Exports of timber and timber products from India have touched an all-time high of USD 453 million, an improvement of 20% over the previous year. Over the last 4 years, the average annual compound growth rate ( CAGR) of exports of timber products from India has increased by more than 7%. The main export destinations for Indian Plywood and Wood Products are USA (23 percent), Germany (10 percent), UK (9 percent), France (7 percent), UAE (4 percent), Italy (3 percent), the Netherlands (3 percent), Australia (3 percent), Belgium (3 percent) and Spain (2 percent).
The India State of Forest Report ( 2019), a biennial assessment report of India's forests, has about 80.72 MHA of forested land (forest and tree cover), which accounts for 24.56% of the total land area. The average rate of change in India is optimistic and ranges between 0.4 and 1.0 percent per year, suggesting a gradual growth in forest area by about 0.66 to 1 million hectares per year by restoration and afforestation schemes. Approximately 86 percent of the forest area is publicly owned, administered by the state, while those public lands are reserved for tribal peoples and aboriginal people, while the remaining 14 per cent are privately owned. Public lands may be categorised as protected, reserved, unclassified and village forests. FAO has also published World Forestry 2020 notes that India has 72 mha of forested land, accounting for 2 per cent of the total land area.
India is one of seventeen mega-biodiverse nations, housing 7% of the world's biodiversity. Many species of flora or fauna are native to India.
Indian tree types include tropical evergreen, semi-evergreen, deciduous, tropical dry deciduous, subtropical pine trees, alpine, dry alpine brush, temperate mountain forests, swamps, mangroves, thorns. Champion & Seth published a landmark classification scheme for the forest forms of India in 1968. It sets out a summary of 200 forest forms and their higher hierarchical tiers. The most commonly distributed genera in evergreen tropical wet forests are Dipterocarpus, Hopea, Callophyllum, Syzgium, Lauraceae and Myrthaceae. Tropical moist deciduous forests are characterised by Tectona grandis (teak) and Shorea robusta (sal). (ISFR, 2019)
India has a flourishing variety of factories for semi-processed and value-added timber products, including wood handicrafts, pulp and paper, plywood and veneer and wood furniture. In particular, exports of woodcraft are on the rise. While India is one of the world's leading producers of tropical logs, it is also one of the world's largest consumers of wood products.
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