Abstract

India is one of the ten most forest-rich countries of the world along with Russia, Brazil, Canada, United States of America, China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Australia, Indonesia and Sudan. India is ranked 10th in world, with 24.4% of land area under forest and tree cover, even though it accounts for 2.4% of the world surface area and sustains needs of 17% of human and 18% livestock population. India was placed 8th in list of top ten nations reporting the greatest annual net gain in forest area. Fifteen States/UTs have above 33% of geographical area under forest cover. About 40% of country’s forest cover is present in 9 large contiguous patches of the size of 10,000 sq. km, or more. There are mainly six groups of forest in India which are, moist tropical, dry tropical, montane sub tropical, montane temperate, sub-alpine and alpine. Insect pests constitute the major biological determinants of forest productivity in the natural forest covers and plantations which cause a lot of damage, resulting in stunted tree growth with poor timber quality. Four main groups of insects feed upon the leaf to seeds of many trees. These are Coleoptera (beetles), Hemiptera (plant Bugs), Lepidoptera (moth and butterflies) and Hymenoptera (phytophagus wasps). Among them, the Coleopterans are the most important group of insects causing damage in forest and plantations. The larval stage of Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera cause damage by feeding the leaves, boring into the stem and seeds. Plant bugs feed externally in the immature and adult stages by inserting sucking mouth parts into tissues. It is evident that no single approach is perfect enough to ensure complete suppression of epidemic insect population; thus necessitating a resource to the concept of integrated pest management. Use of toxic chemicals poses more problems of environmental pollution, disturbance in the species diversity and development of resistance in pest species. Considering the overall impact of toxic chemicals, there is a need to restrict the use of toxic pesticides in forestry. The increased awareness of the destructive capacities of pests, environmental concerns, effects on threatened and endangered trans boundary insect species may necessitates to focus interest in protecting forests from insect pests in recent years. Keeping this in view, this chapter comprises the features and advantages of adopting the integrated pest management strategies in natural forests and plantations to increase land cover and productivity..