Forest conservation, afforestation, and reforestation in India: Implications for forest carbon stocks

Forest conservation, afforestation, and reforestation in India: Implications for forest carbon stocks

Background

Considering India’s goal to have 1/3 of their land area forested by 2012, this article assesses the implications of past and current forest conservation and regeneration policies and carbon stock programs.

Goals & Methods

The overall goal of the article is to access past and present forest conservation and regeneration prolicies and programs in India in order to understand trends of reforestation and carbon sequestration. The authors used Comprehensive Mitigation Analysis Process (CONAP) to estimate carbon stock between 2006 and 2030 in both a business as usual scenario and projected forestation using national data sets for 1980-2005 from both Indian government agencies and the United Nations.

Conclustions & Takeaways

The authors found that in the 1980s an aggressive afforestation program has resulted in an average annual afforestation rate of 1.32 M/ha2. Including plantation forestry, this would result in 33 Mha of newly forested land for a total of 72.19 Mha countrywide. In a business as usual scenario the existing forest stock will remain stable at 8.79GtC. With afforestation and reforestation carbon stock will reach 9.75 GtC by year 2030, an increase of 11%. The article concludes with the claim that the positive forest trends will continue without significant forest degradation or loss of carbon stocks. 

 

 

 

Reference: 

Ravindranath, N.H., Chaturvedi, R.J.,&Murthy, I.K. 2008. “Forest conservation, afforestation, and reforestation in India: Implications for forest carbon stocks” Current Science, vol. 95, no. 2, pp. 216-222.

Affiliation: 

  • Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute for Science, Bangalore 560-012, INDIA
  • Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute for Science, Bangalore 560-012, INDIA