Restoration of degraded land is not a cost but an investment in food, water, biodiversity, livelihood and long-term resilience, said Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav on Monday.

The Union Minister was speaking at the Ministerial Dialogue during the 17th Conference of Parties (CoP) held under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

The ministerial dialogue was themed ‘Innovate Financial Mechanisms for Healthy Land and Drought Resilience’.

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Later, speaking at a side event, the minister said India had restored 21.76 million hectares of degraded land in the 2011-2020 period, citing the country’s second progress report on the Bonn Challenge. Restoration was not a standalone intervention for India, he said, but an essential component of sustainable and resilient development.

The Bonn Challenge is a global initiative launched in 2011, under which more than 70 countries have committed to restoring 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes by 2020, and an additional target of 350 million hectares by 2030. India has pledged to restore 13 million hectares, with an additional eight million hectares by 2030.

Addressing desertification, land degradation and drought at scale, Yadav said, requires diversified, predictable and sustained sources of finance beyond public budgets, along with strong public-private partnerships.

The minister highlighted India’s blended green-finance framework, which enables financing for climate-change adaptation, sustainable land use, forestry and agriculture, afforestation and biodiversity conservation, as per a government press release.

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Yadav cited the Green Credit Programme scheme as an example of private financing to restore degraded forest land.