Panchmahals gained, Dahod lost highest forest cover

Good news first. Sixteen of the 25 districts that were analysed in Gujarat saw a rise in forest cover, says State of the Forest Report 2017. The fresh report included 26 districts, which is one more as compared to the last report released in 2015.  The readings of the new district, Tapi, has been excluded from any data used for comparing the figures.  

Bad news now. Seven districts saw a decline in the forest cover, with 50% seeing a slip in double-digits in terms of percentage. Also, two districts (Porbandar & Dangs) did not register any change. Forest cover is the cumulative of dense forest, moderately dense forest and open forest in a district.

Surat saw the maximum decline of 60.87% as its forest cover came down from 1316 sq km in 2015 to 516 sq km in 2017. Forest officers, however, said it had more to do with Tapi district being treated as a separate district in this report.

“Earlier reports did not show Tapi as a separate district (it was considered to be part of Surat district) and so Surat’s forest cover included not just that of Surat but Tapi too. In this report, Tapi has been treated as a separate district. So, the forest cover of Surat is going to come down,” said an officer.

Given that Surat’s decline in forest cover has a less sinister explanation, it is Mehsana and Dahod that saw a worrying decline in forest cover in percentage terms.

Mehsana saw its forest cover decline from 214 sq km in 2015 to 159 in 2017, a drop of more than 25.07%.  Dahod, a tribal district saw its forest cover decline from 702 sq km in 2015 to 538 sq km in 2017, a decline of 23.36%.

A forest officer blamed Dahod’s dip in a forest area on the land grabbing going on in the name of Forest Rights Act (FRA). “A lot of forest areas is not being taken up for cultivation under FRA and this is particularly true of tribal areas. This could be one major factor. The other factors could be illegal tree felling,” said the forest officer.

In terms of area  (in sq km) lost and gained by way of forest cover, Panchmahals saw its forest cover increase by 166 sq km. The area under forest cover increased from 571 in 2015 to 737  in 2017, a rise of 29%. In terms of percentage gain, Gandhinagar recorded the highest gain in forest cover. The capital saw a gain of 124% when its forest cover rose to 92 sq km from 41 sq km in 2015.

Need change in attitude, says activist

Rapid development and industrialisation are being blamed for the dip in forest cover in Mehsana. Rohit Prajapati, an environmental activist, has an interesting take on the overall flawed approach to forest cover. “As far as Mehsana is concerned, it is because of rapid development. The attitude is also that Mehsana is anyways not known for its forest cover, so why preserve whatever little we have. The aim is not to increase the cover in areas that don’t have it, but to destroy whatever is there and compensate it by encouraging growth in areas that already have a good forest cover,” said Prajapati. He said this flawed attitude was responsible for the skewed forest cover in the state.