An official report includes plantations and parks in its measure AT THE COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last year, when more than 100 countries committed to ending and reversing deforestation by 2030, India, home to some of the world’s biggest and most biodiverse forests, demurred. No matter: India’s forests seem to be thriving—at least on paper. Between 2019 and 2021 India gained 1,540 sq km in forest cover, according to a biennial report published last month by tAT THE COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last year, when more than 100 countries committed to ending and reversing deforestation by 2030, India, home to some of the world’s biggest and most biodiverse forests, demurred. No matter: India’s forests seem to be thriving—at least on paper. Between 2019 and 2021 India gained 1,540 sq km in forest cover, according to a biennial report published last month by the Forest Survey of India (FSI), a government agency. Over the past 20 years, says the report, forest cover has grown by 5.7%, or around 40,000 sq km, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.

This should be good news. Forests are a boon for the environment. Many of India’s poorest people depend on them for their livelihoods. Yet India’s greens are unimpressed. They say the FSI’s definition of “forest” is misleading and has been for the past 20 years. Officially, any patch of land greater than a hectare with canopy cover of at least 10% counts as a forest no matter who owns it or to what use it is put. By the FSI’s reckoning, tea estates in the hills of east India, cashew plantations on the western coast and parks in the posh suburbs of Delhi, the capital, all qualify. The FSI “can’t be accused of favouring only tree-clad areas in counting India’s forests”, M.D. Madhusudan, an ecologist, quipped on Twitter, illustrating his point with a scattering of treesAT THE COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last year, when more than 100 countries committed to ending and reversing deforestation by 2030, India, home to some of the world’s biggest and most biodiverse forests, demurred. No matter: India’s forests seem to be thriving—at least on paper. Between 2019 and 2021 India gained 1,540 sq km in forest cover, according to a biennial report published last month by the Forest Survey of India (FSI), a government agency. Over the past 20 years, says the report, forest cover has grown by 5.7%, or around 40,000 sq km, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.

This should be good news. Forests are a boon for the environment. Many of India’s poorest people depend on them for their livelihoods. Yet India’s greens are unimpressed. They say the FSI’s definition of “forest” is misleading and has been for the past 20 years. Officially, any patch of land greater than a hectare with canopy cover of at least 10% counts as a forest no matter who owns it or to what use it is put. By the FSI’s reckoning, tea estates in the hills of east India, cashew plantations on the western coast and parks in the posh suburbs of Delhi, the capital, all qualify. The FSI “can’t be accused of favouring only tree-clad areas in counting India’s forests”, M.D. Madhusudan, an ecologist, quipped on Twitter, illustrating his point with a scattering of treeAT THE COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last year, when more than 100 countries committed to ending and reversing deforestation by 2030, India, home to some of the world’s biggest and most biodiverse forests, demurred. No matter: India’s forests seem to be thriving—at least on paper. Between 2019 and 2021 India gained 1,540 sq km in forest cover, according to a biennial report published last month by the Forest Survey of India (FSI), a government agency. Over the past 20 years, says the report, forest cover has grown by 5.7%, or around 40,000 sq km, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.

This should be good news. Forests are a boon for the environment. Many of India’s poorest people depend on them for their livelihoods. Yet India’s greens are unimpressed. They say the FSI’s definition of “forest” is misleading and has been for the past 20 years. Officially, any patch of land greater than a hectare with canopy cover of at least 10% counts as a forest no matter who owns it or to what use it is put. By the FSI’s reckoning, tea estates in the hills of east India, cashew plantations on the western coast and parks in the posh suburbs of Delhi, the capital, all qualify. The FSI “can’t be accused of favouring only tree-clad areas in counting India’s forests”, M.D. Madhusudan, an ecologist, quipped on Twitter, illustrating his point with a scattering of trees in the scorching desert of Rajasthan, a western state.
s in the scorching desert of Rajasthan, a western state.
 in the scorching desert of Rajasthan, a western state.
he Forest Survey of India (FSI), a government agency. Over the past 20 years, says the report, forest cover has grown by 5.7%, or around 40,000 sq km, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.