Area classified as forest
Topic: Land Use, Farming Systems and Cropping Seasons in India · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Land Resources and Agriculture"
Meaning
Area classified as forest is land that the government has marked out for forest growth. It is recorded as forest in land revenue records, which are the land-use records kept by revenue offices. Recorded forest is not the same as land actually covered by trees. This category can grow when the government marks out more land, even if no new trees grow. Actual tree cover is measured separately by the Forest Survey of India (FSI).
Example
Between 1950-51 and 2019-20, the share of India's reporting area classified as forest went up. The main reason was that more land was marked out as forest, not that more trees grew. Even so, the forest share is still below the 33% goal set by the forest policy of 1952 and kept in the National Forest Policy 1988.
Don't confuse with
- Forest cover: this is the area actually under trees, measured by FSI from satellite data. Area classified as forest is a record of legal status.
Related concepts
- Reporting area
- Land use categories
- Barren and wasteland
- Land put to non-agricultural uses
- Permanent pastures and grazing land
- Culturable wasteland
- Current fallow
- Fallow other than current fallow
- Net sown area