Business Environment

Assignment : Degradation of Forest in India

Submitted by:

Mitul Sangoi (Roll no. 45)

 DEGRADATION OF FORESTS IN INDIA
Over the years, the area under forest cover has decreased steadily, as forests have been cleared for
agriculture, industry, housing, and other development activities like the construction of roads, railways, and
hydroelectric plants.
Since the beginning of civilization, people have been clearing land for agriculture to meet the food
needs of the ever- growing population.
Forests are also being converted to permanent settlements. Thus, forests cannot regenerate, and, in
some cases, forest areas have become wasteland within a few years due to frequent cultivation.
Communities living in and around forests remove fuel-wood from forests, adding to the forest
degradation. As long as the population was low, the forest could meet the demand and yet remain healthy. But
the increasing population has severely depleted the forest.
After independence India lost forest area in the following manner:
• 4696 million hectares forest land to non-forestry purposes
• 0.07 million hectares to illegal encroachment
• 4.37 million hectares to cultivation
• 0.518 million hectares to river valley projects
• 0.141 million hectares to industries and townships
• 0.061 million hectares to transmission lines and roads

Inefficiency of the State forest Department authorities has been cited as the main factor for the rapid
decline in forest cover. According to an informed source, not providing arms to forest department personnel
have been encouraging anti-social elements to ravage forest growths for timber and other commercial purpose
thereby compromising the fragile ecology. It is obvious that those anti-social elements having access to arms
will always have the upper hand in any given situation, the source countered.
Expansion of villages in the hill areas as another factor for decline in forest cover as new settlement
automatically requires clearing the jungles.
The forests are also cut for making roads for transportation purposes, as the health of business also
depends on how fast the products can be delivered. It also attracts high profits for business.
Improved access to potentially profitable mineral, oil or other commercially valuable products located
under forests through mining, oil exploration and other industrial activities have also contributed to the
degradation of forest on a large scale.
Some conservation measures :
To conserve forest areas, the government launched joint forest management and social forestry schemes, with
some success. But other conservation measures have to be taken to save the forests from further depletion
and degeneration.
• Governments and communities should take steps to plant trees on a large scale.
• People in the living in the rural and forestry areas should be sensitized to the damage to their
surroundings by the falling of trees. They should be encouraged to cut branches, twigs and leaves of
the trees for their daily requirements.
• People should be motivated to adopt terrace farming and other methods of cultivation.
All this, collectively, would halt the depletion of forest cover.