As India hosts desertification meet, 30% of its land is already degraded

Over 600 million people risk the impact of climate change in India and if land degradation is not addressed, the problem could get more acute

Even as it prepares to host a global conference on rising desertification, India faces a growing crisis of land degradation: Nearly 30% of its land area, as much as the area of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra put together, has been degraded through deforestation, over-cultivation, soil erosion and depletion of wetlands.

 

This land loss is not only whittling away India’s gross domestic product by 2.5% every year and affecting its crop yield, but also exacerbating climate change events in the country which, in turn, are causing even greater degradation, as we discuss later.

How can countries slow down this