Lanterna Rally

Author: Pankaj Panwar

Publisher:

Published: 2007-07-01

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 9788177542509

Forest cover in most of the tropical countries is declining at an alarming rate. FAO in 1997 reported that with the exception of India, where there has been a small improvement, all tropical countries have lost forest cover during the period 1990-1995 (Schmidt, 2000). Though forest cover of India has increased to 20.55% of total geographical area (FSI, 2001), still there is a huge gap for achieving the target of 33% as laid down in National Forest Policy-1988. According to a rough estimate, out of total geographical area of 329 m ha of our country, more than 50 per cent of the area is under varying degree and form of soil erosion. About 5334 million tonnes of soil (16.35 t/ ha/ yr) is being eroded annually, of which 29% is permanently lost into the sea. About 5.37 to 8.40 million tonnes of soil nutrients are lost through water erosion (Anonymous,2003).