Forests occupy around 52.04% of Nagaland
A forest in a river in Peren District. (Morung File Photo)
Our Correspondent
Kohima | March 22
Out of Nagaland states’ 16, 579 sq.km geographical area, forests occupy an area of approximately 8629 sq km, i.e 52.04% of the total area.
This a decrease of 2.60 sq km as compared to the previous assessment reported in ISFR 2017.
The Annual Administrative Report 2019- 2020 of the Department of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Nagaland stated that the department is making necessary efforts to discourage the illegal felling and encroachment in government forests have been removed by the department staffs with the assistance of civil administration and police.
Since the area under government forest in the state is limited, the department has purchased some forest land from private owners to take up plantations and biodiversity conservation.
The total land purchased by the department is approximately 192.47 sq kms. Reserved forests constitute 3.06 %, protected forests 5.51% and unclassed forest constitute 93.56% of the forest cover.
In Nagaland, during the period from January 1, 2015 to February 5, 2019, no forest land was diverted for non-forestry purposes under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 (MoEF & CC, 2019).
The report also stated that Nagaland has one National Park and three wildlife sanctuaries covering 222 sq kms, which constitute 1.34% of the state’s geographical area.
In terms of forest canopy density classes, the state has 1, 273.19 sq.km area under very dense forest, 4, 533.72 sq.km are under moderately dense forest and 6.679.49 sq.km under open forest.
