A5 FOREST COVER IN HILL DISTRICTS

A5 FOREST COVER IN HILL DISTRICTS

The National Forest Policy, 1988 emphasizes on protective functions of forest in maintaining ecological balance and environmental stability, and aims to have a minimum of one third of the geographical area of the country under forest or tree cover. The policy enjoins maintaining two-thirds of the area in hills under forest cover in order to prevent erosion and land degradation and to ensure the stability of the fragile eco-systems. It is, therefore, desirable to assess the extent of forest cover in the hill districts of the country.

The classification of hill states, districts and talukas, as adopted by the Planning Commission is based on the criterion of an area having an elevation of more than 500 metres above mean sea level (MSL). This criterion has been applied by the Planning Commission for Hill Area and Western Ghats Development Programmes. Since forest cover mapping is being done taking district as a unit, only those districts have been categorised as hill districts where the total area of hill talukas, exceeds 50% of the geographical area of a district.

There are 98 hill districts in the country. However, due to non-availability of district boundaries of North Cachar and Karbi Anglong of Assam and Raigad of Maharashtra from SOI, information in respect of only 95 districts has been furnished at places district information has been clubbed. For analysing the forest cover, hill districts have been divided into two categories, (i) more than and (ii) less than 66 % forest cover.

A perusal of Table 5.1 reveals that out of 95 hill district in the country, 30 districts bear more than 66 per cent forest cover while the remaining 65 districts have less than this. All the districts in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland and the districts of Uttara Kannada and Kodagu in Karnataka and Manipur East, Manipur South, Manipur North and Manipur West in Manipur have forest cover exceeding 66 per cent.

Table A5.1 Forest cover in hill districts of Arunachal Pradesh

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Arunachal Pradesh	Dibang Valley		-		-
	Kameng East
	Kameng West
	Lohit
	Siang East	81.92
	Siang West
	Subansiri Lower
	Subansiri Upper
	Tirap

Table A5.2 Forest cover in hill districts of Himachal Pradesh

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Himachal Pradesh	-	-	Bilaspur	13.54
			Chamba	31.57
			Hamirpur	19.95
			Kangra	30.39
			Kinnaur	09.87
			Kullu	37.14
			Lahaul Spiti	00.60
			Mandi	33.29
			Shimla	47.26
			Sirmaur	36.25
			Solan	21.80
			Una	25.32

Table A5.3 Forest cover in hill districts of Jammu & Kashmir

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Jammu & Kashmir	-	-	Anantnag	30.47
			Baramula	26.74
			Chilas	17.37
			Gilgit	00.46
			Gilgitwzart	04.16
			Jammu	25.03
			Kathua	40.51
			Ladakh	00.02
			Mirpur	35.35
			Muzaffarabad	41.87
			Punch	32.66
			Riasi	48.31
			Tribal -Territory	23.32
			Udhampur	32.66

Table A5.4 Forest cover in hill districts of Karnataka

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Karnataka	Kannada Uttara	75.81	Chikmaglur	46.20
	Kodagu	81.45	Kannada Dakshina	43.31
			Shimoga	46.56

Table A5.5 Forest cover in hill districts of Kerala

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Kerala	-	-	Cannanore Kozhikode Wynad	18.10
			Ernakulam	11.29
			Idukki	50.11
			Malappuram	22.51
			Palghat	31.26
			Quilon	48.98
			Trivandrum	17.97

Table A5.6 Forest cover in hill districts of Maharashtra

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Maharashtra	-	-	Kolhapur	15.98
			Nasik	06.50
			Pune	08.13
			Ratnagiri	44.08
			Satara	06.20

Table A5.7 Forest cover in hill districts of Manipur

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Manipur	Manipur East	93.84	Manipur Central	57.21
	Manipur North	69.06	& Tengnon Pal
	Manipur South	83.92
	Manipur West	88.45

Table A5.8 Forest cover in hill districts of Meghalaya

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Meghalaya	Garo Hills East		-	-
	Garo Hills West
	Jaintia Hills
	Khasi Hills East	69.81
	Khasi Hills West

Table A5.9 Forest cover in hill districts of Mizoram

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Mizoram	Aizwal		-	-
	Chhimtuipui	89.06
	Lunglei

Table A5.10 Forest cover in hill districts of Nagaland

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Nagaland	Kohima	81.54	-	-
	Mon	89.53
	Mokokchung	87.00
	Phek	87.81
	Tuensang	85.10
	Wokha	90.48
	Zunheboto	85.42

Table A5.11 Forest cover in hill districts of Sikkim

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Sikkim	-	-	Sikkim North
			Sikkim South	44.09
			Sikkim East
			Sikkim West

Table A5.12 Forest cover in hill districts of Tamil Nadu

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Tamil Nadu	-	-	Coimbatore	17.83
			Kanyakumari	26.72
			Madurai	16.89
			Nilgiri	61.55

Table A5.13 Forest cover in hill districts of Tripura

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District	Per cent
Tripura	-	-	North Tripura
			South Tripura	52.89
			West Tripura

Table A5.14 Forest cover in hill districts of Uttar Pradesh

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %		Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District	Per cent	District		Per cent
Uttar Pradesh	-	-	Almora		47.11
			Chamoli		34.54
			Dehradun		50.84
			Garhwal Nainital		58.38 52.52
				Pithoragarh		33.83
				Tehri Garhwal		57.90
				Uttar Kashi		33.66

Table A5.15 Forest cover in hill districts of West Bengal

State/UT	Forest Cover more than 66 %				Forest Cover less than 66 %
	District		Per cent		District		Per cent
West Bengal		-		-		Darjeeling		46.20

Note : Details of forest cover of the above districts are given in Table 4.1

A5.2 All India level

The forest cover situation in the hill areas of the country is summarised in Table 5.2 The existing forest cover in the hill areas of the country is 36.8 % which is far below the intended goal of the forest policy. The states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland have more than two thirds of the area under forest cover.

Details are given in TableA5.16.

Table A5.16 Statewise forest cover in hill areas (sq.km)

State	Geographic area of hill districts	Forest cover in hill districts	Forest cover per cent
Arunachal Pradesh	83,743	68,602	81.9
Himachal Pradesh	55,673	12,521	22.5
Jammu & Kashmir	222,235	20,440	9.2
Karnataka	40,588	23,040	56.8
Kerala	31,745	9,366	29.5
Maharashtra	62,757	9,970	15.9
Manipur	22,327	17,418	78.0
Meghalaya	22,429	15,657	69.8
Mizoram	21,081	18,775	89.1
Nagaland	16,579	14,221	85.8
Sikkim	7,096	3,129	44.1
Tamil Nadu	24,326	5,483	22.5
Tripura	10,486	5,546	52.9
Uttar Pradesh	51,,125	22,658	44.3
West Bengal	3,149	1,455	46.2
Total	675,339	248,281	36.8

This is the first effort to present forest cover situation in hill districts of the country given the limitations of the data. The future efforts would intend to provide other parameters of the forest cover in watershed areas.