India State of Forest Report 2023

Written By: Brijesh Singh | Updated: March 04, 2025, 09:37 am IST | Category: Indian Geography | Views: 7371 views

The 18th India State of Forest Report 2023 has been released on 21 December 2024 at Forest Research Institute, Dehradun. The India State of Forest Report 2023 (ISFR 2023) has been released by the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) Shri Bhupender Yadav. India State of Forest Report (IFSR) is a biennial publication of Forest Survey of India (FSI), which comes under the Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). It was 1st published in 1987 and the ISFR 2023 is 18th report.

The Forest Survey of India (FSI) carries out in-depth assessment of the forest and tree resources of the country based on interpretation of Remote Sensing satellite data and field based National Forest Inventory (NFI). he report contains information on forest cover, tree cover, mangrove cover, growing stock, carbon stock in India’s forests, instances of forest fire, Agroforestry, etc.

Key findings of the India State of Forest Report 2023

The key findings of the India State of Forest Report 2023 are given below.

Total Coverage: As per India State of Forest Report 2023, the total Forest and Tree cover of the country is 8,27,357 sq km which is 25.17% of the total geographical area of the country which is 32,87,263 sq km.
Forest Cover: This consists of 7,15,343 sq km of forest cover which is 21.76% of the total geographical area of the country; and 1,12,014 sq km as tree cover which is 3.41% of the total geographical area of the country.
Changes since 2021 – Increase in Coverage: As compared to assessment of 2021, there is an increase of 1,445 sq km in the forest and tree cover of the country which includes 156 sq km increase in the forest cover and 1,289 sq km increase in tree cover.
Largest Forest and Tree Cover by Area:
- Madhya Pradesh: 85,724 square kilometers
- Arunachal Pradesh: 67,083 square kilometers
- Maharashtra: 65,383 square kilometers
Highest Percentage of Forest Cover Relative to Geographical Area:
- Lakshadweep: 91.33%
- Mizoram: 85.34%
- Andaman & Nicobar Islands: 81.62%
Top four states showing maximum increase in forest and tree cover are Chhattisgarh (684 sq km) followed by Uttar Pradesh (559 sq km), Odisha (559 sq km) and Rajasthan (394 sq km).
Top three states showing maximum increase in forest cover are Mizoram (242 sq km) followed by Gujarat (180 sq km) and Odisha (152 sq km).
In the India State of Forest Report 2023, the area wise top three states having largest forest and tree cover are Madhya Pradesh (85,724 sq km) followed by Arunachal Pradesh (67,083 sq km) and Maharashtra (65,383 sq km).
Area wise top three states having largest forest (only forest and not forest + tree) cover are Madhya Pradesh (77,073 sq km) followed by Arunachal Pradesh (65,882 sq km) and Chhattisgarh (55,812 sq km).
The National Forest Policy, 1988 provides for having a minimum of 1/3^rd (33%) of total land area of country under forest or tree cover as a national goal.
19 states/UTs have forest cover above 33% of area.
- Out of these 19 states, eight states/UTs namely Mizoram, Lakshadweep, A & N Island, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Manipur have forest cover above 75 percent.
- In terms of percentage of forest cover with respect to total geographical area, Lakshadweep (91.33 percent) has the highest forest cover followed by Mizoram (85.34 percent) and Andaman & Nicobar Island (81.62 percent).
Mangrove cover: In the India State of Forest Report 2023, the total mangrove cover in the country is 4,992 sq km (decrease of 7.43 sq km compared to 2021).
- Gujarat saw a decrease whereas Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra saw an increase.
Bamboo cover: The extent of bamboo bearing area for the country has been estimated as 1,54,670sq km. As compared to the last assessment done in 2021 there is an increase of 5,227 sq km in bamboo area.
In the present assessment total carbon stock in country’s forest is estimated to be 7,285.5 million tonnes. There is an increase of 81.5 million tonnes in the carbon stock of country as compared to the last assessment.
Regarding status on achievement of target under NDC related to carbon sequestration, the current assessment shows that India’s carbon stock has reached 30.43 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent; which indicates that as compared to the base year of 2005, India has already reached 2.29 billion tonnes of additional carbon sink as against the target of 2.5 to 3.0 billion tonnes by 2030.