Forests without guardians: Why Assam must fix its unclassed woodlands

Siddharth Roy

(siddharth001.roy@gmail.co)

Early in November 2026, the Government of Assam submitted an important affidavit before the National Green Tribunal in New Delhi. The tribunal had demanded answers after the India State of Forest Report 2023 revealed a troubling statistic. Between 2021 and 2023, Assam lost 83.92 square kilometres of overall forest and tree cover. Even more concerning was the loss inside the state’s official Recorded Forest Area, which shrank by 86.66 square kilometres. Across another 1,699 square kilometres of recorded forest, the thick green canopy had thinned out and degraded. In its reply to the tribunal, the state government pointed to three main culprits: shifting cultivation in the hill districts, encroachment along state borders, and the diversion of forest land for roads and infrastructure.

While the official response also noted a longer-term gain of 748.65 square kilometres of greenery since 2013, the recent loss inside protected boundaries exposes a deep flaw in how we govern our land. Look closely at the affidavit, and one striking admission stands out. The state told the tribunal that a huge portion of this loss occurred in what are officially called Unclassed State Forests, over which the Assam Forest Department has no direct administrative control. In simple terms, nearly a third of the recorded forests in Assam exist in a legal grey zone where no single department holds full responsibility for their survival.

To understand this crisis, one only needs to look at the official land figures of our state. Assam has a total Recorded Forest Area of 26,832 square kilometres, which makes up 34.21 percent of its geographical territory. Of this total area, 17,864 square kilometres are protected as Reserved Forests under the strict watch of forest rangers and guards. However, the remaining 8,968 square kilometres—or 33.42 percent of all recorded forest land in Assam—fall under the category of Unclassed State Forests. These unclassed woodlands are concentrated heavily in the Sixth Schedule hill districts of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao, along with scattered belts in the plains and border regions.

For decades, these 8,968 square kilometres have remained the orphan lands of Assam. On paper, the Forest Survey of India satellites count every patch of at least one hectare with a ten percent tree canopy as part of the forest wealth of the state. On the ground, however, authority is split awkwardly between revenue officials, the state forest department, autonomous district councils, and traditional village headmen. When satellites detect that thousands of trees have vanished in Dima Hasao, Dispur simply informs the court that the forest department does not manage unclassed lands. That legal excuse may satisfy a courtroom filing, but it does not stop topsoil from washing down into the Barak and Brahmaputra valleys during the monsoon.

The affidavit highlights Dima Hasao as a prime example of this administrative gap. Between 2020 and 2025, about 95.55 square kilometres of forest land in the district were diverted for major public infrastructure projects. At the same time, vast stretches of unclassed hills were cleared for jhum, the traditional practice of shifting cultivation. Whenever forest numbers drop in the Northeast, it has become an easy bureaucratic habit to blame indigenous jhum farmers. Yet blaming hill communities misses the real economic story unfolding in our villages.

Shifting cultivation is as old as human settlement in the hills of Assam. Historically, a village would clear a slope, grow food grains and vegetables for a year or two, and then leave that land untouched for fifteen to twenty years. That long rest allowed bamboo groves and secondary native trees to grow back naturally, restoring soil fertility and keeping the overall forest cover intact. Today, rising population pressure, shrinking land availability, and the diversion of prime hills for highways and power lines have forced families to return to the same hill slopes every three to five years. A three-year gap does not allow a forest to heal. Young saplings are burned before they can mature, the soil turns barren, and satellite maps record a permanent drop in canopy density.

A different kind of pressure is eating away at our forests in the southern and western districts. According to the figures placed before the tribunal, Cachar and Hailakandi districts each lost more than 16 square kilometres of forest cover during the assessment period. Much of this loss occurred along the disputed border with Mizoram, while Chirang district in the Bodoland Territorial Region saw substantial clearing inside its forest belts. The state government also pointed out that although more than 100 square kilometres of encroached land have been cleared through eviction drives in recent years, newly planted saplings take several years to grow thick enough for satellite sensors to register them as forest canopy.

Evictions and boundary outposts have their place in protecting Reserved Forests, but policing alone cannot save 8,968 square kilometres of Unclassed State Forests. You cannot post an armed forest guard behind every tree in Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao, or Cachar. Furthermore, attempting to take away autonomous council lands and hand them over to the state forest bureaucracy would violate the spirit of the Sixth Schedule and spark deep resentment among indigenous hill tribes. The solution lies not in taking land away from local people, but in giving village communities a strong financial reason to keep the trees standing.

First, Dispur and the Autonomous Councils of Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao, and Bodoland must sit together to draw up a clear management rulebook for Unclassed State Forests. Every square kilometre of unclassed woodland should be mapped and placed under jointly recognised village forest committees. When a village holds a clear legal title to manage its surrounding hill slopes, it stops treating the forest as unclaimed territory and starts defending it as a community asset.

Second, we must modernise the rural economy of our jhum farmers. Asking a family in Dima Hasao to stop clearing slopes without giving them another way to buy rice is both unfair and impractical. As the state government rightly hinted in its tribunal submission, hill farmers need dependable agricultural alternatives. If the agriculture and horticulture departments help villagers convert degraded jhum slopes into permanent orchards of Assam lemon, ginger, turmeric, coffee, high-value bamboo, and native fruit trees, families can earn three times more cash from a single plot without burning down a new hillside every winter.

Third, Assam should unlock the emerging carbon credit market for its tribal communities. Across the world, corporations and governments are paying billions of rupees to fund verified green canopies that absorb carbon dioxide. Right now, village councils in our hill districts receive nothing when they protect an unclassed forest. If the state government creates an Assam Community Carbon Fund that pays annual cash incentives directly to village development boards for maintaining tree density on satellite maps, forest conservation will become a profitable rural enterprise.

The recent conversation before the National Green Tribunal should serve as a turning point for environmental policy in Guwahati. Losing 86.66 square kilometres of recorded forest in just two years is a warning sign that Assam cannot afford to ignore. Our rivers, tea gardens, and valley rice fields depend entirely on the sponges of green forest that sit atop our hills and along our borders. By turning our neglected Unclassed State Forests into community-protected assets, Assam can secure both the livelihoods of its indigenous people and the ecological future of the state.