While the state government is vigorously pursuing a proposal for carrying out green fellings to raise additional revenue, the environmentalists are concerned over the alarming fall in the area under dense forests in the hill state. The overall green cover in the state has been increasing only marginally but the area under dense forests has been shrinking of a rapid rate over the past few years. For instance, the state recorded an increase of 561 sq km in its forest cover during 1997-99. However, during the same period, dense forests over 1001 sq km of area degenerated into open forests. It was a disturbing trend clearly indicating that the scale at which afforestation was being carried out at present was quite inadequate to replenish the depleted forest reserves. At present only 13082 sq km was under forests out of the state's: total geographical area of over 55,000 sq km. Further dense forests