India’s government and its greens disagree on what counts as forest
An official report includes plantations and parks in its measure
AT THE COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last year, when more than 100 countries committed to ending and reversing deforestation by 2030, India, home to some of the world’s biggest and most biodiverse forests, demurred. No matter: India’s forests seem to be thriving—at least on paper. Between 2019 and 2021 India gained 1,540 sq km in forest cover, according to a biennial report published last month by the Forest Survey of India (FSI), a government agency. Over the past 20 years, says the report, forest cover has grown by 5.7%, or around 40,000 sq km, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Seeing green”
Asia February 5th 2022
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From the February 5th 2022 edition
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