Northeast tops chart in India for highest loss of forest cover

A recent study by the University of Maryland has revealed that forest cover in the Northeast has undergone drastic changes in the last two decades and the region is responsible

A recent study by the University of Maryland has revealed that forest cover in the Northeast has undergone drastic changes in the last two decades and the region is responsible for the majority of loss in India’s forest cover.

According to the study, the Northeast has contributed 76% of the country’s total tree cover loss during the same period.

Assam had the highest reduction in its forest cover followed by Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Meghalaya.

The study also revealed that states like Nagaland and Tripura in the last two decades saw their forest cover shrink fastest among the Northeastern states.

From 2002 to 2020, India lost 19% of its total tree cover. However, experts have asked to take these numbers to be taken with a pinch of salt as the study only analyses satellite imagery.

These numbers have been released by the global forest monitoring project being run in collaboration being done by the University of Maryland, Google, USGS, and NASA. Researchers from the University of Maryland processed and analysed over a million satellite images in their study.

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