Land degradation, desertification and drylands

Prelims and Mains

Degrading land has had a convention of its own since the Rio summit, and its parties met in Mongolia in August 2026 with drought at the centre of the agenda.

• The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was adopted in 1994 and is one of the three Rio Conventions, alongside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
• It has 197 parties.
• Its central goal is land degradation neutrality.
• At the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17), India argued that drought be planned for as a predictable risk, with catchment forests restored so that a landscape holds its water for longer.
• India named the Green Credit Programme and sovereign green bonds as ways of financing restoration.

Prelims and Mains

Restoration only becomes a policy when a country can be held to a number, and India's number is pledged under the Bonn Challenge.

• India's commitment is to bring 26 million hectares of degraded and deforested land under restoration by 2030.
• Its second progress report, presented at COP17, put 21.76 million hectares under restoration between 2011 and 2020.