The AMC’s ambitious Million Trees Mission has fallen flat with the tree cover reducing by 17.60% in the last two years.
This shocking fact was revealed in the recently submitted India State of Forest Report (ISFR). The city had lost a total of 8.55 sq.km of green cover.
The situation is equally worrying across the state as the green cover has reduced by 48%. The report stated that trees have been axed in large numbers in nine districts.
The tree cover in the state was 6,912 sq.km in 2019, which shrank to 5,489 sq. km in 2021. In two years, 1,423 sq.km land has been made barren with large-scale felling of trees.
According to the report, there has been a continuous decrease in forest cover in nine districts of Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Banaskantha, Bharuch, Narmada, Surat, Tapi, Dangs, Vadodara and Surendranagar.
The total area of the state extends more than 1.96 crore sq.km, which had 22.30 lakh sq.km forest area in 2015-16. This decreased to 21.45 lakh sq.km by December 2017.
The situation in Anand district is the most shocking, with zero forest cover compared to 41,269 hectares in 2015-16.
The BJP government, according to Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi, is holding ‘Van Mahotsavs,’ but trees are being felled in large numbers. Last year, 169 Banyan trees in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar were felled. According to him, 17,422 trees were cut down in the name of development last year.