At the national level, the statistics wing in the Ministry of “Statistics and Programme Implementation” is the apex body for official statistical system of the country. For this purpose, its acts as a national nodal agency through one of its organization “Central Statistical Organization (CSO)”. CSO also deals with development of concepts, definitions, methodology of data collection, processing and dissemination. It is also responsible for development of national accounts. The Ministry also conducts large scale all-India sample surveys for collecting new field information through its another organization “National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO)” to create the database needed for studying the impact of specific problems for the benefit of different population groups. In addition to this there are specialized technical agencies work under respective ministries to provide specific technical information like Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO) to provide remotely sensed information and Forest Survey of India to make use of both remotely sensed and ground inventory information to generate new information on the state of forests.
Forest Survey of India (FSI) has been conducting such national assessments of forest resources, since its inception in 1965 as Pre-Investment Survey of Forest Resources. FSI initially used aerial photographs and ground inventory to assess forest resources but soon (early eighties) moved to remotely sensed satellite data. Since 1986, FSI is assessing forest cover on a two-year cycle and is releasing the findings to the public through its premium publication “State of Forest Report” (SFR). Its first assessment was published as SFR 1987 and the latest as SFR 2001. Every successive assessment has made improvement in methodology, resolution and techniques of interpretation. For example, the resolution of data in the first assessment was 80m x 80m, scale of interpretation was 1:1 million and the interpretation was totally manual while the latest assessment resolution was 23.5m x 23.5m, scale of interpretation was 1: 50,000 respectively and the assessment was totally digital. In addition to cover FSI also conducts special studies to provide information on growing stock of forests, tree cover of “Tress Outside Forests” and carbon stocks. FSI works as a lead, and nodal institution in India for forest resource assessment programme of FAO, facilitates collection of information on other variables and conducting special studies when required. It organizes two national level workshops of major stakeholders and used group convergence method1 to provide updated and extended information for FRA 2005.
The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, is the apex national body on forestry research and education. In addition, it is mandated to compile and publish national forest statistics in its prime publication “Forestry Statistics”. Such last publication was “Forestry Statistics 2001”. The scope of this publication includes area of forests, diversion of forest land, plantation, production, revenue and other management related information.
Similarly, Wildlife Institute of India (WII), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, is the apex body on wildlife in India. It maintains National Wildlife database that deals with all the protected areas and biodiversity of wild life. The Directorate of Project Tiger, under Ministry of Environment and Forests conducts once in three or four years a national census of tigers population.
Land use statistics are primarily compiled from the village land records maintained
at the local level by a government official. The information is recorded under nine categories: (1) Forests, (2) Area under Non-Agricultural use, (3) Barren and uncultured land, (4) Permanent Pastures and other Grazing Land, (5) Miscellaneous Tree Crops (6) Culturable Waste Land, (7) Fallow Land other than Current Fallows, (8) Current Fallows, and (9) Net
Area Sown. The ICFRE provides the compiled national information in its “Forestry Statistics”. Land use statistics are also collected through nationwide land use/cover mapping by National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) a unit of ISRO according to its 22 fold classification.
Botanical Survey of India and Zoological Survey of India are two scientific organizations under the Ministry of Environment and Forests which are responsible for generation of data of floral and faunal diversity respectively in the country. These organization take exploratory tours in different priority areas, hot spot, fragile echo systems in different parts of country. During these scientific studies they collect specimen of different species ( floral /faunal) and
preserve some of them in the museums /Botanical Gardens or zoos etc. The documentation by these organizations is used for presenting data in the Compendium of Environment Statistics of CSO
This working paper has mainly used five sources (CSO, NSS0, FSI, ICFRE and WII) to present the information contained in this reporting on the sixteen tables and six thematic areas.
1 Govil, K. 2002. Process of FRA 2005: Review of Sustainability. A paper presented to Advisory Group to Forest Resource Assessment, FAO, at Nairobi, Kenya, October 2002.
