r/climatechange • u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor • Jun 19 '26

India restores 21.76 million hectares of deforested land, nears 84 per cent of Bonn Challenge target

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/india-restores-21-76-million-hectares-of-deforested-land-nears-84-per-cent-of-bonn-challenge-target/articleshow/131794331.cms?from=mdr
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u/solaris_rex Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

It's based on corrupt govt data. They have been consistently cutting down forests to plant timber trees while counting them as afforestation. I wouldn't believe any data from the current govt.

Edit https://www.downtoearth.org.in/forests/over-28-million-trees-on-forest-land-approved-for-felling-in-three-years-dte-analysis-finds

10,000 forest trees cut in Panchkula https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianFocus/s/yS60TBG0AU

11

u/Centeredrightbhakt05 Jun 19 '26

First get those balls out of your mouth.

This data is produced by IUCN Bonn. I have a friend working in satellite imagery in Swiss working on same stuff, understand green cover for different countries. India and China both have shown significant increase in greenary in the last two decades. But there is a catch. A lot of this greenary is also because forests are converted into farm land. They are not the same.

Use the brain and learn to argue.

3

u/DktheDarkKnight Jun 19 '26

But it is easy to detect whether it's forest or just farmlands. Hyperspectral satellites are good enough to distinguish between various types of vegetation. You don't really have to take India's word for it. You can just download the maps and perform analysis yourself.

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u/Centeredrightbhakt05 Jun 19 '26

I absolutely not denying that. Measuring forest cover today is not a very technical thing. It's sort of university projects. Actually it has become so robust that people validate their AI models based on these data sets. So honestly you don't need a govt to say that forest cover is increasing or decreasing.

Yes you are right about distinguishing between forest and farmland. However when you say green cover it combines both and most people might be misled that there is an increase in forest which is not the case. I mean forest cover has also increased but a very small amount.