Resources · Environment & forests
Van Mahotsav and India’s forest cover: what the tree festival’s numbers actually measure
India has planted trees at Van Mahotsav every July since 1950, and the country’s forest and tree cover is now reported at 25.17%. Both facts are real. What they do not mean is that India’s forests grew by the amount the headline suggests — of the 1,445 sq km gain in the latest assessment, only 156 sq km was forest. This page sets out the official figures, the definitions behind them, where India stands globally, and what the gap means if you are planting this July. Every figure carries its source.
The festival
What Van Mahotsav is
Van Mahotsav is India’s annual tree-planting festival, held from 1 to 7 July each year. It was launched in 1950 by K. M. Munshi, then Union Minister for Agriculture and Food, and was preceded by a Tree Plantation Week held 20–27 July 1947, organised by the historian, civil servant and botanist M. S. Randhawa.
July is chosen for a practical reason rather than a ceremonial one: it is the start of the monsoon across most of India, which is when a newly planted sapling has the best chance of establishing itself before the dry season. The same logic runs through everything below — what gets planted in the first week of July is decided by water, and what survives is decided by the two dry seasons that follow.
The official figures
Where India’s forest cover stands
The authoritative source is the India State of Forest Report, a biennial publication of the Forest Survey of India. The most recent edition that could be verified against a government release is ISFR 2023, released on 21 December 2024. The Forest Survey of India’s own publications list carried no later edition when this page was last checked.
8,27,357 sq km
25.17% of India’s geographical area — the headline figure, and the two measures below added together.
7,15,343 sq km
21.76% of the geographical area. Land over one hectare with more than 10% tree canopy.
1,12,014 sq km
3.41%. Trees outside recorded forest areas, in patches too small or scattered to count as forest.
4,992 sq km
Concentrated in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Gujarat, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
| Measure | Area | Share of geographical area |
|---|---|---|
| Forest and tree cover combined | 8,27,357 sq km | 25.17% |
| Forest cover | 7,15,343 sq km | 21.76% |
| Tree cover | 1,12,014 sq km | 3.41% |
| Mangrove cover | 4,992 sq km | — |
| Total forest carbon stock | 7,285.5 million tonnes | up 81.5 million tonnes on the previous assessment |
Read the split
The trap in the 1,445 sq km headline
ISFR 2023 reported an increase of 1,445 sq km in forest and tree cover since the 2021 assessment. That number was widely reported as growth in India’s forests. The release itself breaks it down, and the breakdown says something narrower.
1,445 sq km
Forest and tree cover combined, between the 2021 and 2023 assessments.
156 sq km
The increase in forest cover — about one-ninth of the headline number.
1,289 sq km
89% of the reported gain. Trees outside recorded forest areas.
The global picture
Where India sits in the world’s forests, and as a carbon sink
The Food and Agriculture Organization’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025 was released on 22 October 2025 and summarised in a Press Information Bureau backgrounder two days later. It is a separate assessment from the India State of Forest Report, with its own definitions and reference dates, and it is where India’s standing against other countries comes from.
9th in the world
India moved up from 10th. Its forest area is given as about 72,739 thousand hectares, roughly 2% of the world total.
3rd in the world
India held third place for net annual gain in forest area, and reported a net gain over 1990–2025.
5th in the world
India’s forests removed about 150 million tonnes of CO2 a year over 2021–2025, on FAO’s figures.
About 39.3 m ha
India with Indonesia accounts for nearly all of Asia’s agroforestry area, and the two together for about 70% of the world’s.
Two more things the assessment records about India: it holds 11.8 million hectares of bamboo, of a world total of 30.1 million hectares, and it is second globally in wood removals, at 9% of the world’s, as of 2023. Globally, forests cover about 4.14 billion hectares, roughly 32% of the world’s land area, and the rate of net forest loss has fallen from 10.7 million hectares a year over 1990–2000 to 4.12 million hectares a year over 2015–2025.
Definitions
What “forest cover” counts, and what it does not
This matters more than it sounds, because the official definition is broader than most readers assume. As published by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, forest cover is “all land, more than one hectare in area, with a tree canopy density of more than 10 percent irrespective of ownership and legal status”.
Ownership is irrelevant
A privately owned block of trees counts the same as a protected natural forest. Legal status does not enter the measurement.
Orchards and bamboo are in
The government note explicitly includes orchards, bamboo and palm. A mango orchard over a hectare with more than 10% canopy is forest cover.
10% canopy is a low bar
Land that is 90% open can still qualify, because the threshold is canopy density of more than 10 percent.
Notice what is not in that definition: any requirement about the height of the trees. The same government note does set a minimum height — “potential to reach a minimum height at maturity in situ of 2 to 5 m”, with India using 2 m — but that criterion belongs to the structural definition of a forest, not to the measurement of forest cover. The two definitions sit next to each other in the same note and are easy to merge by accident. Keeping them apart is the whole point of reading the source.
Forest cover is also a different measure from recorded forest area, the land legally notified as forest. The government note is explicit that land counted as forest cover “may not necessarily be a recorded forest area”, and it reports forest cover separately for land inside recorded forest areas — natural forests and Forest Department plantations — and outside them, where it gives mango orchards, coconut plantations and block plantations of agroforestry as its examples. The two measures overlap without coinciding.
