DANGEROUS DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS

Part - IV

Forests in India

Top forests in India are Sundarbans, West Bengal, Gir Forest, Gujarat, Sacred Grove, Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, Namdapha National Park, Arunachal Pradesh, Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand, Bandipur National Park, Karnataka, Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, Tamil Nadu and Keibul Lamjao National Park, Manipur. India is not only famous for its diverse  architectural marvels and culture, but also for its dense and vast forest cover. Indian climate befits the flora and fauna. Forest is the second largest land use in India next to agriculture. The forests play vital role in harbouring more than 45,000 floral and 81,000 faunal species of which 5,150 floral and 1,837 faunal species are endemic. The nation has established  597 protected areas comprising 95 national parks, 500 wildlife sanctuaries, 2 conservation reserves covering 1.56 million hectares area or 4.75  per cent geographical area of the country. The rising demand for forest based products and resultant deforestation and encroachment has led to a severe loss of natural resources and destruction of habitat.

India is likely to face severe shortage of supply of timber to meet it's requirement from both domestic and international front. It is estimated that the demand for timber is likely to grow from 58 million cubic metres in 2005 to 153 million cubic meters in 2020. These forests have a great relation with the surrounded atmosphere. The range of forest of India is very diverse. We can find here from the rain forest of Kerala in the south to the alpine pastures of Ladakh, from the desert of Rajasthan in the west to the evergreen forest in the North East.

Earth's largest productive ecosystem is forest and we should save the forest.

................ to be continued

(Indebted to TheEartsafari .com for data)

KV George

kvgeorgein@gmail.com