India Calls for Community-Led Restoration of Rangelands at UNCCD CoP17

Syllabus: GS3/ Environment

Context

• India has called for a community-led approach to restoring rangelands at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17).

About

• The 17th Conference of Parties (COP17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is being held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, under the theme “Restoring Land, Restoring Hope”.
• Key discussions at UNCCD COPs focus on setting national targets for land degradation neutrality (LDN), restoring degraded rangelands and dryland ecosystems, expanding green finance mechanisms, and improving global cross-border data sharing for drought forecasting. 

Rangelands: Ecological and Economic Assets

• Rangelands cover 54% of the Earth’s land surface, support 500 million pastoralists and are home to a third of the world’s most important biodiversity areas.
• They include grasslands, savannas, shrublands and open woodlands and provide food, livelihoods, biodiversity, carbon storage and water-regulation services.
• Rangelands generate an estimated $21tn-$47tn in benefits every year but remain largely overlooked in land and climate finance.
• The restoration returns $4-$6 for every dollar spent, rising to as much as $36 when wider public benefits such as water supply are counted.

Rethinking the Role of Pastoralism

• Conventional approaches have treated pastoralism and livestock grazing as drivers of land degradation.
• However, many rangeland ecosystems have 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 rangeland degradation, rather than pastoralism alone.

Financing Gap in Land Restoration

• Land degradation affects up to 40% of the world’s land surface, threatening food security, water availability, biodiversity and livelihoods.
• Land restoration requires substantial and sustained investment because degraded land affects agriculture, water security, biodiversity and rural livelihoods.
  • However, land restoration has historically received less financial attention than other climate and development priorities.
• At COP17, this financing challenge has emerged as a key issue, particularly for rangelands and pastoral communities.

Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)

• Land Degradation Neutrality aims to ensure that the amount and quality of land resources required to support ecosystem functions and food security remain stable or improve. Achieving LDN requires
  • Avoiding further land degradation.
  • Reducing ongoing degradation.
  • Restoring already degraded land.
• The focus should increasingly be on preventing degradation before restoration becomes extremely costly.

Challenges

• Financing gap: Public and private investment remains inadequate compared with the scale of land degradation.
• Policy gap: Rangelands receive less attention in national climate and restoration strategies than forests.
• Knowledge gap: Traditional ecological knowledge is insufficiently integrated into formal restoration planning.
• Institutional fragmentation: Land, water, agriculture, livestock, environment and disaster-management policies often operate separately.

Way Ahead

• Bridge the financing gap: Scale up public finance, blended finance, green bonds and innovative financial mechanisms to mobilise private investment for land restoration and drought resilience.
• Prioritise prevention over restoration: Invest in early-warning systems, drought forecasting and anticipatory action because preventing degradation and preparing for drought is more cost-effective than post-disaster relief and large-scale restoration.
• Mainstream rangelands in climate policies: Include rangelands and pastoralist systems more explicitly in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), land-restoration targets and climate-finance frameworks.

Source: DD News, DTE