India restored 21.7 million hectares of degraded land: Govt

India has already brought 21.76 million hectares of land under restoration efforts against its Bonn Challenge target of restoring 26 million hectares by 2030, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said on Wednesday. The Bonn Challenge is a global initiative launched in 2011 to restore degraded and deforested landscapes, with a target to bring 350 million hectares under restoration by 2030.

“Restoration activities have generated around 1.22 billion person-days of employment,” Yadav said at an event to commemorate the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. The minister highlighted that more than 27 million hectares have been treated under the watershed development component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, and over 61.3 million geo-tagged natural resource management assets have been created. “Greening and restoration activities have been undertaken across around 1.7 lakh hectares under the Green India Mission, while afforestation has been carried out over around 3.20 lakh hectares through CAMPA-supported activities during the past five years,” he said. The event also saw the launch of a special issue of Indian Forester and India’s Second Progress Report on the Bonn Challenge (2011-2020). The Indian Forester issue brings together scientific insights, policy perspectives, and field experiences on sustainable land management, ecosystem restoration and land degradation neutrality, with a special focus on rangelands and grasslands.

The Bonn Challenge report documents restoration efforts across states and Union territories, highlights their ecological and socio-economic benefits, and reflects India’s continued efforts towards forest landscape restoration, land degradation neutrality, and ecosystem resilience.