Causes and impacts of deforestation in India

Introduction

Deforestation is the clearing of forest so that the land passes permanently to another use, such as fields, mines, reservoirs or towns. It differs from forest degradation, where the trees remain but the forest is thinned and impoverished; the two often run together, degradation preparing the way for clearance. Bharucha's textbook (c. 2004) estimates that over the last century India's forest cover shrank from about a third of its land to about 11 per cent.

Causes of deforestation in India

Direct causes: where the trees go

1. Land for cultivation. As more food has to be grown, forest is cleared to make room for crops.
2. Wood for fuel, timber and paper. Continual felling for building timber, for pulp to make paper and, above all, for fuelwood steadily eats into forests, and wood is also cut illegally in many of them. Many poor rural households still have no fuel but wood for cooking and keeping warm.
3. Mining and dams. Mines and the reservoirs behind dams take whole tracts of forest at a time.

Underlying causes: why the pressure keeps rising

4. Growth and consumption. Rising demand for consumer goods made from forest raw material, the spread of cities and industry, and a fast-growing population together push the use of forest produce beyond what the forests can replace.
5. A history of commercial exploitation. Deforestation became a serious concern under British rule, when great quantities of timber were felled for ship-building; the colonial state also alienated local people by setting up Reserved and Protected Forests, and people shut out of a forest have little reason to look after it.

Impacts of deforestation

On land and water

• Loss of topsoil. Without a canopy and roots to shield it, bare ground loses its fertile top layer in heavy rain, and farming nearby suffers.
• Less water through the year. Rain on cleared slopes rushes off into rivers instead of soaking in, so less is stored underground and wells and streams run short in the dry months.

On living things

• Vanishing species. Animals lose their homes, and as a forest is broken into small, isolated patches its plants and animals die out, a loss that can never be reversed.
• Fewer pollinators, poorer harvests. Insects that breed in forests and pollinate crops and fruit trees become scarcer once forests are degraded, and yields fall.

On the climate

• Less carbon dioxide taken up. Forests take carbon dioxide out of the air and give out oxygen; every hectare cleared leaves fewer trees to do this.

On people

• Townspeople pay more for food, because the farms that feed them depend on the forests around them.
• Farming households run short of fuelwood and of the small timber they need for houses and farm tools.
• Forest-dwelling tribal communities, who take food, fuel and many other products straight from the forest, find it hardest of all to survive.

To take a hypothetical example: a village beside a newly opened mine might first lose the woodland where it gathered fuel and grazed its cattle, and then find its stream running thick with mud after every monsoon.

Conclusion

Deforestation in India is driven by farming, fuel and timber needs, mining and dams, underpinned by growing consumption and a long history of exploitation. Its costs fall on soil, water, wildlife, the climate and, first of all, on the poorest people. Protecting the natural forests that remain, planting more than is cut, and giving local communities a real share in managing forests, as Joint Forest Management does, are the main ways to reverse it.