India will restore 50 lakh hectare of its degraded land by 2030, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Tuesday. Speaking ahead of the upcoming global conference on land desertification, the minister said 29 per cent land of India’s total geographical area is degraded which has to be restored and will be the agenda of the the summit. India is hosting the Conference of Parties (COP) 14 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) from September 2-13.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also likely to attend the conference, in which nearly 200 countries and 100 ministers will be participating. “One third of the world is facing the problem of land desertification. It is a challenge. Science has given us many new opportunities to restore land. The main challenge is that India has 29 per cent of degraded land.
“This degradation happens because of many factors like over exploitation, over grazing, over water logging and wind. Floods also make a good land into a bad land. We have to restore it. Therefore, we have taken a target to restore 50 lakh hectares of land by 2030. We will convert degraded land into fertile land,” Javadekar said at a curtain raiser event at National Media Centre here.
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