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Forest Resources

The State of Maharashtra with geographical area of 3, 07,713 sq km is having 61,939 sq km as forest area. The State's forest cover is estimated to be over 20 per cent. Maharashtra is India's third largest State with 9.36 per cent of India's total geographical area which harbor largest biodiversity.The State 5.02% of the State’s geographical area amounts for National Park and Wildlife Sanctuaries.

Maharashtra has six major Tiger Reserves:
Melghat Tiger Reserve (Amravati District); Pench Tiger Reserve (Nagpur District), Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (Chandrapur District) and Radhanagari- Koyna Tiger Reserve (Sahyadri Tiger Reserve) , Bor Wildlife Sanctuary in Wardha district and Nagzira locate between Bhandara district and Gondia district of Maharashtra

Six forest types are mentioned in Maharashtra,
(1) Tropical Semi-Evergreen;
(2) Tropical Moist Deciduous;
(3) Tropical Dry Deciduous;
(4) Tropical Thorn;
(5) Subtropical Broadleaf Hill
(6) Littoral and Swamp Forests.

Most of the area of Maharashtra is covered with the black soils that are formed from the lava rocks and that is why known as black cotton soils. The edges near the rivers have saline soil which results from extensive evaporation.

DISTRICTWISE FOREST COVER

S.No.	District	Geograp hical Area	FOREST COVER 2013					Scrub #
			DENSE FOREST			Open Forest *	Total
			Very Dense***	Moderat ely Dense **	TOTA L	Open Forest *	Total
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1	Ahmednagar	17048	0	69	69	217	286	555
2	Akola	5390	11	96	107	215	322	8
3	Amravati	12210	655	1455	2110	1077	3187	116
4	Aurangabad	10107	19	101	120	437	557	193
5	Bhandara	3588	130	540	670	217	887	21
6	Beed	10693	0	13	13	162	175	357
7	Mumbai City	157	0	0	0	2	2	0
8	Mumbai Sub Urban	446	0	62	62	58	120	0
9	Buldhana	9661	23	137	160	430	590	163
10	Chandrapur	11443	1330	1582	2912	1161	4073	56
11	Dhule	7189	0	70	70	246	316	103
12	Gadchiroli	14412	4731	3384	8115	1981	10096	20
13	Gondia	5733	882	818	1700	310	2010	37
14	Hingoli	4686	0	10	10	104	114	47
15	Jalgaon	11765	51	359	410	772	1182	69
16	Jalna	7718	1	16	17	48	65	55
17	Raigarh	7152	13	1248	1261	1600	2861	0
18	Kolhapur	7685	65	1038	1103	678	1781	88
19	Latur	7157	0	0	0	5	5	25
20	Nagpur	9892	371	950	1321	700	2021	77
21	Nanded	10528	60	434	494	420	914	128

22	Nandurbar	5961	0	407	407	798	1205	30
23	Nashik	15530	0	351	351	738	1089	319
24	Osmanabad	7569	0	3	3	40	43	49
25	Parbhani	6355	0	4	4	46	50	49
26	Pune	15643	0	757	757	977	1734	493
27	Ratnagiri	8208	33	1909	1942	2255	4197	2
28	Sangli	8572	0	95	95	50	145	156
29	Satara	10480	119	569	688	588	1276	65
30	Sholapur	14895	0	8	8	38	46	50
31	Sindhudurg	5207	88	1362	1450	1130	2580	47
32	Thane	9558	0	1281	1281	1627	2908	222
33	Wardha	6309	10	419	429	430	859	62
34	Washim	5184	5	113	118	214	332	28
35	Yavatmal	13582	123	1110	1233	1371	2604	97
	Total	307713	8720	20770	29490	21142	50632	4157

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	Last Update:8/2/2016 4:46:12 PM
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