There is urgent need to focus on effects of climate change and biodiversity conservation especially as climatic change has already started exerting effects on Indian forests and environment.
These are among the major facets revealed in the book ‘Forest Types of India Revisited’ released at the Forest Research Institute by the director general of Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) Dr VK Bahuguna.
Bahuguna said that India’s forests are shifting towards drier condition, resulting in reduced biodiversity of forests and adversely affecting the hydrological cycle of the country. India’s forests were classified for the first time in 1936 by Sir HG Champion and were later revised by Champion and SK Seth in 1968, classifying India’s forests into 16 major types and about 221 sub-type groups.
“This classification is still in use for forest management 45 years later while country’s forests have undergone tremendous changes owing to various factors. In view of this, ICFRE constituted a task force in 2011 to revisit the forest types of India and assess the changes if any due to climatic and other factors.”
He stressed that forests are voiceless so it is vital for the political class to attend to forest related issues especially as changes have occurred at species and forest sub-types levels influenced by number of factors including management interventions, anthropogenic and climatic changes.
FRI director Dr PP Bhojvaid said that the treeline in the mountains of Uttarakhand was earlier fixed at 3,000 metres but now this has started shifting higher due to climatic changes which are affecting hydrology and number of rainy days negatively.
More than 150 scientists and around 1,800 personnel of the ICFRE institutes and State Forest Departments sampled 1,700 plots after which a new system of classification of India’s forest types has been proposed by classifying India’s forest in to 10 groups instead of 16; and 44 sub-type groups instead of 221.
Analysis based on national level data which showed change in temperature and rainfall patterns reveal that many forests are moving towards drier conditions, particularly the temperate forests which is a cause of concern.
