Context
India recently launched its first-ever Guide to Grasslands and Other Open Natural Ecosystems at UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The Guide seeks to improve recognition, conservation and sustainable management of these long-neglected landscapes.
Explanation
- Open Natural Ecosystems (ONEs) are naturally open landscapes dominated by grasses, shrubs or sparse trees, where low tree cover is the normal condition.
- They include grasslands, savannas, scrublands, rangelands, deserts, rocky plateaus and ravines.
- Unlike degraded forests, ONEs are naturally open, classifying them as wastelands and raising dense plantations destroys their specialised biodiversity.
- They sustain the Great Indian Bustard, lesser florican, blackbuck and Indian wolf, besides pastoral and tribal livelihoods.
- Deep roots conserve soil, regulate water and store below-ground carbon, improving resilience to drought and climate change.
- The Guide maps major Indian ONEs such as Banni, the Thar Desert, Terai grasslands and Deccan savannas, covering pastoralism, grazing and fire ecology.
- The UNCCD, adopted in 1994, is a legally binding Rio Convention with its secretariat at Bonn, Germany; the Conference of the Parties is its decision-making body.
- India hosted UNCCD COP14 in New Delhi in 2019; COP17 focuses on rangelands, pastoralists and Land Degradation Neutrality.
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