Forests are widely regarded as the global carbon sinks, capturing almost 50 per cent of fossil-fuel emissions. Currently, forests sequester around 30 per cent of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emission. South Asia continues to be a carbon sink with India being the largest contributor, both as a source and a sink. Despite covering mere 2 per cent of the global forest cover, Indian forests contribute about 7 per cent to the global carbon sinks, as it lies in tropical and sub-tropical regions of higher carbon uptake.
Indian forests host four of the 36 biodiversity hotspots, and two of eight hottest biodiversity hotspots in the world. India is also the second largest contributor to the global greening, and amongst the hotspot regions of land-atmosphere interactions. Forest carbon sequestration capacity is a key aspect in policy development and a crucial strategy to land based climate change mitigation.
Indian vegetated regions are greening due to climate change and anthropogenic activities. India’s greening is largely (86.5 per cent) contributed by croplands due to improved irrigation and better land management techniques. The major greening hotspot in India is the dryland region of the Great Thar desert due to improved moisture availability attributed to the changes in Indian summer monsoon and irrigation, and agricultural intensification. Indian forests have also been greening in recent decade (2010-2019) in comparison to the previous decade (2000-2009) with an addition of about 3.1 per cent new leaf area during the period. There are various land development initiatives, including the National Afforestation Programme (NAP) and the Green India Mission (GIM), executed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC), which emphasise and reinforce plantations and afforestation efforts in India during the past decades.
The Forest Survey of India (FSI) releases the “India State of the Forest Report” (ISFR) every second year. According to the ISFR 2021, the forest cover in India was 21.71 per cent, which increased by 0.05 per cent to 21.76 per cent as per the 2023 report. This is an increase of about 156.41 km2 in two-year period. Both FSI and global plantation data suggest growth of tree or forest cover by 14.5 million hectares (Mha) and 11.1 Mha, respectively, from 2001 to 2020. However, there is also loss of forest in India. For instance, the conversion from forest to non-forest area is reported as forest loss, which is about 12.1 Mha in the past two decades (2001–2020), according to FSI. The Global Forest Watch (GFW) estimates 2.43 Mha of tree loss during the same period. The difference in these estimates is due to different approaches and definitions used for the computation of forest change.
From 2015 to 2019, India lost around 18 km2 of forest area for every 1 km2 gain. The major states that contributed nearly 50 per cent of the total forest gains (56.3 km2) are Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Rajasthan. The major states that contributed nearly 50 per cent of the total forest loss (1,032.89 km2) are West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
India’s carbon sink estimates by FSI rely on biomass on field measurements, biomass inventory and remote sensing observations. However, there are studies that report a mismatch between greening and carbon uptake in India. The Indian forests exhibit a hindered ability to translate the structure (greenness) into functioning (carbon uptake) in recent decades (2000–2019) due to the decline in Ecosystem Photosynthetic Efficiency (EPE). This decline in effective photosynthesis is predominant in the pristine forests of eastern Himalaya and Western Ghats due to enhanced moisture stress, rising aridity and increased wildfires in the warming climate. Just 16 per cent of the Indian forests maintain high ecological integrity or intactness, which is much lower than its global average of 40 per cent. Also, the carbon uptake by Indian ecosystems is projected to decline in future. Thus, the current scenario is expected to be worse in the future climate change scenarios.
There is an urgent need for preservation of indigenous forests, sustainable and judicious use of forest resources, improved forest management practices, scientific afforestation programmes, substantial reduction in carbon emissions and better carbon capture technologies to achieve sustainability and India’s target of net-zero emissions by 2070.
(Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath is with Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India)
This was first published in the State of India’s Environment 2026