Question : Water Sources in Forest Areas

(a) whether water sources within the forests have drastically declined as per State of India Forest Report, 2018, an authorised biannual report of the Government, if so, the details thereof;
(b) whether man-animal conflict has increased due to the migration/movement of animals towards human settlements along with rising incidence of wild fire due to the said shortage; and
(c) if so, the efforts made by the Government to tackle the said adverse circumstances and conservation of water sources in the forest in the country especially in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT, FOREST AND CLIMATE CHANGE
(SHRI BABUL SUPRIYO)

(a) The India State of Forest Report (ISFR), published on biennial basis, contains results of forest and tree cover assessment in the country. So far 16 such reports have been published since 1987 and the latest report is ISFR-2019. In ISFR-2017, an assessment of coverage of water bodies within forest areas was carried out by Forest Survey of India, in order to indicate decadal change (2005-2015) in water bodies within forests. For the purpose, water bodies lying inside or upto an aerial distance of 1 kilometre from the forest and covering an area of more than 1 hectare have been considered and the changes in their extent over a decade have been computed. There is an increase of 2,647 square kilometre in the extent of water bodies over the said decade (2005-2015) as per ISFR-2017. The State-wise details are given in Annexure.

(b) &(c) Government of India provides financial assistance to all the States/ UT Governments including Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand under the Centrally Sponsored Schemes namely “Development of Wildlife Habitats'''', ''''Project Tiger'''' and ‘Project Elephant’ for the management of wildlife and its habitats which, inter alia, helps in preventing human-animal conflicts. The activities include restoration of natural water bodies, creation of artificial ponds, waterholes, augmenting food/fodder sources and management of fire.

Incidences of human-animal conflicts are reported in various parts of the country from time to time. Since management of forest and wildlife is the primary responsibility of respective State/UT Governments, State-wise and year-wise data of such incidents are not collated in the Ministry.

As per the provisions contained in the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Rules, 2018, soil moisture conservation works and fodder augmentation are permissible activities under Net Present Value component of CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority) funds. Most of the Annual Plan of Operations of States/UTs have placed emphasis on fodder and water augmentation. The Ministry also envisages a pilot watershed treatment project based on Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) survey with money available under National Fund.

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