The Economic Benefits of Forests

The economic benefits of forests can be indirect or direct. Among the indirect benefits, the most important is the capacity of forests to influence rain-producing mechanisms. Forests make the micromate of an area more equable and moderate. Forests check the flow of surface water during rains and their root systems trap the rainwater and channel it into underwater streams. This water re-emerges in the form of surface water in rivers, lakes, springs, ponds, etc.

Also, this water is absorbed by the plant anatomy and part of it gets evaporated to rejoin the atmospheric hydrological cycle. Thus, forests act as nature’s giant sponges. The root systems of forests bind the soil together and thus check soil erosion. Thus, the forests check the occurrence of floods. Also, by reducing the velocity of air currents, they protect the adjoining fields against cold and dry winds and also provide cool shade to cattle, game, birds and humans.

Also, if the agricultural fields are closer to the forests, there is a lesser chance for pests to grow in numbers because of the presence of a large number of predators. Finally, forest itself is the producer of new soil, for it is the decayed leaf litter which, over the centuries, becomes soil. The forest keeps producing fresh soil and the pest problem is contained to a large extent.

Forests also contribute directly to the nation’s economy by making available a number of useful products. The major products include timber, pulp, charcoal wood, firewood, round wood and matchwood. Timber, an important produce, is largely derived from the forests of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.

The minor forest products include cane, bamboo, many types of grasses (sabai, elephant and bhabhar used for making paper; munj, kans, bansi, sarkanda used for house walls; and dhab, sukul, kak used for making thatch), fodder, tendu leaves, lac, resins, gums, tanning and dyeing material, etc.

More than 100 varieties of bamboo are found in India; bamboo occupies more than 100,000 sq km of the country’s forest area, according to the Planning Commission. Bamboo grows in Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, and Mizoram, among other places. In Mizo culture, bamboo has a special place. Canes are grown in Assam, Kerala, Karnataka, West Bengal, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir. Tendu leaves, used in making bidi, are obtained from the forests of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, south-east Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh.

In Madhya Pradesh (Gwalior region) and Rajasthan (Sawai- Madhopur) comes khus khus grass, while sabai comes from the sub-Himalayan tracts. India leads in production of shellac—a secretion of an insect that feeds on trees like palash, peepul, kusum, and banyan. These trees are found in the Gangetic plains, and Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Assam are leading producers of Lac. Katha is extracted from the inner wood of the khair trees which grow abundantly in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat.

Besides these items, forest products include fruits and vegetables like dates, chilgoza, tamarind, mushrooms, etc. Important medicinal herbs, such as belladonna, sarsaparilla, serpentine, aconite, etc. are also from forests. Many of these herbs are used in Ayurvedic medicine.