Congruency between forest cover protection and development objectives is usually difficult to achieve. However, going strictly by the official statements and reports released by the government, much like the Indian economy, Indian forest cover also seems to be on an upward trajectory, in the recent past. This in spite of the numerous incidents wherein the government has seemingly undermined forest conservation legislation and efforts and instead favored industrial development. An inquiry into the evolution of legislation on forest protection reveals that improvements in the Indian forest cover has roots in three key technicalities while the reality is complete opposite. These are the expansion of the inclusion criteria of defining forests, reduction in Minimum Mapping Area while calculating area under forests and change in the manner of forest mapping from the earlier visual mode to a digital mode. We discuss the implications of such technicalities in preserving the forest cover.

森林覆盖保护和发展目标之间的一致性通常难以实现。然而，严格按照政府发布的官方声明和报告，就像印度经济一样，最近印度的森林覆盖率似乎也呈上升趋势。尽管发生了许多事件，其中政府似乎破坏了森林保护立法和努力，转而支持工业发展。对森林保护立法演变的调查表明，印度森林覆盖的改善源于三个关键技术问题，而现实则完全相反。这些是定义森林的纳入标准的扩展，在计算森林面积时减少最小测绘面积，并将森林测绘方式从早期的视觉模式转变为数字模式。我们讨论了这些技术细节对保护森林覆盖的影响。