Two Crises, Different Trajectories
We appear to have got through one crisis — hopefully. Tensions in the system will still take time to ease, but at least things are moving in the right direction.
The same cannot be said for rainfall, heat and forest cover in India: all three are moving in a direction we would rather avoid. Unlike a market shock or a geopolitical flashpoint, this is not a crisis with a clear before-and-after. It builds quietly, in percentages and hectares, and by the time it shows up in daily life — a longer heatwave, a monsoon that arrives late and leaves early — much of the underlying damage has already compounded for years.
A Mechanism Older Than Modern Science
The relationship between forests, rainfall and temperature has been understood since ancient times, and it does not require advanced science to grasp. Sages of the past and environmentalists of today have arrived intuitively at the same conclusion: areas with dense forests receive more rainfall and experience lower temperatures.
The mechanism is straightforward. Trees draw moisture from the soil and release it into the atmosphere, increasing water vapour in the air and aiding cloud formation. Over time, these clouds deliver rainfall, which replenishes reservoirs and groundwater, allowing the cycle to continue.
I see this even within the heat island of Mumbai, where temperatures are noticeably lower in the Borivali–Mulund belt that borders the forests — or what remains of them — around the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. It is a small, local illustration of a pattern that holds at a much larger scale across the country.
When the Loop Reverses
Break one link in this chain and a vicious cycle begins: less rain leads to lower groundwater levels; dry soil weakens trees; fewer trees release less moisture into the atmosphere; and reduced water vapour means less cooling and fewer clouds. At the same time, fewer trees absorb less CO₂. The result is rising temperatures, stressed vegetation, degraded land and falling water tables — and as forest cover shrinks, heat intensifies, further compounding the problem.
That is precisely what parts of India are witnessing today — not everywhere, and not uniformly, but with enough consistency in the data to treat it as a structural trend rather than a seasonal anomaly.
Fifty Years of Policy, Mixed Results
India's own submission to the UNFCCC puts the scale of the earlier problem in context: between 1950 and 1980, the government diverted about 4.5 million hectares of forest land for non-forestry use — agriculture, river-valley projects, mining, roads — equivalent to an average of roughly 150,000 hectares (1,500 sq km) a year. By the early 1980s, the scale of the problem had become evident enough to prompt the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980, which centralised approval for forest-land diversion and introduced safeguards on land use and afforestation.
Yet the challenge remains significant. According to the India State of Forest Report 2023, published by the Forest Survey of India, forest and tree cover today accounts for about 25.2% of the country's geographical area, of which forest cover alone is 21.8%. Separately, data from Global Forest Watch shows that between 2001 and 2024, India lost around 7.1% of its tree cover — about 2.31 million hectares — resulting in an estimated 1.29 gigatonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions. Humid primary forest losses accounted for roughly 15% of that total, equivalent to about 348,000 hectares between 2002 and 2024.
It is worth flagging that these two official-and-near-official sources disagree on direction: FSI's own canopy-based assessment records a net increase in forest and tree cover over the same period, and the environment ministry has formally disputed GFW's loss estimates before the National Green Tribunal, citing differences in definitions and methodology. Both figures are cited here because both come from named, traceable sources — the discrepancy itself is part of the data story.
Where the Loss Is Concentrated
More revealing than the headline number is the cause. Between 2001 and 2024, shifting cultivation was the single largest driver of tree-cover loss in India, accounting for roughly 1.39 million hectares — well over half the total. Permanent agriculture was the second-largest driver, at about 620,000 hectares, while logging, natural disturbances and settlements-and-infrastructure together accounted for a comparatively small share.
Equally striking is the geographic concentration of the problem. Five states in the Northeast — Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya — accounted for roughly 60% of India's tree-cover loss between 2001 and 2024, even though the same region holds some of the country's highest forest-cover percentages. It is, in a sense, losing the most precisely where it has the most to lose.
The India Angle: Common Sense as Strategy
Placed in a global context, India's forest story looks different again. In 2023, India's primary forest loss came to roughly 17,700 hectares — under 0.5% of the 3.7 million hectares of tropical primary forest lost worldwide that year, a total dominated by Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Bolivia. India is not a global deforestation hotspot in absolute terms. The risk here is narrower and more domestic: a regionally concentrated, slow-building feedback loop between forest loss, rainfall and heat, playing out most visibly in a handful of northeastern states.
The links between deforestation, rising heat and changing rainfall patterns can be measured, quantified and mapped. But understanding them does not require rocket science — it requires common sense.
Protect the trees, and nature has a remarkable ability to heal itself — and in doing so, protect humans far better than humans often protect themselves.