Govt plans green cover in Himalayas to ward off climate change threats
The Centre will start restoring the vulnerable spots of the Himalayan range through plantation to contain landslides and soil erosion.
Under the National Mission for a Green India whose document was released on Tuesday, tree plantations will be taken up in the mountain range that spans across Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and West Bengal.
This will help India achieve the United Nations sustainable development goal which talks about protecting, restoring and sustainably managing forests, combating desertification, and preventing land degradation. The Centret’s green mission takes Indian Institute of Science’s (IISc) study into account that 39 per cent of forested grids are vulnerable to climate change. A significant part of the Himalayan bio-diversity hotspot is projected to be highly vulnerable due to higher warming. Of the 687 major disasters that India witnessed from 1900 and 2022, over 240 occurred in the Himalayas. These include forest fire, glacial bursts, landslides, earthquakes and storms.
The forests in the central and the north-western parts of India are highly vulnerable. Northern and central parts of the Western Ghats are also vulnerable to climate change. Thus, vulnerability analysis helps to identify forest types and regions which require adaptation strategies to enable forests to cope with climate change.
“The mission will emphasise on the restoration, regeneration and revegetation of the degraded slopes through planting of native species. The objective would be to arrest soil erosion, regulate landslides and undertake slope stabilisation through drainage line treatment activities, including gully plugging and developing contour trenches for arresting soil run-off and rain-water harvesting,” the document says. The Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) is responsible for providing water to a large part of the Indian subcontinent.
“A prior land use planning exercise will also be taken up for treatment of the landscape which shall provide a basis for undertaking a range of potential interventions, including natural regeneration, mixed plantations, and suitable agro-forestry practices. These activities will not only help in conserving biodiversity, and enhancing carbon sequestration, but will also spur the rural economy of the region. The mission shall also seek to promote effective traditional agro-forestry practices such as hill paddy field protection plantations under this intervention,” the document says.
It also attributes conversion of forest land for jhum cultivation as one of the causes of deforestation and land degradation in the northeastern states which comes under the Himalayan range. Jhum cultivation, also known as shifting cultivation, is a traditional farming method practised in the hilly regions of northeastern India, particularly by tribal communities. It involves clearing land by cutting and burning vegetation, cultivating crops for a few years, and then abandoning the land to restore its fertility naturally.
Experts advocate plantation of seabuckthorn in suitable areas in Himachal Pradesh, J&K, Uttarakhand and Sikkim under the mission. Seabuckthorn is a high-priority plant for commercial purposes as well as for environmental protection. A pilot project on development of the value chain of seabuckthorn would be taken up for further research, extension, and technology intervention under the mission.
India