According to the State of Forest Report 2021, since 2019 the capital city has lost around 0.44 sq km of forest cover. In the 2019 report, the forest cover was recorded at 195.44 sq km. However, this time forest cover area has dropped to 195 sq km which is about 0.23 percent.
Although the drop in forest cover is not huge. But the data revealed by the report adds another angle to the national capital’s story. As per the report, right now the national average is 21.7 percent. On the other hand, at 13.2 percent of the total geographic area, Delhi is far behind the national average.
On the brighter side of the State of Forest Report 2021, the tree cover outside the forest area in Delhi has gone up by a significant percentage. From 129 sq km in 2019, tree cover has risen to 147 sq km in 2021. According to a forest official, the recent slight drop in forest cover is surely a concern but there’s a good aspect in the report such as improvement in the quality of forest in the city.
The extent of ‘very dense forest’ or in other words the land with tree canopy density of 70 percent and above is unaffected at 6.72 sq km. Whereas, the extent of ‘moderately dense forest’ also known as the land with tree canopy density of 40 percent and may be above although lesser than 70 percent has been boosted. Back in 2019, the moderately dense forest was 56.42 sq km which has now improved to 56.60 sq km.
The report revealed that the ‘open forest land’ or the areas with tree canopy density between 10 percent and 40 percent has fallen. In 2019, the open forest land was 132.30 sq km but in 2021 this land was reduced to 131.68 sq km. The new drop-in forest cover is still fatal especially in the eyes of ecologists.
There are a bunch of reasons for the recent reduction in the forest like newly approved infrastructure projects where authorities have paved the way for chopping of trees in some areas. Compensatory afforestation will indeed happen for those fallen trees but it will take time. The Delhi government plans to plant up to 33 lakh saplings by March of this year.
The present government has successfully made Delhi the first-ever Indian city to have a tree transplantation policy. Under this policy, if a tree is uprooted it is simply transplanted by the government, and in its place, 10 new trees are placed. Many ecologists believe that the drop in greenery in Delhi is frightening. In the past years, the capital has lost its true forest and what’s left is mostly invasive species not right for the environment.