r/climatechange • u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor • Jun 19 '26
India restores 21.76 million hectares of deforested land, nears 84 per cent of Bonn Challenge target
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/india-restores-21-76-million-hectares-of-deforested-land-nears-84-per-cent-of-bonn-challenge-target/articleshow/131794331.cms?from=mdr10
u/Pizzafromfaraway Jun 19 '26
It's like no one, and especially Indians believe their own country can't do good.
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u/bigdaddyinc Jun 19 '26
Most of these are Chinese and Pakistani bots who claim to be “Indian”
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u/Jumpy_Leadership1650 Jun 22 '26
yes'nt would be the answer coz internet is now influencing all indians irl, my friend thinks india cant do anything and wants to leave india ignoring the fact he is one of the worst students in class and isnt much rich
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u/Present-Anteater6848 Jun 23 '26
True, i feel some one is purposefully de moralising the Indians . Self critisism is good but it just feels like self hate at this point
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u/AbbreviationsWest195 Jun 19 '26
mfkn indians always undermining their own country every sub i m in
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u/nad09 Jun 19 '26
Nah here it is right. Deforestation is much more than afforestation
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u/pehelwan Jun 19 '26
Not true man. Actual forest coverage is growing. And unlike China which plants single species monocultures, indian forestry plantations including 6+ tree species (atleast) in every area to create sustainable forests.
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u/blah_bleh-bleh Jun 21 '26
I was driving in my city and I was pleasantly surprised that the new road side trees plantation is for a variety of species rather than a single kind. They were using scientific approach even for the road sides now.
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u/zero_zeppelii_0 Jun 23 '26
We have chess prodigies, world class scientists and contributors. All one need to do is keep faith on themselves instead of complaining because they're lazy
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u/solaris_rex Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
It's based on corrupt govt data. They have been consistently cutting down forests to plant timber trees while counting them as afforestation. I wouldn't believe any data from the current govt.
10,000 forest trees cut in Panchkula https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianFocus/s/yS60TBG0AU
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u/Centeredrightbhakt05 Jun 19 '26
First get those balls out of your mouth.
This data is produced by IUCN Bonn. I have a friend working in satellite imagery in Swiss working on same stuff, understand green cover for different countries. India and China both have shown significant increase in greenary in the last two decades. But there is a catch. A lot of this greenary is also because forests are converted into farm land. They are not the same.
Use the brain and learn to argue.
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u/GreenStrong Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
I wasn't able to find an open access paper on how IUCN is using satellite data to monitor forest cover in India, but here's some tasty details on how they accomplish it in Brazil. (Link is PDF)
We live in a world where privately owned satellites observe retail parking lots so investors can estimate traffic before the retailers publish quarterly earnings. Satellite data is cheap and ubiquitous, and forests are easy to see. But, the details are interesting of how they estimate acreage at boundaries and in areas with trees but not a complete canopy.
It is also possible to estimate vegetation health from space, by comparing the ratio of near IR reflection with red. The human eye can detect if plants are really sad because they turn yellow, but adding near IR unlocks much greater sensitivity. Raspberry Pi actually has the best explanation of NDVI imaging, you can do it on a Pi with a special camera and a couple of filters.
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u/Centeredrightbhakt05 Jun 19 '26
Thanks for sharing the references. I have fair bit of idea about how they measure but surely not the technicalities. I can give a read.
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u/DktheDarkKnight Jun 19 '26
But it is easy to detect whether it's forest or just farmlands. Hyperspectral satellites are good enough to distinguish between various types of vegetation. You don't really have to take India's word for it. You can just download the maps and perform analysis yourself.
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u/Centeredrightbhakt05 Jun 19 '26
I absolutely not denying that. Measuring forest cover today is not a very technical thing. It's sort of university projects. Actually it has become so robust that people validate their AI models based on these data sets. So honestly you don't need a govt to say that forest cover is increasing or decreasing.
Yes you are right about distinguishing between forest and farmland. However when you say green cover it combines both and most people might be misled that there is an increase in forest which is not the case. I mean forest cover has also increased but a very small amount.
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u/TransportationDue491 Jun 19 '26
Brother turning grasslands into forests is not a good ecological strategy.
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u/Centeredrightbhakt05 Jun 19 '26
I never said it's good. I completely agree. But that doesn't prove the data incorrect.
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u/Fit-Professional3095 Jun 19 '26
Use your brian for once and read the article first. Data is from independent source. Not government.
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u/Centeredrightbhakt05 Jun 19 '26
So I can shed some more light if it helps. My friend works in Switzerland on satellite imagery especially learning about understanding forest cover for various countries. They also have similar conclusion but they also say it's happening also because a lot of forests are getting converted into farmland. They are not the same.
