India’s land restoration opportunity | Madhav Pai | TEDxIITDelhi

Key Concepts

• Land Degradation: Loss of soil fertility and productivity due to erosion and other factors.
• Water Erosion: The process by which rainwater washes away topsoil, leading to land becoming parched and unproductive.
• Restoration Opportunity Atlas of India: A scientific geospatial map identifying land suitable for forest protection and landscape restoration.
• Landscape Restoration: A holistic approach to land management that integrates development and conservation, considering topography, geology, and local ecology.
• Integrated Approach to Restoration: A multi-faceted strategy encompassing soil moisture conservation, water harvesting, tree-based interventions, sustainable agriculture, and market creation for produce.
• Right Place, Right Use, Right Species: A guiding principle for restoration, emphasizing suitability based on topography and ecological context.
• Community-Driven and Locally Led Actions: The core implementation strategy, leveraging local wisdom, knowledge, and existing community structures.
• Non-Timber Forest Produce (NTFP): Tree-based products other than timber, such as mahua, bamboo, sitaphal, and jackfruit, which can generate income.
• Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs): Community-based organizations crucial for implementation, market linkage, and income generation.
• Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): India's climate commitments related to tree cover and forestry.
• Geospatial Technologies and Citizen Science: Tools for mapping, monitoring, and measuring restoration progress.
• Convergence of Schemes: Integrating various government programs and funding sources for efficient restoration efforts.
• Philanthropic and CSR Capital: Funding from non-governmental organizations and corporate social responsibility initiatives.
• Working Capital and Low-Interest Debt: Financial instruments needed to support local enterprises and scale restoration activities.

Land Degradation in India and the Need for Restoration

The video opens by illustrating the severe land degradation in the Badwani district of Madhya Pradesh, where 50% of the land is unproductive due to water erosion. This phenomenon is not isolated to Badwani but affects millions of hectares across India, transforming once fertile land into barren, brittle, and climate-vulnerable areas. The core question posed is whether it's possible to heal land, livelihoods, biodiversity, and climate simultaneously.

The Restoration Opportunity Atlas of India

In response to this challenge, India developed the Restoration Opportunity Atlas of India. This scientific geospatial map reveals that 100 million hectares of land in India are suitable for restoration through forest protection and landscape restoration. This initiative holds significant potential:

• Economic Impact: It can improve incomes for the 700 million Indians who depend on land for their livelihoods.
• Climate Impact: It has the potential to sequester 3 to 4.2 billion tons of above-ground carbon by 2040, helping India meet its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) on tree cover and forestry.

Defining and Implementing Landscape Restoration

Restoration is defined as a process that uses landscape principles, considering topography and geology, and integrating both development and conservation. The goal is to create plans for chosen areas that secure livelihoods while protecting nature.

The scale of this task is immense, involving potentially 60 to 80 million hectares across India's six lakh villages. The approach must be a mosaic, recognizing that each parcel of land and village has unique challenges, ecologies, and rhythms. Therefore, while the architecture of intervention can be scaled up, individual actions must be community-driven and locally led.

The "Harit Bharat" Initiative and Local Champions

The initiative "Restoration for a Harit Bharat," a collaboration between India, Transform Rural India, and the India Climate Collaborative, aims to address this by enabling 20 local champion organizations to restore 20,000 hectares across 200 villages.

These local champions employ an integrated approach to restoration, which includes:

• Soil moisture conservation
• Water holding structures
• Tree-based interventions
• Sustainable agriculture
• Creating markets for tree produce
• Water structures
• Growing methods
• Species selection

All these elements are chosen in consonance with the topography, guided by the mantra: "Right place, right use, right species." Specific examples of this application include:

• Forestry plantations on slopes greater than 25%.
• Horticulture plantations on slopes of 10-15%.
• Riparian restoration along rivers.
• Open grasslands for open natural ecosystems.
• Agroforestry for mixing trees with farm crops.

Implementation is locally led, drawing on local wisdom, local knowledge, local leaders, self-help groups (SHGs), village development committees (VDCs), farmer producer organizations (FPOs), and producer groups.

Economic Empowerment through NTFPs and SHGs

The initiative also promotes non-timber farm produce species like mahua, bamboo, sitaphal, and jackfruit. These are collected by producer organizations and supplied directly to markets by FPOs, leading to better returns and incomes. For landless rural households, mushroom cultivation is introduced by SHGs.

Scaling Up Restoration: The Three Pillars

The video identifies three existing pieces of the puzzle that are crucial for scaling up restoration from the current 20,000 hectares to the potential 100 million hectares:

1. Existing Restoration Champions: Hundreds of local champions are already creating successful models and implementing scalable actions.
2. Government Funding: Significant government funding is available through schemes like the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and State Livelihood Mission programs. An estimate suggests that between 2011 and 2016, one lakh crore was allocated for tree cover improvement and forest protection.
3. Philanthropic and CSR Capital: There is growing interest from philanthropies and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives to invest in securing livelihoods and protecting nature.

Key Enablers for Scaled Restoration

For scaled restoration to materialize, three critical elements are needed:

1. Simplified Processes: Landscape restoration plans need to be simplified, codified, and made accessible to local institutions. These plans should adopt an integrated landscape approach and drive the convergence of schemes. CSR and philanthropic capital can play a pivotal role in accelerating this.
2. Leveraging Technology: Geospatial technologies, citizen science tools, and tools for measuring improvements in biodiversity, soil health, and carbon capture need to be developed and made usable by local institutions. This will enable CSR, governments, and philanthropies to measure and report progress.
3. Unlocking Capital: Access to working capital and low-interest debt is essential for small enterprises to spur local economic activity. Better planning and robust tools can create guarantees to unlock this capital.

A Vision for the Future: Badwani Revisited

The video concludes by returning to the Badwani district, envisioning a future where rain is absorbed by the soil, trees bind the land, fruit trees bloom, livelihoods are secure, and the air is cool. This vision is presented as achievable by 2030, with progress already evident in individual villages and hectares.

The call to action is to mobilize tens of thousands more people, organizations, governments, and companies to participate in this initiative. The ultimate goal is to restore the 100 million hectares of degraded land in India, securing livelihoods, sequestering carbon, and improving the lives of the 700 million Indians who depend on the land.