Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Babul Supriyo today called for generating awareness towards preventing and restoring land degradation for healthier and sustainable ecosystems. Speaking at a virtual event celebration of the Desertification and Drought Day, Shri Supriyo said, this will help better economy and overall human wellbeing.

The Desertification and Drought day was commemorated by the Ministry, with an aim to generate large scale awareness towards understanding the key role of land in all environmental and economic concerns, that world, as well as India is facing now-a days.

On the occasion, the Minister of State released the latest version of “Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India. It has been published by Space Application Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad. The Atlas provides state wise area of degraded lands for the time frame 2018-19. It also provides the change analysis for the duration of 15 years, from 2003-05 to 2018-19.

Secretary in the Ministry Shri RP Gupta said, the salient findings of this Atlas are not only useful as a ready reference, but, will also be helpful in strengthening the envisaged National Action Plan for achieving land restoration targets by providing important baseline and temporal data and technical inputs.

The secretary further stated that the salient findings of this Atlas are not only useful as a ready reference, but, will also be helpful in strengthening the envisaged National Action Plan for achieving land restoration targets by providing important baseline and temporal data and technical inputs.

The event also observed release of Coffee Table Book “India Hosting UNCCD-COP 14” and a short film on UNCCD-COP 14. The commemoration of this event encourages individuals and groups to take initiatives that can keep the land healthy and productive.

India hosted the 14^th session of Conference of Parties (COP 14) of United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in September 2019. India is striving towards achieving the national commitments of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) and restoration of 26 Million ha of degraded land by 2030 which focus on sustainable and optimum utilisation of land resources.

India has been at the forefront of bringing the issue of land degradation to the core of relevant international alliances for protection and conservation of environment. The government of India has adopted collective approach for making progress towards achieving the national commitments related to land restoration.

 

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GK

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