Forests provide the basic life support system to all the living beings of mother earth including mankind. Forest ecosystems provide fresh air, water resources, fertile soil for sustenance of agriculture, bio-diversity, climate change mitigation and numerous other ecosystem services. Vast sections of rural society, including a majority of the tribals, are directly dependent on forests for their livelihood. The Karnataka Forest Department has the primary mandate of protecting the forests and wildlife, conserving the rich biodiversity of the state and ensuring that the ecological balance of the forest eco-systems is maintained. The Department is headed by Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Head of Forest Force(HOFF). The Department presently has a total working strength of around 8000 executive personnel including Indian Forest Service Officers and officers/ field staff of various cadres. The total recorded forest area of the State is 43,382 sq. km. The State has a network of Protected Areas with 5 Tiger Reserves, 30 Wildlife Sanctuaries, 15 Conservation Reserves and 1 Community Reserve. The work carried out by the Department can be broadly classified into the following categories: regulatory, protection, conservation and sustainable management. As part of the regulatory functions, the department enforces provisions of various legislations such as Karnataka Forest Act 1963, Wildlife Protection Act 1972, Forest (Conservation) Act 1980, Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act 1976, etc. and corresponding rules.
This is the official web portal for Karnataka Forest department’s Geospatial Information. This portal is primarily for use of departmental staff and the forest workforce to get remote sensing and GIS based data inputs related to forest resources, assets, fire events, weather information, observed changes etc and also to share the field events back to the command and control centre. The remote sensing data and GIS data generated from Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Center (KSRSAC) and the Karnataka-Geographic Information System (K-GIS) portal framework is used for this portal. The forest fire alerts generated from National Remote Sensing Center of ISRO, The weather information from Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Center (KSNDMC) are integrated and processed together for deriving value added services on the K-GIS framework. The alerts, maps and insights generated along with geospatial assets, facilities are used for maintenance of forest resources and effective operations of forest force activites. Readmore