India will convert 5 million hectares of degraded land into fertile land in the next 10 years, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar asserted on Tuesday.
Degradation happens due to many factors like over-exploitation, over-grazing, over-waterlogging and wind. Floods also make a good land into a bad land.
Ahead of an upcoming 12-day Conference of Parties (COP) 14 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Noida, the minister said 29 per cent of India’s total geographical area (328.7 million hectares ) is degraded which includes desertification.
Restoring 5 million hectares degraded land will be the agenda of the summit likely to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi besides Ministers and representatives from nearly 200 countries.
“One third of the world is facing the problem of land desertification. It is a challenge. Science has given us many new opportunities to restore land. The main challenge is that India has 29 per cent of degraded land,” Javadekar told reporters here at a curtain-raiser event.
The Minister said India will play a lead role in combating desertification for the next two years, taking over the COP presidency from China.
“India will lead in combating desertification for the next two years.” The aim to restore 5 million degraded land is the part of India’s ‘Bonn Challenge’ pledge undertaken in 2015. The ‘Bonn Challenge’ is a global effort to bring 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020, and 350 million hectares by 2030.
As part of its actions to check desertification, India had a few months ago launched a pilot project in partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to restore its degraded forests in five States —Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nagaland and Karnataka — in a time-bound manner.
The project will be scaled up to cover remaining states across the country in due course as part of India’s voluntary pledge to restore 13 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020 and additional 8 million hectares by 2030.
Also, a centre of excellence to combat desertification of the fertile land would be set up at the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun, which will study the causes of desertification and devise solutions.
“We will lead the world in the right direction and seek cooperation of all countries. Nearly 200 countries have confirmed their participation. More than 3,000 delegates and 100 ministers are coming. All UN officials will be there,” the Minister said.