PUNE | Aug 13, 2015: Experts and environmentalists have demanded that under government and common people must launch a joint effort for restoration of degraded lands.
"Successful land reclamation or restoration of degraded lands largely depends upon the social and political will along with awareness and motivation of the people, coupled with strict institutional and legal framework," said Dharma Rajan Priyadarsanan, senior fellow and programme leader with Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE).
Ecological restoration is the process of reclaiming habitat and ecosystem functions by restoring the lands and waters on which plants and animals depend. Restoration is a corrective step that involves eliminating or modifying causes of ecological degradation and re-establishing the natural processes — like natural fires, floods, or predator-prey relationships — that sustain and renew ecosystems over time.
Repairing forests, lakes and other types of nature reserves that have been damaged or depleted can generate wealth, create jobs and become a vital means of alleviating poverty, the United Nations Environment Programme says in a report. Nature restoration activities include rehabilitating water flows to rivers and lakes, improving soil stability and fertility for agriculture and combating climate change by sequestering and storing carbon from the atmosphere. The report underlines that maintaining and managing intact ecosystems must be the key priority. However, given that more than 60 per cent of the ecosystems, ranging from marshes and coral reefs to tropical forests and soils, are already degraded, restoration must now be an equal priority. Rehabilitating ecosystems also generates jobs in a world where currently 1.3 billion are unemployed or underemployed, while supporting international goals to substantially reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity, a key theme this year.
"In India, population growth and rapid industrialization concurrent with an ever-increasing quest for better quality of life have resulted in a growing demand for energy and infrastructure, leading to significant impact on the country's environment and ecology. Resources such as natural forests are particularly exploited through agricultural expansion, timber extraction, mono-culture plantations, rail and road networks, hydroelectric projects, mineral exploration and mining," states a research paper titled 'Needs for policy on landscape restoration in India' written by Ramalingam Ravi and Dharma Rajan Priyadarsanan.
The research paper adds that the anthropogenic pressure on natural landscapes is not limited to India alone. Globally, the world's natural habitats continue to be converted to other land uses at a very high rate. Worldwide, it was estimated that around 16.1mha of natural forests were lost annually during the 1990s. However, there are efforts to repair some of the damages which humans have inflicted on the eco-systems and biodiversity, through ecological restoration.
(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)