A: More questions than answers

While the forest policy churned out by the government is not being implemented properly, reports on forests only tend to contradict themselves

FOREST management practices in India at present could be said to be just a little short of hitting the nadir. The forest policy formulated by the government itself is not being respected at all by whatever schemes and programmes that are being churned up by the authorities. Neither are forests being managed in a way to meet people's needs, not are they being managed with any aim to conserve the pristine forests of the country.

Every two years since 1987, the Forest Survey of India has been publishing a report on the forest cover in India on behalf of the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF). Given the deep concern that exists among Indian environmentalists about the state of the country's forests and the fact that the government hardly ever provides any information about the state of the country's environment, these reports are supposed to be a commendable exercise in transparency and accountability.

But sadly enough, after going through these reports, one does not learn much about the country's forest cover and is left wondering whether this is truly an exercise in exposing the truth about the country's forest cover or just a blatant cover-up of the state of affairs. The latest of all the reports, The State of Forest Report 1995, released by the MEF claims that the total area of the forest cover in India that was based on satellite imagery collected between the years 1991 and 1993, is 63.96 million hectares (mha) - slightly less from the estimate of 64.01 mha made in The State of Forest Report 1993 based on satellite imagery collected between the years 1989 and 1991. The state of the forest reports break the forest cover down into dense and open forest covers (see graph: Forest fiare). Dense forests are those forests which have a crown density of 40 per cent or more; in other words, tree canopy covers more than 40 per cent or more of the land. Open forests which are regarded as relatively degraded forests, have a crown density between to per cent and 40 per cent. Tree lands with a crown density of less than 10 per cent are called scrub forests and are not included in the total forest cover data.

But doubts persist as to how useful this data is and what it tells us. This is because, environmentalists would, most of all, like to know how well is India protecting its pristine, undisturbed natural forests. At the same time, they would also like to know in which regions of the country these natural forests are mostly under stress and undergoing erosion.

On the other hand, those industries based on wood, ranging from plywood and rayon to paper and pulp mills, would like to know what precisely is the extent of plantations in the country so that they can access all the raw material they need. This sector has been saying repeatedly that there is a raw materials crunch that is hampering its functioning, and that is why this sector is demanding access to state-owned forest lands to grow captive plantations.

The MEF reports are, unfortunately, not only silent on these questions, but also give wrong impressions to those that are concerned. For instance, the five state of the forest reports claim between them that India's total forest cover has more or less remained unchanged from the period 1980-83 to 1991-93, that it has dropped merely from 64.20 mha to 63.96 mha, while the dense forest cover has increased from 36.14 mha to 38.58 mha. In other words, it gives the message that India has at least maintained its overall forest cover, while helping to increase its dense forest cover. Since nothing is mentioned in these reports about natural forests, they also tend to leave the impression that the dense forest cover described by them largely consists of natural forests. But all these impressions may be totally wrong.

There is another source of forest cover data that provides information on countries that have tropical forests, including India. This information comes from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations every 10 years. So far two reports have been released - one for 1980 and another for 1990.

What does this assessment show us? A dramatically different and disturbing picture. Yet what is very interesting is that the agency which prepared the state of the forest reports for the MEF and which participated in the FAO exercise on such different formats that it is impossible to derive at behalf of India was one and the same - the Debra Dun-based comparisons between the two and provide the public with Forest Survey of India (FSI). Still the data have been reported in good picture of the state of the country's forest cover.