Kolkata has less than 1 percent tree cover

Among Indian metros Kolkata has least, less than one percent, urban forest cover; points out the latest report published by Forest Survey of India, an agency under union ministry of environment, forest and climate change.

Moreover, Kolkata has lost about 30 percent of its forest cover during the last decade; the slide in forest cover within Kolkata is only second to Ahmedabad, where the forest cover has dwindled about 47 percent during the period.

According to forest department definition, green patches with 70 per cent or more canopy cover is known as ‘very dense forest’, while area with 40 to 70 per cent canopy is earmarked as ‘moderately dense forest’ and 10 to 40 per cent canopy covered stretch is known as ‘open forest’.

The report – India State of Forest Report 2021 – shows that Kolkata now has about 1.8 square kilometer of forest cover, less than 1 per cent of the total area of Kolkata; out of which 1.7 sq km falls under ‘open’ category while rest 0.1 sq km can be categorized as ‘moderately dense’. Kolkata’s forest spread was 2.5 square kilometer in 2011.

In contrast Mumbai has about 111 square kilometer of forest cover in 2021, about 25 percent of the city area; and it has actually gained 9 percent forest during the decade.

While Hyderabad and Delhi follow Mumbai with around 13 percent forest cover; on a gross scale, Delhi has nearly 2.5 times more forest cover than Hyderabad; around 194 to 82 sq km.

All the rest metro cities have low forest cover, Bengaluru with 7 percent of the city; while Chennai has around 5 percent and Ahmedabad has 2 percent forest cover.

Delhi is the only city with marginal dense forest – 6.74 sq km; about 4 percent overall forest cover in city – while mostly ‘open forest’ exists followed by ‘moderate forest’ cover.

“Though we plant trees but often they cannot be maintained as they should have been. I am trying to push urban forestry program in city; and will further expedite at the light of the findings you mentioned,” said city mayor Firhad Hakim to this reporter on Sunday evening.

“We have been planting significant number of trees over the years but series of high intensity cyclones, several infrastructural projects like metro rail have led to felling of many trees” admitted Debasish Kumar, mayor in council of KMC in charge of parks and gardens.

“The latest report confirms what we have been saying over the years; the greenery and trees have been felled as a rule in city in the name of development” stated environmentalist SubhasDatta.

“We demand that KMC immediately should ensure that not a single tree is felled henceforth; and even it needs to be felled, the compensatory tree planting should take place much before” observed Naba Dutta, an activist and secretary of green platform Sabuj Mancha.

“Apart from felling of the trees in construction of metro rail, Ma bridge or widening of roads in several places of the city; private realty also often fell trees in abandon” accepted a senior official in state urban department.

BOX : Green quotient

City –total forest cover in sq km (approx) – % of forest cover – % changed during 2011-21(approx.)*

Ahmedabad – 9.41 – 2.07 – – 48

Bengaluru – 89 – 6.8- – 5

Chennai – 22.7 – 5.3 – +26

Delhi – 194.2 – 12.6 – +11

Hyderabad – 81.8 – 12.9 – +147

Mumbai- 110.8 – 25.4 – +9

Calcutta – 1.8 – 0.95 – – 30

*’+’ means addition while ‘ –‘ means reduction of forest cover

* Data Source : Forest Survey of India.