States
Gujarat, and what the state figures reveal
In ISFR 2023, the three states with the largest increase in forest cover were Mizoram (242 sq km), then Gujarat (180 sq km), then Odisha (152 sq km). Put those beside the national figure and something becomes visible.
| Increase in forest cover, ISFR 2023 | Area |
|---|---|
| Mizoram | 242 sq km |
| Gujarat | 180 sq km |
| Odisha | 152 sq km |
| These three states together | 574 sq km |
| India, net | 156 sq km |
India’s forest cover rose by 156 sq km in total — while these three states alone added 574 sq km between them. Gujarat’s gain on its own is larger than the entire national net increase. That arithmetic only works if forest cover fell elsewhere, and fell substantially. The national figure is not a modest, even improvement across the country; it is a small net result left over after much larger gains in some states and losses in others. A single national number hides that completely, which is the more important point about how these statistics get quoted.
For the largest increases in forest and tree cover combined, the report named Chhattisgarh (684 sq km), followed by Uttar Pradesh (559 sq km), Odisha (559 sq km) and Rajasthan (394 sq km).
Campaigns
The national planting programmes behind the festival
Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam — “a tree in the name of mother” — was launched on 5 June 2024 by the Prime Minister at Buddha Jayanti Park in Delhi. Its target of 80 crore seedlings was reported achieved on 25 September 2024, which the government release describes as five days ahead of the deadline.
Rs 755.68 crore
Released to seventeen states and one union territory since 2018.
270 urban forests
Projects sanctioned, at a total cost of Rs 238.64 crore.
Rs 55,394.16 crore
Disbursed since 2018 for compensatory afforestation.
2.5–3 bn t
Additional tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.
Practical
If you are planting at Van Mahotsav
Three things follow from the data above rather than from general advice.
Plant at the start of the monsoon, not the end
The 1–7 July window exists because a sapling needs the full wet season to establish roots. A sapling planted in September has months of dry weather to survive before the next monsoon.
Plan the watering, not the planting
The planting is the publicised part and the cheap part. Survival through the first two dry seasons is what converts a planted sapling into tree cover, and it is the part with no photograph attached.
Native species over fast-growing ones
Canopy density is what the survey measures, but a species suited to local rainfall and soil is what still has canopy in a decade without irrigation.
Two related pages on this site: rainwater harvesting in Gujarat, which covers the water side of the same problem, and stray dogs and the ABC Rules. The full reference set is on the resources page.
Our work
Where Scapex Foundation fits
Scapex Foundation does not run a tree-plantation programme, and nothing on this page describes work by Scapex. This is a reference page: we maintain it because the forest-cover figures are widely misquoted and a correct version is useful. Our environment work sits in the Scapex Prakriti division — water conservation, solar and mangrove protection — and is described on what we do and Scapex in Gujarat. Companies planning a CSR environment project can talk to us.
Questions
Frequently asked questions about Van Mahotsav and forest cover
Van Mahotsav is held from 1 to 7 July every year. The timing follows the onset of the monsoon across most of India, which gives newly planted saplings a full wet season to establish before the dry months.
Van Mahotsav was launched in 1950 by K. M. Munshi, then Union Minister for Agriculture and Food. It followed a Tree Plantation Week held from 20 to 27 July 1947, organised by M. S. Randhawa, the historian, civil servant and botanist.
The latest assessment verifiable against a government release is the India State of Forest Report 2023, released on 21 December 2024. It put forest and tree cover at 8,27,357 sq km, or 25.17% of India’s geographical area — forest cover 7,15,343 sq km (21.76%) and tree cover 1,12,014 sq km (3.41%). The India State of Forest Report is published every two years, so check the Forest Survey of India for a more recent edition.
Forest and tree cover combined increased by 1,445 sq km between the 2021 and 2023 assessments. But the release splits it: only 156 sq km of that was forest cover, and 1,289 sq km was tree cover — trees outside recorded forest areas. Quoting the 1,445 sq km figure as growth in India’s forests overstates what the source says by roughly a factor of nine.
Mizoram, with an increase of 242 sq km, followed by Gujarat at 180 sq km and Odisha at 152 sq km. These three states together added 574 sq km, while India’s total forest cover rose by only 156 sq km — which means forest cover fell in other states over the same period.
The official definition is all land more than one hectare in area with a tree canopy density of more than 10 percent, irrespective of ownership and legal status, and it explicitly includes orchards, bamboo and palm areas. Note that the definition sets no height requirement: the 2 metre minimum height often quoted alongside it belongs to the government’s separate structural definition of a forest, not to the measurement of forest cover. Forest cover is also distinct from recorded forest area — the government note states that land counted as forest cover may not necessarily be a recorded forest area.
Yes, on both the Indian and the international assessment, though the two measure different things. ISFR 2023 put total forest carbon stock at 7,285.5 million tonnes, an increase of 81.5 million tonnes over the previous assessment — that is a stock, the carbon held at one point in time. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025 ranked India fifth among the world’s largest forest carbon sinks, with India’s forests removing about 150 million tonnes of CO2 a year over 2021 to 2025 — that is a flow, the annual removal rate. India’s stated target, in the government’s 2024 Van Mahotsav release, is an additional 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.
Ninth, on the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025, released on 22 October 2025 — up from tenth in the previous assessment. India’s forest area is given there as about 72,739 thousand hectares, roughly 2% of the world total. India also ranks third in the world for net annual gain in forest area. Note that FAO’s forest area figure is not the same measure as the India State of Forest Report’s forest cover figure: the two assessments use different definitions and reference dates, and neither publishes a reconciliation between them.
The campaign was launched on 5 June 2024 by the Prime Minister at Buddha Jayanti Park in Delhi, and its target of 80 crore seedlings was reported achieved on 25 September 2024, five days ahead of the deadline. Note that this counts seedlings planted. The government releases cited here do not report how many survive to maturity, so a planting figure should not be read as a forest-growth figure.