World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought
17 June 2019 was observed as World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought with the theme Let s Grow the Future Together. The theme reflects the 25th anniversary of the Convention and the World Day to Combat Desertification and celebrates the 25 years of progress made by countries on sustainable land management by looking at the broad picture of the next 25 years for achieving the land degradation neutrality.
The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought aims to raise awareness about desertification and drought and highlighting methods of preventing desertification and recovering from drought.
June 17 was adopted as World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought as the Convention to Combat Desertification was adopted on this day.
India: Combating Desertification
- India will be hosting the fourteenth session of Conference of Parties (COP – 14) for the Convention to Combat Desertification from 29th August 14th September 2019.
- India has high stakes since about 30% of the country s total geographical area being affected by land degradation.
- Schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), Soil Health Card Scheme, Soil Health Management Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojna (PKSY), Per Drop More Crop, etc. are actively contributing towards reducing land degradation.
- On the occasion, a flagship project on enhancing capacity on forest landscape restoration (FLR) and Bonn Challenge in India was launched in a pilot phase of 3.5 years to be implemented in the States of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nagaland and Karnataka.
Bonn Challenge
Bonn Challenge is a global initiative to bring 150 million hectares of the world s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020, and 350 million hectares by 2030. Launched by the government of Germany in association with IUCN it adopts forest landscape restoration (FLR) approach to restore ecological integrity at the same time as improving human well-being through multifunctional landscapes.
