Another big announcement comes from the Indian Government. This time, in the lines of environment protection!
As the reports say, the center is thinking about a prestigious project to build the ‘Great Green Wall of India’ to protect the combat climate change and protect the country’s green cover.
The green belt, of around 1,400 km long and 5 km wide, spans from Gujarat to the Delhi-Haryana border.
As the officials say, the ambitious project will be India’s legacy program to address the concerns of land degradation through afforestation and also protect the green cover from dust arising from deserts of western India and Pakistan.
The project envisages the restoration of degraded land through massive afforestation along the Aravalli Hill Range that is spread along Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi and Haryana states.
The idea was part of the agenda at the recently-held COP24 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
50% of Area Degraded Land in Aravalli Belt
Its alarming that the share of degraded land in India is 29.3% (96.4 mha) of the country’s total geographical area (328.7 mha).
In 2016, ISRO revealed India’s degraded and deserted land atlas that listed Gujarat, Rajasthan and Delhi among the states with more than 50% of the total land degraded and facing threat of desertification.
“A legacy program like converting such a huge tract of land as a green belt in high-intensive land-degraded states will be a great boost to meeting India’s target,” reads an official statement.
Inspiration from Great Green Wall of Africa
A similar kind of proposal around ‘Great Green Wall of Africa’ stemmed up a decade ago but did not fully-materialize till date.
The African Union launched this project a decade ago with the committed support of UNCCD, World Bank and the European Commission. As the reports say, 15% of the work on the project is done so far.
Now, India considers the ‘Great Green Wall of India’ as a national priority project under its ambitious goal to revive 26 million hectares (mha) of degraded land by 2030.
The project is still at the nascent stage and will progress negotiating with farmers and private landholders post the approval.
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