Making Peace With Nature

Context: A decade of protecting and reviving the ecosystem will help India in various ways.

Understanding the urgent need for ecosystem restoration

• Public health threat from rising cases of zoonotic diseases: COVID-19 pandemic is a direct result of the degradation of natural areas, species loss, and exploitation.
• Significance for India: The key for India to end poverty, enhance livelihoods, combat climate change and halt the collapse of biodiversity.

 Policy initiatives

• Directives at global level: World Environment Day, the UN Environment Programme and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization launched the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
• National level: In 2019, India raised its ambition for restoration, promising an increase in restored degraded land from 21 to 26 million hectares by 2030.

Way forward: Path towards restoration-

• Concerted effort to reduce emissions: Evolve national-level goals, targets, commitments, and mechanisms in line with global aspirations to reduce net carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030 (compared to 2010) and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
  • Work towards transforming energy systems, land use, agriculture, forest protection, urban development, infrastructure, and lifestyles in line with conserving and restoring biodiversity and minimising air and water pollution and waste.
• Transform economic, financial and production systems towards sustainability: Including natural capital in decision-making, eliminating environmentally harmful subsidies, and investing in low-carbon and nature-friendly technologies.
  • Making investments in sustainable development financially attractive and leveraging the knowledge base and policymaking know-how.
• Upholding individual responsibilities: Creating food systems that work with nature, reduce waste, and are adaptive to change and resilient to shocks.

Focus on capacity building and education: Empowering small-scale farmers and women farmers to change patterns of consumption, challenging social norms and business practices.