India restored 21.76 mn hectares of land between 2011-2020: Bhupender Yadav

INdia has managed to take 21.76 gazillion hectares (Mha) of set ashore below restoration efforts, against the 26 Mha place for 2030, the country’s second progress report on the Bonn Challenge released by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Wednesday stated.The report was released by Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav, who said the progress demonstrates the convergence of policy commitment, scientific innovation and public participation, which can make environmental restoration an effective pathway towards sustainable development.“Around 21.76 million hectares of land has been brought under restoration efforts against the target of restoring 26 million hectares by 2030 under the Bonn Challenge. India has consistently advanced sustainable land management as a Party to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD),” the minister said, while addressing an event in the national Capital.Also Read: Making Delhi dust-free is our environmental dutyLaunched in 2011, the Bonn Challenge is a voluntary global restoration pledge. In 2015, India had pledged to restore 13 Mha of degraded and deforested land by 2020, with an additional 8 Mha by 2030.The first progress report, released in 2018, had revealed that 9.8 million hectares of land had been brought under restoration. A year later, at COP 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a revised target of restoring 26 Mha by 2030.To gauge progress, countries use a restoration barometer of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which includes policies, institutional frameworks, financial flows, technical planning and monitoring systems necessary for forest landscape restoration (FLR). Outcomes of FLR in terms of land area brought under restoration, and the corresponding climate, biodiversity, and socio-economic benefits from restoration are also included in assessing progress.Telangana, at 4.18 Mha, leads the restoration efforts, the latest report found, followed by Madhya Pradesh (3.78 Mha), Odisha (2.64 Mha), Gujarat (1.73 Mha) and Andhra Pradesh (1.61 Mha).“All 28 states and 7 Union Territories (UTs) reported their progress in accordance with the Restoration Barometer and collectively succeeded in bringing 21.76 million hectares of land under restoration,” the report said.Yadav said greening and restoration activities have been undertaken across around 170,000 hectares under the Green India Mission, while afforestation has been carried out over around 320,000 hectares through CAMPA-supported activities during the past five years.The minister also said that Joint Forest Management covers about 81.53 Mha and remains one of the largest community-based forest management systems in the world. He added that more than 121,000 hectares have been brought under agroforestry, while bamboo plantations have been established outside forests over nearly 60,000 hectares.Referring to the PM’s “Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam” campaign, Yadav said more than 266 crore saplings have been planted across the country already, adding that the Aravalli Green Wall Initiative has emerged as an important landscape-level restoration programme and surpassed its annual targets during the financial year 2025-26.He added that a target has been set to restore 54,000 hectares of mangrove area by 2028 under the Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats & Tangible Incomes (MISHTI) programme too.