New Delhi: The ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Dehradun, Uttarakhand in collaboration with the Indian Association of Soil and Water Conservationists (IASWC), Dehradun and Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), Dehradun, Uttarakhand organized an international webinar on 'Achieving Land Degradation Neutrality' from 22nd to 24th July, 2020.

In his inaugural address, the Chief Guest, Dr Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary (DARE) & DG (ICAR) highlighted the ICAR’s role in mitigation of land degradation through its Natural Resource Management Institutes located in the different agro-ecological regions of the country since independence. He stressed on the need for deliberations to chalk out specific programmes for investing funds and meeting targets in a time bound manner on the enormous impact of land degradation on loss of global GDP.

The Director General regarded the integrated ecosystem / landscape based development as central to achieving the LDN. He urged for creating the relevant national database covering the historical data for carrying out the change analysis in respect of land cover, land productivity and soil organic carbon, which are the three indicators for achieving the LDN.

The Guest of Honor, A.S. Rawat, I.F.S., Director General, ICFRE highlighted the government initiatives to address the forest sector’s land degradation problem. He also outlined the establishment of the Centre of Excellence on LDN in ICFRE for providing the capacity building, knowledge sharing and implementation of the country targets.

The Guest of Honor, Dr. S.K. Chaudhari, Deputy Director General (Natural Resource Management), ICAR outlined the ICAR’s efforts in harmonizing the land degradation database and evaluating the losses incurred through the various land degradation processes. He stressed on the implementation of the solutions to the various kinds of degradation problems in the country in convergence mode for achieving the LDN.

The Webinar registered a total participation by over 521 participants from the different organizations within India and abroad.

(Source: ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil & Water Conservation, Dehradun, Uttarakhand)