Backgrounder

            Land degradation, a decline in land quality due to natural or anthropogenic activities poses numerous challenges because of its adverse impact on agronomic productivity, the environment, its effect on food security and the quality of life. Associated with land degradation are the issues of loss of biodiversity, climate change and their impact on livelihoods. Globally, land degradation adversely affects the ecological integrity and productivity of nearly 2 billion hectare, nearly one-quarter of all landscapes under human use. In India, over thirty-two percent, i.e.105 million hectare of the total geographic area of the country is undergoing processes of land degradation. With just two per cent of the total geographic area of the world and eighteen per cent of the world’s population, land degradation can have far reaching impacts on the growth trajectory of the country.

            The Sustainable Land and Ecosystem Management (SLEM) Programme is a joint initiative between the Government of India (GOI) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), under the latter’s Country Partnership Programme (CPP). The CPP was instituted by GEF to help countries address the issue of land degradation in a comprehensive and integrated manner. The SLEM – CPP is representative of GEF’s Programmatic Approach, the objective of which is to secure larger-scale and sustained impact on the global environment. This is sought to be achieved through integrating global environment objectives into national or regional strategies and plans through partnerships. The GEF partners associated with the SLEM- CPP include the World Bank, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The SLEM-CPP in India consists of a number of projects spread across diverse ecological zones, with an overarching objective of poverty alleviation by promoting sustainable land management practices. These practices would lead to improved land and ecosystem productivity, and also reduce vulnerability to extreme weather events, including the effects of climate change.

Objectives of SLEM - CPP

            The overall objective of the SLEM partnership is to contribute to poverty alleviation in India by promoting enhanced efficiency of natural resource use, improved land and ecosystem productivity, and reduced vulnerability to extreme weather events, including the effect of climate change. The immediate objectives of SLEM–CPP are the following:

(i) Prevention and/or control of land degradation by restoration of degraded (agricultural and forested) lands and biomass cover and make sustainable use of natural resources in selected project areas;

(ii) Enhancement of local capacity and institution building to strengthen land and ecosystem management;

(iii) Facilitation of knowledge dissemination and application of national and international good practices in SLEM within and across states; and

(iv) Replication and scaling up of successful land and ecosystem management practices and technologies to maximise synergies across the UN Conventions on Biological Diversity (CBD), Climate Change (FCCC), and Combating Desertification (CCD) conventions.

Policy Coordination

            To ensure a smooth functioning across the SLEM Programme, coordination on policy will be achieved through a National Steering Committee (NSC). The NSC has due representation of all key stakeholders under the Chairpersonship of Addl. Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India to provide policy guidance. The committee will meet twice in the first year and once every subsequent year to guide and advise the TFO and various Project authorities in their activities. The NSC has the following functions:

· To provide overall guidance to the SLEM Projects

· To ensure participation of other stakeholders and co-opt more members as per need

· To identify key policy and institutional reforms related to mainstreaming and up-scalingof best practices in the areas of Land management, Water Harvesting and Conservation, Biodiversity Conservation, Adaptation to Climate Change etc; and suggest appropriate  measures.

Technical Coordination

             (TFO) of the programme has been instituted at the ICFRE under a Medium Scale Project (MSP) entitled “Policy and Institutional Reform for Mainstreaming and Up-scaling Sustainable land and Ecosystem Management in India”. Various Divisions of the ICFRE Headquarters and Regional Forest Research Institutes provide the requisite technical Technical coordination will be provided through a Technical Facilitation Organisation (TFO) located at the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), an apex body in the national forestry research system. Apart from solution based forestry research, it also addresses the emerging issues in the sector, including global concerns such as climate change, conservation of biological diversity, combating desertification and sustainable management and development of resources. The Technical Facilitation Organisation support as and when required to SLEM projects located in different parts of the country.

            The Technical Facilitation Organisation performs seven distinct technical tasks. This include distil and capture lessons learned and best practices in the areas of land management, biodiversity conservation and adaptation to climate change based on experiences from projects included in the SLEM partnership, and also from other relevant projects, prepare and support dissemination of outreach material and activities for practitioners and decision makers in the areas of land management, biodiversity conservation and adaptation to climate change, develop capacity and skills to enhance and promote land management, biodiversity conservation and adaptation to climate change, design and operate the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) function of the programme, prepare studies and guidelines as to how policy and institutional aspects of land management, biodiversity conservation and adaptation to climate change could be developed and implemented in the interest of more efficient, effective and sustainable management of natural resources, prepare a Toolkit and Manual at the end of the project period containing tools, guidelines and approaches for up-scaling and replicating successful experiences and  monitor the global environmental benefits resulting from the implementation of the project.

UNDP and FAO Led Projects

            ‘Sustainable Land Management of Shifting Cultivation Areas of Nagaland for Ecological  and Livelihood Security’, ‘Integrated Land and Ecosystem Management   to combat Land Degradation and Deforestation in Madhya Pradesh, and Sustainable Participatory Management of Natural Resources to Control Land Degradation in the Thar Desert Ecosystem programmes are led by UNDP where as Reversing Environmental Degradation and Rural Poverty through Adaptation to Climate Change in Drought Stricken Areas of Southern India is a programme led by FAO.

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