Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav told the Ministerial Dialogue on rangelands and pastoralist well-being at the 17th Conference of the Parties (CoP17) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) that restoration must be rooted in science, secure tenure and community stewardship. The conference is being held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, under the theme "Restoring Land, Restoring Hope".
Yadav said, "Successful restoration begins with pastoralists as custodians, not merely beneficiaries". Combining traditional knowledge with modern science, he said, can deliver restoration that is ecologically sound, economically viable and socially inclusive. India "welcomes dedicated, accessible financing for rangeland restoration, and stands ready to share its experience and solutions through South-South cooperation," he said.
Yadav described India's rangelands as ranging from Himalayan pastures and Central Indian savannas to the arid Thar, the Kachchh regions and Southern sholas. They sustain the country's large livestock and human population, he said.
He pointed to satellite-based Desertification and Land Degradation Atlases, which give a scientific basis for mapping grasslands and planning restoration. Recognition of grazing rights and community forest resource rights, he said, strengthens the role of local communities in sustainable management.
He cited the Orans of Rajasthan, sacred groves revered and protected by local communities for cultural and ecological reasons. About 25,000 such community-protected sacred groves cover roughly 0.6 million hectares across the country. They secure pastoral land rights and conserve critical habitats, including those of the Great Indian Bustard, and many are protected under statutory provisions.
India is also restoring open forest and grassland ecosystems, including through the reintroduction of the Cheetah and its proposed expansion into grasslands such as Banni in Gujarat. Deep-rooted grasses, Yadav said, contribute to soil carbon storage, improve water infiltration and support groundwater recharge across about 10 million hectares of permanent pastures and grazing lands. India's approach combines landscape management, watershed development, sustainable grazing, fodder development and livelihood support, with community participation at its core.
Rangelands, which include grasslands, savannas, shrublands and open woodlands, cover 54% of the Earth's land surface, support 500 million pastoralists and hold a third of the world's most important biodiversity areas. They are estimated to generate $21 trillion-$47 trillion in benefits every year, yet remain largely overlooked in land and climate finance. Restoration returns $4-$6 for every dollar spent, rising to as much as $36 when wider public benefits such as water supply are counted.
The discussion reflects a change in how pastoralism is viewed. Conventional approaches treated livestock grazing as a driver of land degradation. Many rangeland ecosystems, however, evolved alongside grazing, and well-managed pastoral systems can maintain biodiversity, nutrient cycling and ecosystem resilience. Drought, cropland expansion, urbanisation and fragmentation of traditional grazing routes increasingly drive degradation, along with pastoralism.
Land degradation affects up to 40% of the world's land surface, threatening food security, water availability, biodiversity and livelihoods. Land restoration needs substantial and sustained investment but has historically received less financial attention than other climate and development priorities. At CoP17 this has emerged as a key issue, particularly for rangelands and pastoral communities. Yadav asked for better access to finance, technology and knowledge for developing countries advancing towards Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN).
LDN aims to keep the amount and quality of land resources needed to support ecosystem functions and food security stable or improving. It requires avoiding further degradation, reducing ongoing degradation and restoring degraded land. The focus, the conference material says, should increasingly be on preventing degradation before restoration becomes extremely costly.
The conference material identifies four gaps. Public and private investment is inadequate against the scale of degradation. Rangelands get less attention than forests in national climate and restoration strategies. Traditional ecological knowledge is insufficiently integrated into formal restoration planning. Land, water, agriculture, livestock, environment and disaster-management policies often operate separately.
The steps listed to address them are scaling up public finance, blended finance, green bonds and other mechanisms to draw in private investment; investing in early-warning systems, drought forecasting and anticipatory action; and including rangelands and pastoralist systems more explicitly in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), land-restoration targets and climate-finance frameworks.
The UNCCD was established in 1994, following the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. It is the only legally binding framework set up to address desertification and the effects of drought, and is one of the three Rio Conventions along with the UNFCCC and the Convention on Biological Diversity. It has 197 Parties: 196 countries and the European Union. Its 2018-2030 Strategic Framework is described as the most comprehensive global commitment to achieve LDN and restore the productivity of vast areas of degraded land.
With reference to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), consider the following statements:
Which of the statements given above are correct?
Consider the following statements:
Statement-I: Rangelands remain largely overlooked in land and climate finance, even though they are estimated to generate $21 trillion-$47 trillion in benefits every year.
Statement-II: Restoration of rangelands returns only $1-$2 for every dollar spent, rising to $6 when wider public benefits are counted.
Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements?
With reference to the examples of India's rangelands and restoration efforts cited at the UNCCD CoP17, consider the following pairs:
Item : Description
How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?
