New Delhi, May 9: India has invited countries to join the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) at the ongoing session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF20), the government said on Friday.
IBCA is a global platform launched by India to support the conservation of the seven big cat species through joint research, knowledge exchange, and capacity-building. At the 20th session of the UNFF20, held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from May 5 to 9, India highlighted its significant progress in forest conservation and sustainable forest management.
The country reaffirmed its commitment to achieving the Voluntary National Contributions (VNCs) under the UN Strategic Plan for Forests 2017-2030. “India reported a consistent increase in forest and tree cover, now encompassing 25.17 per cent of its geographical area as per the latest India State of Forest Report as a result of key national initiatives like the restoration of land under the Aravalli Green Wall, a 7.86 per cent increase in mangrove cover over the past decade, afforestation of over 1.55 lakh hectares under the Green India Mission, and plantation of 1.4 billion seedlings under the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam (Plant4Mother) campaign,” the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) said.
The Indian delegation, led by Sushil Kumar Awasthi, Director General of Forests and Special Secretary, MoEFCC, called for global action on the outcomes of the Country-Led Initiative (CLI) hosted by India in Dehradun in October 2023, which focused on forest fire management and forest certification.
The country also acknowledged and appreciated CLI efforts led by the Republic of Congo, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Austria, and emphasised the importance of integrating CLI outcomes into formal global mechanisms to support priority forestry issues. Further, India joined a high-level panel on “Valuing Forest Ecosystems in National Policy and Strategy,” where the delegation shared findings from pilot studies in Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, and tiger reserves.
These studies quantified ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, water provisioning, and biodiversity conservation using frameworks such as the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA). While acknowledging challenges in valuing non-market services, India emphasised the need to integrate ecosystem valuation into national planning for informed forest governance and long-term ecological sustainability, the ministry said.
IANS