General Awareness Classification of Forests

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Classification of Forests

Reserved Forests

1. These forests are under the direct supervision of the government where no public entry is allowed for collecting limber and grazing of cattle.

2. About 53% of forest area falls under this category.

3. Reserved forests in India are often raised to the status of wildlife sanctuaries, which in turn may be upgraded to the position of national parks.

4. examples - Bhavnagar Amreli Forest (Gujrat), Jakanari Reserve Forest ( Tamil Nadu), Banni Grasslands Reserve (Gujrat) and Kukrail Reserve Forest (Uttar Pradesh) etc.

Protected Forests

1. These forests are looked after by the governments, but local public are allowed to collect timber/firewood and graze their cattle without doing an serious damage to the forests.

2. These occupy about 29% of the total forest cover.

3. It was introduced in the Indian Forest Act, 1927 in British India and were retained after Indian independence.

Unclassified Forest.

1. These arc unclassified forests where there is no restriction on cutting trees or greasing animals.

2. About 18% of total forest are under this category.

Constitutional Classification

State Forests
1. These are under the full control of the government (State/Central).

2. They include almost all the important forest areas of the country.

3. About 93.8% of total forest covers arc under this category.

Communal Forests

1. These forests are owned and administered by the local bodies (Municipal corporation, Municipal board, Town area, District board, Village Panchavat etc).

2. They occupy about 4.9% of the country's forest area.

Private Forests

1. These are under the private ownership and cover only 1.3% of the forested area.

2. Now, these forests are rapidly converted to waste lands.

3. Odisha has highest private forests in the country.

Forest Cover in India

1. Forest cover is defined as "All lands more 'than one hectare in area, with a tree canopy density of more than 10% irrespective of ownership and legal status.

2. Such lands may not necessarily be a recorded forest area. It also includes orchards, bamboo and palm.

Very Dense Forest

1. All lands with tree cover of canopy with a density of 70% and above.

2. It spreads over 2.54% of the geographical area in India.

Moderately Dense Forest

1. All lands with tree canopy density between 40% and 70%.

2. These area spreads over 9.70% of the total geographical area.

Open Forest

1. Degraded forest lands with canopy density less than 10%.

2. In India, it is upto 126% of total area.

Non-Forest

1. Any area not included in the above classes and has 77.51%, of total geographical area in the country.