The case for Open, verifiable forest cover data

The case for Open, verifiable forest cover data
 

News: This article explains how India mapped its forest cover over four decades and why making the data freely available will improve the quality of this vital policy input.
 

Background:
 India is one of the few countries to have a scientific system of periodic forest cover assessment that provides “valuable inputs for planning, policy formulation and evidence-based decision-making”.
 Since 19.53% in the early 1980s, India’s forest cover has increased to 21.71% in 2021. Adding to this a notional 2.91% tree cover estimated in 2021, the country’s total green cover now stands at 24.62%, on paper.
 The forest maps are based on the images purchased from the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), another arm of the government (Dept of Space).
 

How were these figures calculated?
 All plots of 1 hectare or more, with at least 10% tree canopy density, are counted within forest cover (irrespective of land use/ownership).
 All land areas with tree canopy density of 70% or more are considered very dense forests, 40% and more – dense forests and those between 10-40% – open forests.
 Isolated or small patches of trees (less than 1 hectare) and not counted as forest are assessed for determining tree cover.
 

What are issues pertaining to Green Cover data in India?
 Green cover data in India disregards the UN benchmark that does not include areas predominantly under agricultural and urban land use in forests.
 Recorded forest area vs green cover - In India, land recorded as forest in revenue records or proclaimed as forest under a forest law is described as a Recorded Forest Area. It is further divided into Reserved, Protected and Unclassed forests, Recorded Forest Areas account for 58% of India.
 Loss of natural forests remains invisible due to inclusion of plantations, orchards, urban housings as dense forests. The SFR 2021, for example, reports 12.37% dense forest by including random green patches.
 The steady replacement of natural forests with plantations is worrisome, as natural forests support a lot more biodiversity and stock a lot more carbon.
 The outcome of the refinement of satellite images was that the forest cover fell within the forest area while it increased outside.

 Lack of manpower limits the FSI’s scope for verifying the quality of remotely sensed data in the field.
 The FSI never made its data freely available for public scrutiny and bars the media from accessing its georeferenced maps.
 Since the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980, at least 10,000 sq km of forests have been lost to diversion for development projects.
 Recent, Forest (Conservation) rules,2022 seek to limit the scope of application of the Act, exempt certain activities from requiring permission for clearing forests and allow raising and harvesting private plantations on forest land etc.
 As per some independent Investigations, the bungalows of ministers and senior officers, even the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) building on Sansad Marg, Parts of the campuses of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), and residential neighborhoods across Delhi are “forest” in the official forest cover map.
 

Way Forward
 It is important that maps are made available in public domain for scrutiny. We can take a lessons from Brazil, which makes their forest data available on open web (TerraBrasilis)
 Making the field data freely available to the public can enable them to volunteer to verify the country’s forest data on the ground.