Ghaziabad forest cover ‘rises’, activists say it is misleading

  • | Wednesday | 14th February, 2018

GHAZIABAD: The forest cover of Ghaziabad has increased by one square kilometre as per a report of Forest Survey of India. There is no ‘very dense’ forest cover in Ghaziabad. “This means the cover has increased by one sq km in Ghaziabad.”The report states there is nine ‘moderately dense’ forest in Ghaziabad while 26 ‘open forests’. “After carefully analysing the FSI’s 2017 report, we have concluded that the forest cover in Ghaziabad has increased by 0.32% as against the decline in 2013 by more than 1%,” said BP Singh, district forest officer. But environmentalists have brushed aside the State of Forest Report 2017, saying it did not take into account the geographical area of Hapur that had been the trend in the past three years.As per the report, the forest cover in Ghaziabad accounts for 2.21% of the total geographical area which, at present, is 1,179 sq km.

GHAZIABAD: The forest cover of Ghaziabad has increased by one square kilometre as per a report of Forest Survey of India. But environmentalists have brushed aside the State of Forest Report 2017, saying it did not take into account the geographical area of Hapur that had been the trend in the past three years.As per the report, the forest cover in Ghaziabad accounts for 2.21% of the total geographical area which, at present, is 1,179 sq km. But if Hapur’s area was taken into consideration, greens said, the actual status of the forest cover could have even revealed a decline as there had been deforestation drives to pave the way for various developmental projects.“All previous FSI survey was done taking into account geographical area of Hapur along with that of Ghaziabad, which together stood at 2,590sqkm and this change has obviously reflected in the increase in the forest cover of Ghaziabad , which I think is not true,” said Akash Vashishtha of SPEnBIO, a green NGO.However, the district forest official has attributed the rise in the forest cover to a massive plantation drive that was carried out in the past three years. “After carefully analysing the FSI’s 2017 report, we have concluded that the forest cover in Ghaziabad has increased by 0.32% as against the decline in 2013 by more than 1%,” said BP Singh, district forest officer. “This means the cover has increased by one sq km in Ghaziabad.”The report states there is nine ‘moderately dense’ forest in Ghaziabad while 26 ‘open forests’. There is no ‘very dense’ forest cover in Ghaziabad. “In 2015, we planted 46,000 saplings in Ghaziabad, while in 2016 the number went up to 82,000 and in 2017 same figure stood at 54,000 and even if we presume that the survival rate of these saplings was more than 75%, it still gave the city enough forest cover under ‘moderately dense’ and ‘open forest’ category which is reflected in the FSI report,” said Singh.

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