On World Environment Day 2024, Dr Konda Reddy Chavva, Assistant FAO Representative in India, participated in a workshop on ‘Land Restoration, Desertification, and Drought Resilience’, held on 5 June 2024 in Dehradun.  The workshop was organized by the Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Land Management (CoE-SLM) of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, Dehradun.

The workshop was attended by eminent speakers from national and international organizations to share their insights and experiences on the thematic areas aligning with World Environment Day’s theme ‘Land Restoration, Desertification and Drought Resilience’.

During the workshop, Dr Chavva shared an overview of the importance of land restoration for building resilient ecosystems. Land degradation negatively affects 3.2 billion people, especially rural communities, smallholder farmers, and the extremely poor. It aggravates economic loss and social and environmental issues such as poor health, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, reduced resilience to climate change impacts, and forced migration.

In India, climate change is one of the main drivers of land degradation, with erosion of topsoil reducing the land’s carbon sink ability and water storage function. Dr Chavva highlighted the urgent need to restore and rebuild ecosystems. “Between now and 2030, the restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems could generate USD 9 trillion in ecosystem services globally. Landscape restoration will lead to environmental protection, increased livelihood opportunities, social inclusion, climate resilience, disaster risk reduction and cross-sectoral integration,” he added.

FAO in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) leads the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration that aligns with the Decade of Action for the Sustainable Development Goals. It also builds on the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Additionally, FAO has been undertaking several initiatives in collaboration with the Government of India to strengthen India’s agrifood systems and address issues related to land degradation and desertification. As part of India’s G20 Presidency, FAO and UNEP were knowledge partners in developing a document restoring forest fire-impacted areas to recover the natural biodiversity.

Currently, FAO’s Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded Green-Ag project mainstreams biodiversity conservation, climate change, and sustainable land management objectives and practices into Indian agriculture to achieve multiple global environment benefits (GEBs) in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan. FAO’s GEF-7 Food, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Program (IP) promotes sustainable, integrated landscapes and efficient food value and supply chains at scale in rice- and wheat-based food systems in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Haryana, and Punjab. To address the fragmentation in planning and monitoring climate action in the agriculture sector, FAO’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) project will enhance India’s capacity to develop sub-national climate finance investment programs and projects linked to adaptation and resilience priorities for the agriculture sector.

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