Question

Difference between forest area and forest cover in points

Answer 1

The term 'Forest Area' (or recorded forest area) generally refers to all the geographic areas recorded as forest in government records. Recorded forest areas largely comprises Reserved Forests (RF) and Protected Forests (PF), which have been constituted under the provisions of Indian Forest Act, 1927. Besides RFs and PFs, the recorded forest area may include all such areas, which have been recorded as forests in the revenue records or have been constituted so under any State Act or local laws. On the other hand, the term 'Forest Cover' as used in the 'SFR' refers to all lands more than one hectare in area, having a tree canopy density of more than 10%. Thus the term 'forest area' denotes the legal status of the land as per the government records, whereas the term 'forest cover' indicates presence of trees over any land
Forest cover is any area with a lot of trees [tree canopy density more than 10%] whether it is officially protected by the government or not.