Among its states, Haryana had the smallest percentage of forest cover in relation to its total geographical area in India. Punjab, another state in the northern region of India, was not far behind, with a forest cover of 3.67 percent.

Forest cover in India

India, known for its diverse ecosystems, has over 700 thousand square kilometers of forest cover, an integral component to its ecological balance. The classification of forest cover in India is determined by the density of the tree canopy, with moderately dense and open forests constituting the majority.

Biodiversity conservation

Hosting a rich diversity of life in its forests, wetlands, and marine regions, India has made considerable progress in conservation initiatives. The country has set up a range of protected zones, such as wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, and botanical gardens. These zones, crucial for preserving India’s biodiversity, implement both in-situ and ex-situ conservation strategies by providing habitat for a multitude of species.

Forests cover over four billion hectares of the Earth's landmass, around 31 percent of the total land area. As of 2022, worldwide forest area measured some 4.05 billion hectares, down from approximately 4.24 billion hectares in 1990. From 1990 to 2022, no country saw a greater percentage change in forest area than Côte d'Ivoire, which lost more than half of its forests.

In 2023, Brazil recorded the largest area of primary tropical forest loss worldwide, at more than 1.1 million hectares. Primary forest loss in Brazil was considerably higher than in any other country that year, accounting for over 30 percent of global primary forest loss. The Democratic Republic of Congo ranked in second, with roughly 530,000 hectares of forest loss.

In 2023, more than 8.5 million hectares of tree cover was lost in Canada. Tree cover loss does not just refer to deforestation; it can also occur due to natural causes to trees in plantations and natural forests. Therefore, by definition, tree cover loss is the removal of tree canopy due to human or natural causes, including fire. Canada was followed by Russia, with roughly 3.4 million hectares of tree cover lost.

Impacts of tree cover loss

Forests have an essential role in mitigating climate change and are rich in biodiversity. Nevertheless, annual tree cover loss has risen since the beginning of the century, remaining above 20 million hectares per year for most of the past decade. The loss of trees impacts both carbon emissions and the carbon storage capacity of these forest ecosystems. For example, the Southeast Asian rainforest was estimated to be a net carbon emitter as of 2021, with its emissions surpassing its removal capacity. In the Amazon, emissions and sinks were almost balanced out.

Drivers of tree cover loss

In 2022, the dominant driver of tree cover loss was large-scale forestry operations occurring within managed forests and tree plantations. That year, around 6.7 billion hectares of tree cover were lost due to forestry activities. Meanwhile, permanent conversion of forest and shrubland to non-forest land use for commodity-driven deforestation and urbanization contributed some 4.9 million hectares of tree cover loss.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo concentrated the largest forest area in Africa, around 126 million hectares. The extension was slightly over the forest area of Angola and Tanzania together. Additionally, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's forests corresponded to nearly 20 percent of Africa's forested area and three percent of the global forest area.

In 2021, Ghana had a forest area of nearly 80 thousand square kilometers. This represented roughly 35 percent of the country’s total land area. The total extent had expanded since 2016, when it stood at approximately 79.2 square kilometers. In contrast, between 2008 and 2015, the forest stretch followed a contracting trend. A forest area refers to land under natural or planted stands of trees of a minimum of five meters in situ, excluding trees in urban parks and gardens.

Annually decreasing forest land

In spite of the large tree extent in Ghana, the latter experiences constant forest and tree cover losses. In 2021, around 10.4 thousand hectares of primary forest were lost in the country, which was the highest area of forest lost since 2001. The primary cause of tree cover loss in Ghana is shifting agriculture, which usually emanates from small- and medium-scale agricultural activities. In 2019, over 80 thousand hectares of tree cover were lost from shifting agriculture.

Ghana benefits from forestry

Forest rents covered nearly four percent of Ghana’s GDP in 2020. This represented a slight growth in the contribution of forestry to the country’s economy. Specifically, the forestry and logging industry contributed over 1.8 million Ghanaian cedis, equivalent of 231 million U.S. dollars, to Ghana’s GDP in 2020.

As of November 2024, Ukraine had more land burned by wildfires than any other country in Europe in that year. The East European country lost more than 906,000 hectares to forest and wildland fires. This was dramatically above the average of 42,000 hectares between 2006 and 2023. With the ever increasing threat of climate change, the number of natural disasters has gone up in the past few years. Wildfires have become more common in places that never experienced them previously.

Throughout 2024, Brazil reported nearly 279,000 wildfire outbreaks, by far the highest figure in South America. Bolivia registered the second-largest number of wildfires in the region that year, at over 90,000. On the other hand, 276 wildfires were detected in Uruguay during the reported period, the lowest number amongst South American countries and territories. The lungs of the world Spanning nine different countries, the Amazon rainforest makes up approximately 40 percent of South America. Predominantly encompassed by Brazil, the government has made some efforts towards protecting what is left of the world's most abundant tropical rainforest. Over five million square kilometers of land area lie under a special regime designated as the Legal Amazon in Brazil. Nevertheless, wildfires in the region remain a cause for concern. In 2024, over 192,000 outbreaks were registered in the Legal Amazon, accounting for more than half of the country's occurrences that year. Brazil's blind ambition At the heart of the issue of wildfires is deforestation as a technique to expand land for farming and pastures. Along with the incremental rise in wildfires, the Amazon's deforestation rate has seen a continual increase for most of the decade. As Brazil climbs global markets to become the leading producer of soybean and beef, the country's agricultural ambitions have led to the lightening of environmental restrictions and the re-allocation of land for farming purposes. In turn, the area planted with crops in the Legal Amazon has nearly tripled since 2000.

In 2023, the deforested area in the Legal Amazon in Brazil amounted to approximately 802,300 hectares. Just a year earlier, the Amazon deforested area surpassed 1.2 million hectares. What is behind the growing Amazon deforestation in Brazil? Illegal logging, expansion of agricultural areas for soybean cultivation, and an increase in wildfire outbreaks are all among the leading causes of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Politics, however, has also played an important role. For example, the authorized budget for Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment has been on a mostly downward trend since 2013, when it reached a decade-long peak of nearly seven billion Brazilian reals. How big is the Brazilian deforestation issue? In 2023, Brazil registered by far the largest area of primary forest loss in the world, amounting to more than one million hectares. This was roughly the same area as the remaining top nine countries combined. As the country with the second-largest forest area worldwide, these developments are cause for concern amidst the conversation on climate change mitigation. With the global tree cover loss annually increasing, and the emission of greenhouse gases from forest areas along with it, reaching net-zero emissions targets by 2050 grows ever more challenging.