Amid the wildfires, which is engulfing vast tracts of woodland, Odisha was lauded for its efforts behind 537 square km increase in forest cover compared to green cover growth of 2,261 square km at the national level in the last two years.
According to the Indian State of Forest Report 2021, Odisha’s contribution to the national forest cover growth is 1.04%. The forest cover, which was 51,619 square km according to the 2019 report, has reached 52,156 square km with the latest growth in the state compared to a total geographical area of 1,55,707 square km, Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ashwini Kumar Choubey told the Lok Sabha in a written reply on Monday.
The state is also third in contributing to the increase of forest cover in the country with Andhra Pradesh with 647 square km and Telangana with 632 square km of forest cover at first and second positions, respectively,
Notably, Arunachal Pradesh with 257 square km, Manipur with 249 square km, Nagaland with 235 square km, Mizoram with 186 square km and Meghalaya with 73 square km are the bottom five states, having lost a major green cover in the country, between 2019 and 2021.
The report attributed the increase in the green cover to better conservation measures, protection, afforestation activities, tree plantation drives and agroforestry and the loss of forest cover to shifting cultivation, felling of trees, natural calamities and anthropogenic pressure.
