By Amartya Deb on April 16, 2018.
Germany and IUCN together announced the Bonn Challenge in September 2011. It received about 47 commitments worldwide from governments, NGOs and private companies to globally restore a target of 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020; and later extended to total of 350 million by 2030. India’s commitment of planting 13 million hectares towards the 2020 target is set to sequester 1.99 GtCO2 and create USD 6.5 million worth of economic benefits through restoration. This is about 10 per cent of the share of global efforts towards fulfilling its immediate commitment. Furthermore, India’s large potential in restoring croplands and degraded forests is ideal to completing the Bonn Challenge. Restoration through agroforestry can address the global sustainable development goals of protecting the environment, creating livelihoods and ensuring food security.
Potential and benefits of restoring croplands in India
Forests play an essential role in sustainable development of the world. Forest ecosystems are home to a rich biodiversity that are of aesthetic, medicinal, economic and food value. Forests help sequester carbon and cool the atmosphere to combat climate change. Furthermore, ecosystem services from forests help ensure livelihood and food security of communities living around them. However, in the last three decades since 1980, globally, we have lost more than 100 million hectares of tropical forests due to farmland activities alone. But all is not lost.
India has almost achieved its goal for 2020 with only about 3.2 million hectares to be restored towards the Bonn Challenge. However, it may be too early to celebrate. India must restore an additional 8 million hectares to meet the 21 million target by 2030. Even a brief look at the World of Opportunity Map prepared in collaboration by WRI and IUCN would reveal that more than three-fourth of land in India has the potential to be restored – a majority of which is croplands. Planting trees in croplands and deforested land around settlements can prevent soil erosion. Apart from creating a healthy top soil, this would especially help mitigate siltation in waterways such as canals and lakes used for agriculture. Given that 60 per cent of the population in India is engaged in farming, creating healthier croplands has direct impact on livelihoods and food security of the nation.
Given the potential for restoring forests lie in croplands, traditional methods in agroforestry that have existed in India since long can lead the way forward.
Agroforestry: the way forward to reforesting croplands both for 2020 as well as 2030
Agroforestry methods are ideal as a way forward as it retains agriculture while combining benefits from trees. Agroforestry integrates forest trees with agricultural crops and pastures for livestock. Having a strong history of agroforestry in India, it is not surprising that the country has been the first to adopt a National Agroforestry policy. Some of the salient benefits of the practice as mitigating disaster risks, improve environmental health, and create livelihood opportunities.
Agroforestry can increase resilience against crop failures and improve environmental health. As one example, farmers of West Bengal are known for depending on owls as a biocontrol agent to destroy vermin in the rice fields. Certainly, encouraging such practices would keep the food chain balanced, fostering healthy biodiversity. As another example, the leaves of the neem tree (Azadirachta indica) are used as ingredients in locally prepared insecticide. Such solutions that depend on nature as opposed to chemical alternatives reduce pollution in the environment.
There exist several models of agroforestry which focus on mixed farming techniques. This arrangement often supplies a mix of commercial and household forestry products. As opposed to mono-cultural practices, mixed farming makes farmers more resilient to crop failure. In addition, the dominant use of native species in agroforestry methods suited to sustain ecosystem functions and local biodiversity with minimum care.
Land restoration for sustainable livelihood in rural areas
Land restoration has been an effective tool in the creating livelihood opportunities in agriculture and mitigating environmentally forced migration. Efforts in villages of Medak district of Telangana in India has not only replenished the region with natural cover, but is even reported to have encouraged the out-migrating population to come back to the village for work. Preventing or reversing migration can help reduce the unprecedented growth of pressure on cities and offer local communities in rural areas with a sustainable, dignified life.
Crop land restoration presents a unique opportunity to India to complete the Bonn Challenge. In addition to mitigating climate change through carbon sequestration, agroforestry offers direct benefits of extractive as well as regulative ecosystem services to communities. With strong traditional success in agroforestry and the vast potential detected by the World of Opportunity Map, India can confidently look to exploit croplands for the immediate target for Bonn Challenge for 2020 as well as the coming target of 21 million in 2030.
Amartya Deb is managing editor of Harnessing Nature.