UN today lauded India’s significant role in making the planet greener. The world body said, India is adding 300,000 hectares of forest every year which plays a significant role in making Asia the world leader in the afforestation activity. Director, Forestry of Food and Agriculture Organisation Eduardo Rojas-Briales told this to journalists in Washington. According to the ‘State of the World’s Forests’ report, published by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, India’s target is to cover 33 per cent of its land area with forests and tree cover by next year.

It’s said, five countries India, China, Australia, Indonesia and Myanmar had the largest forested area in Asia and Pacific region. These countries accounted for 74 per cent of the forest in the region with China and Australia alone accounting for almost half the forest area of the region.

The report said, in Asia and Pacific region, forests were lost at a rate of 0.7 million hectares per year in the 1990s but it grew by 1.4 million hectares per year over the period 2000-2010.

UN, which has declared 2011 as the ‘International Year of Forests,’ found that the net global deforestation has declined by 37 per cent but there still exists a billion hectare of degraded forest land.