UP green cover increases due to plantation drives

Lucknow, Jan 14 (IANS) The Yogi Adityanath government’s massive plantation targets in recent years have led to an increase of over 91 square kilometres of green cover across the state, which includes the forest and tree cover.

The state of the forest report (SoFR) 2021 released by the Forest Survey of India on Thursday shows the status of green cover in all states and Union terri tories of the country.

Uttar Pradesh’s green cover has increased from 9.20 per cent to 9.23 per cent in the latest report.

The report is based on satellite assessment and is released every two years.

The 2021 report is based on satellite data from October 2019 till January 2020 and includes the green cover raised due to the plantation exercises taken up by the state governments in the past.

According to the 2019 report, the forest cover (on forest land) in the state was 14,806 square kilometres.

It increased to 14,818 square kilometres in the 2021 survey.

Similarly, tree cover, which includes green belts outside the forest area, has increased to 7,421 square kilometres from 7,342 square kilometres in 2019 — an increase of 79 square kilometres.

The SoFR also gives an assessment of very dense forest (VDF), moderately dense forest (MDF) and open forest (OF) depending on the density of the canopy.

The VDF has recorded an increase of 10 square kilometres and OF has shown an increase of 53 square kilometres in this report. The MDF has shown a decrease of 51 square kilometres.

–IANS

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