The Future of Indian Forests: The Outlook 2050

The Indian Forestry in the past 150 years or so has exhibited a sequence of stages in the relentless march towards forest depletion and slow but steady recovery. The bourgeoning population and consequence of climate change are causing tremendous pressure on forest resources and has resulted into widening gap between production and consumption. Forest and tree cover is estimated at 23.6% against the National goal of 33%. India’s round wood production in 2020 was about 700 million cu m of which 300 million cu m (85%) is the share of fuel wood and about 50 million cu m industrial round wood including poles and small timber for rural households. Supply from natural forests is about 30% (and is declining) and the remaining comes from farm forestry and other ToF resources. About 11 million cu m was officially imported (2020) in the form of logs leaving a gap of around 11 million cu m. Large part of this gap is being satisfied through “unrecorded” (unregulated) removals over and above the AAC based on the net annual increment of growing stock. India is a net importer of forest products, the largest share being of logs feeding the processing units followed by paper and paper-boards and recovered paper. Main supply countries are Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, and some African and South American countries. Imports of logs and other processed products are facilitated by favorable tariff regime. The import bill for forest products has gone up from US$ 2.36 billion in 2005 to US$ 4.16 billion in 2010 to 5.77 billion in 2015 and US$ 6.64 billion in 2021. This trend is likely to grow further with increasing demand and decreasing forest productivity. Greater investment in education, housing, infrastructure and economic growth is likely to generate additional demand for wood products worth US$3–4 billion. This will have to come from imported sources, at least in the coming few years. India has a population of 1.38 billion with about 64% between 15 and 64 years of age which is likely to grow to 66–67% by 2030. National demographic growth is estimated at 1.2% per annum, reaching 1.51 billion by 2030. The dependency ratio which is the share of population either younger than 15 years or older than 64 years will decline steadily. Younger population will require more timber products for their offices and houses. This will trigger larger demand which has to be met either by import or by growing more timber in the country. Soil erosion and flooding, illegal logging and Tiger poaching are some of the trans boundary environmental impacts. Afforestation and Reforestation projects offer best opportunity for carbon trade. Forest landscape Restoration (FLR) projects are in currency as forest degradation is now being attributed to climate change and resultant anthropogenic pressure. More than carbon trade there is a need for speedy restoration of non-timber forest produce (NTFP) which are the backbone of forest dependent communities. FLR is a long term process of regaining ecological functionality and enriching human well-being across deforested or degraded landscapes that comprises overlapping ecological social and economic activities and values. Among the important domestic policies influencing forestry situation is the Forest Rights Act which foresters feel may result into excision of forest lands for agriculture. The other domestic policies are agriculture, energy and health policies which place greater emphasis on growing trees, bamboo and medicinal plants off forest reserves. These developments could create more wood resources and generate employment but dependence on wood import is likely to grow with growing economic development (GDP 9% and above).