The Madhya Pradesh forest department has attempted to study the connection between the forest area in a district and the number of Covid-19 cases.
The Madhya Pradesh forest department claims that the study will help the government decide future strategy and policies towards forest cover while it combats diseases like Covid-19.
With a 77,414 sq km area under forests, Madhya Pradesh has the highest forest cover in the country.
The study found that in districts such as Indore, Ujjain, Bhopal, and Morena, which have the highest number of Covid-19 cases, the availability of forest is less than 100 sq km per 1,000 people.
In contrast, districts such as Betul and Chhindwara, which have a much higher availability of forest area, have fewer cases of Covid-19 even though they are located on the Maharashtra border.
Maharashtra is one of the worst-affected states.
The study also found that districts such as Panna, Balaghat, Umaria, Shahdol, and Anuppur have witnessed the inflow of a large number of migrant workers in the last two months. These districts have large forest areas and have not seen a significant spike in Covid-19 cases.
The top three districts in Madhya Pradesh as per forest cover are Balaghat, with 4,932 sq km, Chhindwara, with 4,588 sq km, and Betul, with 3,633 sq km. In terms of forest cover in terms of the percentage of the total area of a district, Balaghat with 53.44 per cent, Sheopur with 52.38 per cent, and Umaria with 49.62 per cent have the highest cover.
In terms of availability of forests per 1,000 population, Sheopur district has 503 hectares, Dindori has 430 hectares, and Umaria has 314 hectares. All these districts are in green zones in terms of Covid-19.
“Deputy Conservator of Forests, Rajneesh Singh said while a lot is not known about Covid-19 and a lot is being discovered, it is clear that areas with fewer forests are badly affected by Covid-19.”
Singh said that the reason for this is that forests act as a natural barrier to the increase in the human population in a given area, due to which the spread of disease is controlled.
“The simple reason for this is, with low forest cover, urbanisation and density of population are higher which is contributing to the spread of the disease. One must keep in mind that forests protected under law act as a natural barrier to the increase in human population in a given area,” he said.
Singh added that governments can keep the deterrence value of forests in mind while planning for the future and controlling Covid-19.
“In areas with fewer forests and more pollution, respiratory systems are adversely impacted making people more vulnerable to Covid. Areas with more forests also have a higher incidence of malaria which seems to have shown a positive pattern in so far as Covid-19 impacting populations is concerned,” he said.