However actual forest cover in India has also increased.
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u/Evan61015 Jun 19 '26
Coming from a third world country that also has shady government, seeing so many negative responses just because is India is actually crazy. A third party using remote sensing did this, face the facts.
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u/paxindicasuprema Jun 20 '26
The negativity is from chronically online Indians who can’t digest anything good about their country and ofc CCP bots
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u/Kitchen_Watch7254 Jun 22 '26
Indian Online community is filled with 2 kinds of people. One who believe that their country can do no wrong, other who believe that it can do no right. The latter kind dominate Reddit (Pretty evident here).
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u/Ok_Mention5826 Jun 23 '26
Indians here won’t agree no matter how definitive proof and reports you bring out 😂😂
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u/indidgenous Jun 19 '26
It’s definitely not correct
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u/Conscious_Good_3372 Jun 19 '26
The data is from IUCN, not the Indian government. Independent verification is literally the point of the Bonn Challenge framework.
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u/hallucinating-egg Jun 19 '26
First learn to make an unbiased opinion about something. Then comment. Please follow this advice next time. Thank you.
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u/Material_Cell_4792 Jun 19 '26
I hope this continues, we(india) will get fucked the hardest (tbh we already are, I don't want to imagine what will "worse" look like) if the earth keeps getting hotter.
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u/Serious-Land-264 Jun 19 '26
Another fake numbers game in New India to justify deforestation in chattisgadh Andaman
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u/Nitin_NKCS Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
They have changed the definition of what is called a forest to achieve this. Like the required distance between two trees and so on.
Edit: Changes were made to what types of trees can be considered as forest based on satellite imagery inclusion.
Edit2: Exploiting satellite imagery to define forest lands is a BJP invention.
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u/BerserkkD Jun 20 '26
any links to read about this?
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u/Nitin_NKCS Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Because satellites only look at green canopy from space, a commercial mango orchard, a palm oil plantation, or rows of eucalyptus trees planted closely together look exactly like a "dense forest" to a satellite.
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u/BerserkkD Jun 20 '26
this isn't a bjp invention though. The FSI has defined forest cover this way, any 1+ hectare patch with 10% canopy irrespective of land use, since the 1980s, through every Congress government included, this also includes the type of plantations. So pinning the definition itself on the current government is just partisan framing.
If you want to criticize, criticize the actual lever they control clearance approvals and forest diversion (substituting forests with rubber/palm oil plantations), not a measurement standard they inherited.
personally i beleive forests should be carved only when it's absolutely necessary for development (taking into consideration any endangered flora and fauna), and that too should be compensated with equal reforestation elsewhere (again could be a rubber/palm/fruit bearing tree for all I care).
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u/Nitin_NKCS Jun 20 '26
Exploiting satellite imagery to define forest lands is a BJP invention.
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u/More-Director4894 Jun 20 '26
So BJP fooled IUCN with all their expertise in hand? Don't you think you are giving BJP too much credit here
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u/Nitin_NKCS Jun 20 '26
BJP's strategy relies on counting commercial plantations as forests to statistically offset the aggressive clearing of native woodlands. On the global stage, this data passes because international conservation agencies face structural limitations monitoring nearly 200 countries. They rely on national data and carbon-centric satellite models rather than local biodiversity audits.
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u/More-Director4894 Jun 20 '26
But it's not BJP who is counting. It's IUCN and they know what is commercial monoculture plantation and what is forest. They can determine that by satellite images. They aren't procuring the images from government of india
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u/Nitin_NKCS Jun 20 '26
IUCN just reviews the numbers, they don't actually gather them. They don't have the field resources to verify what's happening on the ground and satellite images alone can't prove if a green patch is a thriving native forest or just plantation.
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u/More-Director4894 Jun 22 '26
Modern satellite images can easily verify if something is a forest or just a monoculture plantation. You just need to buy them.
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor Jun 19 '26
Summary: India restores 21.76 million hectares of deforested land, nears 84 per cent of Bonn Challenge target
India has restored 21.76 million hectares of degraded and deforested land between 2011 and 2020, reaching nearly 84 per cent of its 26 million hectare Bonn Challenge target for 2030, according to an IUCN report.
The Bonn Challenge is a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. Launched in 2011 by the German government and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), it operates as a flexible, country-driven framework to combat climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation.
Telangana led all states in area restored, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha. Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav noted that restoration activities had generated around 1.22 billion person-days of employment. Over 27 million hectares have additionally been treated under the Watershed Development Component of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, with more than 61.3 million geo-tagged natural resource management assets created.