India rises to 9th globally in forest area, but critics question real gains

India has climbed to the ninth spot worldwide for total forest area and retains its third rank in annual forest area gain, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025. While Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav hailed this as a significant achievement, crediting large-scale afforestation drives, critics have repeatedly questioned the cause for celebration.

The claim of increased green cover and forest gain faces heavy criticism from experts and environmentalists.

The India State of Forest Report 2023 (ISFR 2023), a key domestic assessment and the latest official insight on India's forests, reports that forest and tree cover combined account for 25.17 per cent of India's geographical area, with an increase of 1,445.81 sq km since 2021.

But many ecologists argue that these figures are misleading.

Prakriti Srivastava, former principal chief conservator of forests in Kerala, and conservationist researcher Krithika Sampath have criticised the report for counting plantations, orchards, bamboo groves, and even roadside trees as forest cover.

She mentioned that such statistical oversights overstate the true forest area and masks the degradation of natural, dense forests.

Meanwhile, environmental expert Debadityo Sinha of the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy noted that over 30,000 sq km of open and scrub forests, 14,000 sq km of moderately dense forests, and nearly 1,800 sq km of dense forests have been lost to non-forest uses like mining, road building, and urbanisation.

The inclusion of commercially valuable but ecologically poorer tree plantations inflates the numbers while real natural forest habitats shrink, leading to biodiversity loss and impaired ecosystem services

Conservationists also point out that certain ecologically sensitive regions, such as the Western Ghats, have seen overall forest cover decline despite the positive headline numbers.

Experts warn that the government’s forest cover assessments fail to meet the Supreme Court-mandated requirements for geo-referenced, digitised forest mapping, weakening transparency and accountability.