Forest plays a vital role in maintaining ecological stability. They provide protection against and reduce impact of natural calamities like droughts, floods and cyclones. Forests are also an important sources of livelihood for weaker sections of society. Forests also provide a wide variety of products of commercial value such as timber, lac, resins, oilseeds, kendu leaves and medical plants. However forest cover is dwindling at a fast pace. This may be due to factors like rising population, increase in needs of duel wood, timber and fodder and increasing industrialization & urbanization.

Orissa has a recorded forest area of 58,136.23 sq. kms. which comprising at 26,329.12 sq. kms. of reserved forest, 11,686.44 sq. kms. demarcated and protected forests, 20.55 sq. kms. of un-classed forest and16,261.34 sq. kms. of other forests including village and private forests. It occupies 37.34% of the state's geographical area. As per the “State Forest Report – 2003” prepared by the Forest Survey of India, the state has only 48,366 sq. kms. of forest cover including 207 sq. kms. of mangrove forest.

Forests of the state are unevenly distributed. The coastal districts with high population density are having comparatively smaller areas of forest. Higher forest coverage is found in the districts of Kandhamal, Sundargarh, Mayurbhanj, Sambalpur, Malkangiri, Gajapati, Deogarh and Keonjhar. The state has 31.06% forest cover according to the Forest Survey of India. The per capita forest area in the state is 0.16 hectares against National average of 0.076 hectares.

The main objective and strategy of forest planning is to achieve the mandated 33% forest cover and the Government has already implemented afforestation programme during 2003-04 under different state plan and central plan schemes over a total area of 39,376.50 hectares.

The entire state area is divided into 281 ranges in 50 divisions (comprising of 37 forest divisions and 13 wildlife divisions and Nandan Kanan Zoological Park ), in 8 circles which are under the control of three different wings namely Forest wing, Wildlife wing and Kendu leaf wing. There are 7358 Vana Samrakshyana Samittees (VSS) working in the state for restoration of forests through Joint Forest Management.