India is the seventh largest country in the world having total geographic area of 328.73 Mha, occupying 2.4 per cent of the world's geographical area, supporting over 17 and 18 per cent of world's human and cattle population respectively. These human and animal pressure on land, over-exploitation of soil and water resources, primitive and unsustainable land use, natural calamities have led to severe land degradation.The scale and impact of land degradation and desertification is severe in the country, affecting about 32% and 25% respectively of India’s total land area. Besides, an estimated 41 percent of India’s forest cover has been degraded to some degree in the past several decades.The critical forest ecosystems of India also stands threatened from potential impacts of climate change. These areas are also facing significant threats of degradation due to unsustainable use of land and forest resources. Further, climate change-induced desertification imposes a significant challenge for the poor people inhabiting these areas who lack the capacity to adapt to climate change.

With the decreasing forest cover, increasing habitat fragmentation, lowering of land productivity and diminishing ecosystem services, life is set to become more challenging unless efforts are put in place to improve the sustainable management of ecosystem services.

In this background Sustainable Land and Ecosystem Management Country Partnership Program (SLEM-CPP) had demonstrated integrated approaches to management of production system of the country. ICFRE as Technical Facilitating Organisation for SLEM CPP documented many SLEM best practices to increase sustainability and resilience of dryland production systems.

The World Bank supported Ecosystem Services Improvement project (ESIP) development objective is to strengthen the institutional capacity of the forest department and community organizations to enhance forest ecosystem services and improve the livelihoods of forest dependent communities in the state of Chhatishgarh and Madhya Pradesh. The enhancement of forest ecosystem services would be measured as carbon sequestered and the improvement of livelihoods by the increase in incomes of the forest dependent communities.

ICFRE as ESIP Implementing Agency will be working towards scaling up of Integrated Sustainable Land and Ecosystem Management approaches for reducing land degradation and desertification, capacity building of forest staff and communities, assessment of forest carbon stocks and installing advanced forest carbon monitoring systems. The ESIP in many ways, brings a new and novel approach for addressing some of the challenges in management of ecosystem and land. For example, up scaling locally suitable and acceptable SLEM best Practices, adopting new tools and technologies for better management of natural resources, including biodiversity and carbon assets, and use of advanced monitoring systems.

Thank You                                                                                                      

Sh. Anurag Bhardwaj, IFS