India is on track to meet its NDC forest-sink target. Critically evaluate whether current forest monitoring adequately captures carbon permanence.

India's NDC promises an additional carbon sink of 2.5–3.0 billion tonnes CO₂e by 2030 over 2005 levels. ISFR 2023 reports that 2.29 billion tonnes has already been achieved [1]. However, a sink counts only if the carbon stays stored. This is called permanence. India's monitoring measures the carbon stock well, but it does not measure the risks to that stock.

Strengths of current monitoring

• Regular, credible system: The Forest Survey of India (MoEFCC) has published the ISFR every two years since 1987. It combines satellite data with field inventory [1].
• Carbon is measured directly: The forest carbon stock is 7,285.5 million tonnes, up 81.5 MT from the 2021 assessment [1].
• Some risks are tracked: ISFR covers forest fires, mangroves and growing stock. It reports that fire incidents are falling [2].
• Detailed data: State and district figures allow accountability at the local level [1].

Gaps in capturing permanence

• The headline counts area: The 25.17% forest-and-tree-cover figure is an area measure [1]. It does not show whether forests remain intact.
• Gains depend on tree cover: Of the 1,445 sq km added since 2021, 1,289 sq km is tree cover and only 156 sq km is forest cover [1]. Small, scattered patches can be felled more easily, so the carbon they hold is less secure.
• Fragmentation is not measured: A recent study found that breaking forests into patches raises surface temperature in tropical and temperate forests. The effect is about as large as losing forest area. The study concludes that climate accounting must track fragmentation, not just cover [3]. Hotter edges put stress on trees, so stored carbon can decline while cover figures stay the same.
• Diversion replaces area, not intact forest: Under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, compensatory afforestation replaces the area lost. But a road or railway line cut through a large forest creates new edges along its whole length. WII's guidance accepts that such linear projects harm forest habitats [4].

Way forward

• Use the existing satellite data to report patch size and edge share, in addition to cover [3].
• Report natural forest separately from tree cover.
• Screen forest-diversion proposals for connectivity using the WII 2016 guidance [4]. The Delhi–Dehradun corridor has 10.97 km of animal underpass in a 20 km stretch, and elephants were recorded using it safely 60 times [5].

Overall, India's monitoring is good at counting carbon but weak at checking whether that carbon will last. Adding fragmentation and connectivity measures to the ISFR would make the NDC sink figure lasting as well as large. That would support India's duty under Article 48A to protect and improve forests, and its goals under SDG 15.