Contrasting patterns of deforestation and reforestation in India’s tropical dry woodlands

Tropical dry woodlands are key ecosystems for global biodiversity, carbon storage, and forest-based livelihoods in some of the poorest regions of the world. Many of these woodlands have been historically converted and degraded, and while recovery occurs in some areas, the pressure on remaining tropical dry woodlands remains high. Despite this, our understanding of spatial patterns of tropical dry woodland change is poor. Here, we reconstruct spatio-temporal dynamics of dry woodlands between 2014 to 2024 across India at 30-m resolution, a country with a long land-use history and widespread historical woodland decline, as well as large and active woodland restoration commitments. To better understand the geographic patterns of change, we conduct a spatial autocorrelation analysis of woodland losses and gains to compare decreases and increases of woodland cover inside and outside government administered lands. Our study reveals a gross gain of ~ 2.10 million hectare (Mha) compared with a loss of ~0.29 Mha of woodland. Within this net gain of 1.80 Mha, we find contrasting spatial patterns of woodland loss and gain. Government administered lands, where most of the country’s native dry woodlands remain, experienced a loss of 0.17 Mha (58% of total loss). In contrast, outside government-administered lands, which are often human-dominated agricultural landscapes where active reforestation initiatives and forest plantations take place, tropical dry woodland area increased by around 0.78 Mha (37% of total gain). Our results highlight that regional or national-level woodland trends can mask important fine-scale deforestation and reforestation patterns with important implications for biodiversity, ecosystem services and rural livelihoods outcomes. As countries expand conservation and restoration efforts in the wake of the 30x30 agenda and other commitments, it is critical for monitoring efforts to capture the patterns of dry woodland change at sufficient detail to inform policy making and spatial planning, and thus to support desired restoration outcomes.