Background

West Bengal (area 88,752 sq km) is the only Indian state to have a coastal line as well as the Himalayas and is situated between 21°20’N and 27°32’N latitude and 85°50’E and 89°52’E longitude. The state of West Bengal has a recorded forest area of 11,879 sq km. The forest areas are classified into three categories-(i) Reserved forest with an area of 7054 sq km. (ii) Protected forest with an area of 3772 sq km & (iii) Unclassed State Forest with an area of 1053 sq km. This constitutes 13.38% of the total geographical area of the state. The forest cover includes both notified forest area and afforestation created outside forest and it constitutes 21.35% of the geographical area of the state.

The State accounts for 2.69% of the country’s geographical area and supports approximately 7.54% of the population. The population density of the State with 1029 persons per sq. km is the highest in the country. The demand of the huge population on the limited natural resources i.e. the land and forests exerts a tremendous negative impact on these resources. Forest department of West Bengal thus pioneered on innovative strategies to conserve forest resources such as Public participatory-Joint Forest Management. Also Forest Department has been implementing various schemes to increase the forest and tree cover through promotion of Social Forestry, Farm Forestry, Agro Forestry, Community Forestry and Afforestation on wasteland, panchayat land, private land that are outside the notified forest areas. In this back ground Compensatory Afforestation done in substitution of diverted forest land holds its significance.