India's forest cover has increased in comparison to the world average. The world over, average per capital forest cover has fallen from 0.8 ha to 0.6 ha per person.
In India, a net increase of 1.82% in forest cover has been registered in the past 30 years.
This was announced at the inauguration of the 19th Commonwealth Forestry Conference in FRI, Dehradun.
The country had 24% forest cover with 7 billion tonnes of carbon sink–a natural reservoir that absorbs carbon and helps counter the effects of global warming.
India has to add 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes to the carbon sink by 2030.
This will be done by planting trees outside the forests near highways or in agro-forestry sector.
The target of increasing the sink would be met by growing 100 crore trees over a period of ten years.
Governments, the private sector, local authorities, NGOs and indigenous people work together for forestry and environmental conservation.
Recent research has shown that the cash and non-cash incomes of the rural poor depend to a very high degree on what the forestry and environmental professionals now call the 'ecosystem services' provided by varied forests.
Protecting forests, therefore, not only makes sense for reducing disaster risk and greenhouse emissions; it also makes pro-poor sense.
