Status of India’s Forests

India had sea change in forest and tree cover since ages, and this can be made out by the agricultural and forestry practices we had from time to time. Kings, British rule and there after independent India had different policies and these also got changed from time to time as per requirements. Population growth, requirement of land for agriculture, industrialization, urbanization, and overall development projects had direct impact on this. Forest survey of India came out with authentic biannual reports starting from 1987, the first State of Forest Reports (SFR) of 1987 and subsequently from 2009 onwards these reports came in the name of India State of Forest Reports (ISFR), 2021 being the latest. All these reports are based on remote sensing data and its interpretation including ground truth verification. Sensors, interpretation, and criteria for classification of forests also kept on changing from cycle to cycle of these reports and the same has been discussed below.