
• Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Bolivia top the ranking of tropical countries with the greatest primary forest loss.
• Global deforestation is projected to increase by 3.2% in 2023.

About Global Forest Watch (GFW):

• It is an open-source web application to monitor global forests in real time using satellite data and other sources.
•  It is a project of the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington-based non-profit research organization.
• It's free and easy to use, enabling anyone to create custom maps, analyze forest trends, subscribe to alerts, or download data for their local area or the entire world.
• When we talk about the expansion, loss and gain of forests, it means tree cover.
• Tree cover is a convenient metric for monitoring forest change because it can be easily measured from space using freely available, medium-resolution satellite imagery.

                                                         Source: Indian Express