India's forest cover now over 23 per cent, may push for incentives at climate talks

New Delhi — India's forest cover has been growing and now stands at a total of 78.37 million hectares of land or 23.84 per cent of its geographical area and thus strengthening its bid for incentives increasing its green cover for absorbing carbon sink at the forthcoming Copenhagen climate summit.

An official report billed 'India State of Forest Report 2009' released in New Delhi on Monday by the federal Minister for Forests and Environment Jairam Ramesh shows that India's green cover during the period 1997-2007 had grown by 3.13 million hectares.

The key findings, which is based on the work done by the Forest Survey of India, shows that the country's forest cover had shown an annual average increase of 0.3 million hectares while countries like Brazil and Indonesia had seen their forests reduce at the rate of about 2.5 million hectares per year in the same period.

Broadly, about 34 per cent of the country's forests fall in the tropical moist deciduous category, 30 per cent in the tropical dry deciduous, 11 per cent in Himalayan temperate, nine per cent in the tropical wet evergreen category, 6 per cent in subtropical pine and about 5 per cent in the tropical thorn category, says the report.

Moreover, for the first time, India's forests have been mapped into 16 forest type groups and forest and tree cover has been estimated with due consideration to attitudinal levels.

The report indicates that India seemed to be doing well in protecting its dense forests, but lagged behind where moderately forest areas are concerned.

India, however, lagged behind China's achievement of gaining four million hectares of forests annually.

The report will strengthen India's demand that countries that increase their forest cover should be adequately rewarded for increasing green cover that absorbs as carbon sink.

The trend during climate negotiations so far is in favor of rewarding nations with
monetary support that are able to reduce their rate of deforestation.. India feels that there should be a similar compensation for increasing the forest cover.

According to a recent study, India's forests absorb about 11 per cent of the country's greenhouse gas emission.

Meanwhile, it is not yet clear whether the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the Copenhagen summit although reports suggested that he may be veering close to accepting the Danish invite.

Pressure has been mounting since the Chinese Premier Wen Jiaboa announced his participation and so has Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The presence of heads of two emerging economy nations is bound to weigh in favor of Singh's visit.

U.S. President Barrack Obama is also attending the summit and has urged Singh also to do so, according to Indian media reports..

On his part, Singh told reporters on his way back home after attending the Commonwealth Summit in Port of Spain, that he has not made up his mind yet on attending next month's crucial summit.

"I have not decided yet. It is pre-mature to say," Singh said.

According to present plans, environment minister Ramesh is due to represent India at the summit that will kick off on December 7.

Some 80 presidents and premiers are expected to attend the final days of the conference on December 17-18.