The need to save our forests is more crucial than ever 

The Wayanad landslides and subsequent loss of lives have reignited the dialogue on the impact of extreme climate events, which are worsening due to climate change, global warming, infrastructure development, construction and deforestation in eco-fragile regions. The Wayanad disaster in Kerala manifests all these factors in varying degrees.

However, it is not the only place where tragedy has struck hard. Over the past six months, numerous regions have not been spared, including Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh in the Himalayas, the North-Eastern region, and even the UNESCO-certified biodiversity hotspot of the Western Ghats.

While these are eco-sensitive zones prone to natural calamities, the frequency and intensity of floods, landslides, and forest fires in these areas have increased manifold. Several of these adverse climate change events have been exacerbated by blocking of rivers by damming, mining, construction and other development activities, which require considerable deforestation. As disasters become common in areas previously deemed stable, experts have established a link between deforestation of slopes and increased susceptibility to disasters.

In this context, the recent report ‘The State of the World’s Forests’, released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), presents both good and bad news for India. It notes that while the rate of deforestation has slowed globally, including in India, adverse climate change events, especially wildfires, pose a significant threat to the well-being of forest ecosystems.

First, the good news. To quote the FAO report: “Globally, the net rate of change in forest area, which is the difference between forest expansion and deforestation, is estimated at -4.7 million hectare per year in 2010-2020. This was significantly lower than in the two previous decades (-7.8 million ha per year in 1990-2000 and -5.2 million ha per year in 2000-2010),” the report states.

According to FAO, India is one of the 10 countries that recorded annual gains in forest cover in 2020. In 2021, the Forest Survey of India in its biennial State of Forest report indicated that the total forest cover stood at 7,13, 789 sq km or 21.17 per cent of the total geographical area. However, current figures are unavailable, as the latest report release has been delayed by more than a year.

The bad news is that the FAO report projects that extreme wildfires are expected to become 50 per cent more frequent by the end of the century. Environmental changes linked to climate change, such as increased drought, high air temperatures, and strong winds, are likely to result in hotter, drier, and longer fire seasons.

Currently, around 340 to 370 million hectares of the Earth’s surface are burned by wildfire annually. When these wildfires become extreme, they can adversely affect sustainable development, threaten communities’ livelihoods, and generate large volumes of greenhouse gas emissions.

While forest fires are not uncommon in India, they have become persistent and ferocious over the past few years. Between January 1and March 31, 2022, there were 136,604 fires in the country. On the last day of March, there were around 340 incidents of fires, with 1,141 large forest fires continuing from the previous 7-8 days, according to the Forest Survey of India (FSI).

More recently, from November 2023 to June 2024, according to NASA’s MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensor data, Uttarakhand was reportedly the hardest hit with more than 2000 fire incidents. It was closely followed by Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, with more than 1500 fire incidents each, and Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, with over 1,000 forest fires each.

“How we respond to the wildfire challenge is of crucial importance,” said Zhimin Wu, Director of FAO’s Forestry Division, while launching a new edition of ‘Integrated Fire Management Voluntary Guidelines: Principles and Strategic Actions’ for countries. The FAO guidelines note that wildfires cause changes to watershed conditions that can increase the threat of flooding and landslides for several years afterwards. While floods, landslides, wildfires, and deforestation may appear as separate events due to climate change, they are interlinked and impact each other. Therefore, the FAO suggests an integrated approach to mitigate and minimise the short and long-term consequences of fire-induced vegetation depletion, such as soil erosion, landslides, floods, waterway pollution and desertification.