Consequent to the adoption of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by Convention on Biological Diversity during 2022, the Government of India has updated and released the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP). The NBSAP acknowledges environmental challenges and outlines strategies to address them through ecosystem restoration, species recovery programmes, and community-driven conservation efforts focusing on the restoration of degraded ecosystems, the protection of wetlands, and the sustainable management of marine and coastal areas.

Further, the National Forest Policy, 1988 aims at substantially increasingly the forests and tree cover in the country through massive afforestation programmes, especially on denuded and degraded lands.

India has committed to restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 as part of its obligations under the Bonn Challenge and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). So far, India has been able to restore 18.94 million hectares of degraded land. India has also committed to creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent by 2030 through enhanced forest and tree cover, as part of its Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement.

This information was given by Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Shri Kirti Vardhan Singh in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

 

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