Examine the status of forest resources of India and its resultant impact on climate change.
Approach · directive: “examine”
What it asks · Examine India's forest cover and quality, and how forests both affect and are affected by climate change, as carbon sinks and as ecosystems under stress.
The question has 3 parts — answer each
- Examine the status of India's forest resources: extent, quality and pressures
- Examine the resultant impact on climate change: forests as carbon sink and as ecosystems under climate stress
- Indicate the response needed
Open with · India's forest and tree cover is about a quarter of its area (25.17% in ISFR 2023), short of the 33% goal of the National Forest Policy 1988, and it matters for India's climate pledges.
Cover
- Status: ISFR 2023 records forest cover of 21.76% and tree cover of 3.41%, together 25.17%, a gain of 1,445 sq km since 2021.
- Quality: 'forest cover' includes plantations and orchards, and gains from plantations and trees outside forests are not the same as old natural forest.
- Carbon sink: forests hold 7,285.5 million tonnes of carbon; sink added since 2005 is 2.29 billion tonnes against the NDC's 2.5–3.0 billion by 2030.
- Climate stress on forests: shifting rainfall and temperature raise fire, pest and drought risk, as in Uttarakhand's fires, and threaten mangroves and Himalayan forests.
- Pressures: diversion for mining, roads and hydropower, shifting cultivation, fuelwood, grazing and encroachment; the 2023 amendment of the Forest Conservation Act is contested.
- Response: Green India Mission, CAMPA-funded compensatory afforestation, community stewardship under the Forest Rights Act 2006, fire alerts, and restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land.
Close with · Forests are both a climate sink and a climate-vulnerable resource; protecting the quality of natural forest, not only raising the cover figure, will decide their role in India's climate goals.
Add value (verified)
- By ISFR 2023, India had added 2.29 billion tonnes of carbon sink over 2005, against its NDC goal of 2.5 to 3.0 billion tonnes by 2030. Union Minister Bhupender Yadav Releases India State of Forest Report 2023 — PIB, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change ↗“as compared to the base year of 2005, India has already reached 2.29 billion tonnes of additional carbon sink as against the target of 2.5 to 3.0 billion tonnes by 2030”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2020, GS Paper I — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer · 291 words (UPSC limit 250) · Minimalist IAS
India's forest and tree cover stands at 25.17% of its area (ISFR 2023), well short of the 33% goal of the National Forest Policy 1988, and this cover is central to the country's climate commitments.
Status of forest resources
- Extent: ISFR 2023 records forest cover of 21.76% and tree cover of 3.41%, together 25.17%, a gain of 1,445 sq km since 2021.
- Quality: 'forest cover' counts plantations, orchards and trees outside forests, so gains on paper do not mean recovery of dense natural forest, whose ecological and carbon value is far higher.
- Pressures: diversion for mining, roads and hydropower, shifting cultivation, fuelwood, grazing and encroachment; the 2023 amendment to the Forest (Conservation) Act, which narrows the land the Act covers, is contested.
Impact on climate change
- Carbon sink: forests hold 7,285.5 million tonnes of carbon, and the sink added since 2005 stands at 2.29 billion tonnes against the NDC pledge of 2.5-3.0 billion tonnes by 2030, so forests are India's main lever for absorbing emissions.
- Loss becomes emission: diversion, degradation and fire release stored carbon and remove future absorption.
- Climate stress feeds back: shifting rainfall and hotter, drier springs raise fire, pest and drought risk, as in Uttarakhand's fires, while rising seas threaten mangroves and warming pushes Himalayan forests upslope.
- Local climate: forests recycle moisture, hold soil and regulate river flow, so degradation worsens droughts and floods downstream.
Response
- Green India Mission, CAMPA-funded compensatory afforestation, community stewardship under the Forest Rights Act 2006, satellite fire alerts and the pledge to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land.
Forests are at once India's largest carbon sink and a resource vulnerable to warming; protecting the quality of natural forest, not just lifting the cover figure, will decide their role in India's climate goals.
Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.