Context, Context, Context: The Byword for Reversing Land Degradation in India
The AREST team from ATREE was at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to organise events on soil health and ecological restoration.
Anuja Malhotra, Milind Bunyan, Sandeep Hanchanale and Abi T. Vanak
The ‘COP of implementation’ had much at stake regarding what different groups expected. For ATREE, this meant the opportunity to showcase our vision and work on meeting India’s land-based carbon sequestration and Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets.
For the last three years, the Alliance for Reversing Ecosystem Service Threats (AREST) has been working on developing an implementable, socio-ecologically responsible restoration roadmap for India. This roadmap accounts for ecological parameters such as soil health, local hydrology, and native biodiversity; socio-economic parameters such as income, health, and gendered aspirations; and enabling conditions such as transition finance and policy.
COP27 gave us a timely opportunity to share the roadmap and preliminary findings from our pilots on a prestigious global platform so we could gauge global perspectives on our approach and gain insights to scale up our efforts.
Land degradation in India is a complex problem, and we acknowledged the need to build consensus and work with government stakeholders and civil society early in the AREST initiative. At COP27, this approach drove us to bring private financiers, NGOs, government representatives, and grassroots-level organisations to deliberate on soil health, ecological restoration, and Open Natural Ecosystems (ONEs) at our panel discussions.
Despite the nuance and contextual understanding specific to each of our panels, one overall takeaway emerged — ‘Nature-Based Solutions’ should not be implemented en masse.
Consequently, the first step is to acknowledge the inherent complexity of nature and not shy away from vocalising concerns about unscientific practices promoted in the name of restoration. We were encouraged to see this nuance and voice finding space in discourses across stakeholder groups.
Read | AREST’s Seven-Step Plan to Restore Degraded Land in Peninsular India
The term ‘Open Natural Ecosystems’, first coined by Madhusudhan and Vanak (2022), is now widely used by the government and the conservation community. This change is significant because recognising these ecosystems as naturally productive and not wastelands is vital to ensure that management and interventions start to move in the right direction.
We were also encouraged to see the Government of India recognise the role of socio-ecological nuance while promoting increases in green cover.
This recognition echoes ATREE’s call to recognise the ‘3Rs of Restoration’ — the Right Species mix, in the Right Place, and for the Right Reason — that we have been promoting.
And finally, we focus on the importance of soil conservation and restoration in carbon sequestration through below-ground soil organic carbon is a crucial thematic area. Our consistent messaging across fora, including webinars, media articles, talks and workshops, is bearing fruit, no pun intended, and is resonating at large.
Read | Is agroecological farming a solution for rainfed degraded land?
While this is good progress, the way forward is to enable the transition towards large-scale responsible restoration in India. Here lies both a challenge and an opportunity. Embracing complexity also means recognising the challenges of planning, financing and implementing restoration across India. Yet, a framework will help nudge financiers and practitioners towards potential solutions.
ATREE’s blueprint of the seven steps to restore degraded land in India is a step in that direction. It is embedded with sound science and learnings from the ground and provides a reliable roadmap for land restoration in India. There are many well-intentioned but disparate efforts for restoration in India. Channelling them will create a reliable and effective plan for restoration in India, and we are excited to play a part in it.
