Forest cover, and what counts as forest

India's reported forest cover has grown. Its natural forest has not, by the same amount.

The Forest Survey of India assesses cover every two years from satellite imagery, on a canopy density threshold. Under that definition a commercial plantation, an orchard and an old-growth forest can all register as forest cover.

That is not a flaw to be hidden; it is a definition to be stated. Separating dense natural forest from plantation and open cover gives a different trend line from the headline total, and both belong on the page.

What we measure

These are the indicators this topic is built from. Each names its source and the year that source refers to, because an official figure is not the same thing as a current one.

Indicator	Unit	Source and year
Total forest cover	% of geographic area	Forest Survey of IndiaData year: India State of Forest Report 2023
Very dense forest cover	sq km	Forest Survey of IndiaData year: India State of Forest Report 2023
Change between assessment cycles	sq km	Forest Survey of IndiaData year: India State of Forest Report 2023
Land under degradation	% of land area	Space Applications Centre desertification atlasData year: 2021 atlas (2018-19 assessment)

What we publish

A state map of gain and loss with plantation area shown separately from natural forest.

The brief above is written and the sources are identified. What remains is the data build. Until it publishes, no figure for this topic appears anywhere on DataSpeaks — we would rather show nothing than show a placeholder.

Where these numbers come from

How we handle gaps

Where a source has not reported for a recent year, the gap is shown as a gap. We do not interpolate to make a series look continuous or a map look complete. Where two agencies publish different figures for the same thing, both appear and we say which is which.

Reuse

Charts from this topic may be reused with credit to DataSpeaks and to the original source named above. The underlying data remains under its own licence — most Government of India datasets permit reuse with attribution, some survey microdata does not.