22 million hectares of degraded land restored during 2011 and 2020 | India News
NEW DELHI: India has restored nearly 22 million hectares of degraded and deforested land during the 2011-20 period as against its target of restoring 26 million hectares by 2030, said Union minister Bhupender Yadav at a UN conference Monday.While addressing the 17th session (COP17) of the UNCCD conference in Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, he also pitched for “diversified, adequate, predictable and sustained international finance” for land restoration and drought resilience, saying it is not a cost, but an investment in food, water, biodiversity, livelihood and long-term resilience.Underlining how the country’s restoration efforts had generated approximately 1.2 billion person-days of employment during the 2011-20 period, he said these figures demonstrated restoration could deliver both environmental and socio-economic outcomes by reviving degraded landscapes while creating employment and supporting rural livelihoods.According to India’s second progress report on its land restoration efforts, covering the period 2011–2020, Telangana restored the maximum (4.2 million hectares) degraded area followed by Madhya Pradesh (3.8 million ha), Odisha (2.6 million ha), Gujarat (1.7 million ha) and Andhra Pradesh (1.6 million ha) through afforestation, water resource management, sustainable farming practices, agroforestry, mangrove restoration and natural regeneration of formerly forested land.India’s Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas shows that 97.8 million ha of land, or nearly 29.8% of the country’s geographical area, are affected by land degradation and desertification. Around 82% of India’s degraded land falls in nine states/UT – Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana.
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Highlighting India’s innovative and diversified financing architecture for land restoration and drought resilience, Yadav noted the ‘Sovereign Green Bonds’ as an avenue to mobilise capital and underlined the country’s ‘Green Credit Programme’, which enables public and private entities to finance restoration of degraded forest land.Though the minister during his address flagged India’s experience demonstrating what the committed domestic resources can achieve, he stressed that this cannot substitute for “additional, adequate and predictable international finance” for restoration and drought resilience.
