• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Don’t Attend COP 28 Unless You’re There to Help, Figueres Tells Oil and Gas September 21, 2023
Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote September 20, 2023
Indoor Heat Leaves Canadians Unsafe with ‘No Escape’, CBC Investigation Finds September 20, 2023
Agrivoltaics a Win-Win for Farmers, Communities, Solar Developers, and Alberta’s UCP September 20, 2023
‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak September 19, 2023
Next
Prev

Indian army helps battle climate change

May 30, 2016
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author:

 

Soldiers of the Eco Task Force are playing a key role in forest, soil and water conservation to help India meet emissions reduction targets set at the Paris climate summit.

NEW DELHI, 30 May, 2016 – As part of its effort to improve forest cover and so soak up climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions, the government in India has an unlikely partner – the Indian Army.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

At the UN climate conference in Paris last December, India made enlarging and improving its forest cover a central part of its pledge on fighting climate change.

One of the many agencies – apart from the forest department – the government has recruited to carry out the work of forest improvement is a part of the Indian army known as the Eco Task Force (ETF).

According to India’s Ministry of Defence, units of the ETF have, over the last 30 years, already planted 65 million trees across the country. The ETF is also involved in rehabilitating degraded forests, conserving soils and managing water resources.

Forests act as a vital carbon sink, soaking up quantities of climate-changing carbon dioxide. When forests are destroyed, that stored CO2 is released into the atmosphere, adding to emissions of greenhouse gases and further exacerbating the problem of climate change.

Carbon sink

The total amount of CO2-equivalent at present stored in India’s forests is estimated to be more than 7 billion tonnes. As part of its commitment to meeting the targets put forward in Paris to fight climate change, India plans to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.

Carbon dioxide equivalency is a simplified way to put emissions of various greenhouse gases on a common footing by expressing them in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide that would have the same global warming effect (usually over a century).

Latest statistics contained in the India State of Forest Report 2015 indicate that the country has a total of just over 7 million square kilometres of forest cover – more than 21% of its geographical area. The government says it plans to increase this figure to 33%.

The area has seen a complete transformation,
with degraded forest land now returned
to an area of rich biodiversity”

The ETF is involved in a variety of projects, such as efforts to reclaim forest land polluted by illegal mining activities on the outskirts of New Delhi, the capital.

In the forests of the lower Himalayas near Mussoorie, in the state of Uttarakhand, it is attempting to rehabilitate severely degraded areas of woodland, and near Tezpur in the north-eastern state of Assam – part of the country that has experienced various insurgency outbreaks – it is trying to stop settlers encroaching on protected forest areas.

Assignments follow a similar pattern. In the first year, there is ground preparation and trees are planted. In the second year, a tree count is carried out and dead saplings are replaced. At the end of five years of monitoring developments, the area is handed over to the forest department.

At one ETF site in the Himalayan foothills in the north-east of the country, near the border separating the states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, patches of forest are spread across a landscape dotted mainly with paddy fields and small clusters of houses. Villagers cut trees for firewood, and have also cleared stretches of forest for farming.

But, thanks to the efforts of a battalion of ETF soldiers, the area has seen a complete transformation, with degraded forest land now returned to an area of rich biodiversity.

Land parcels

“The area allotted is not a continuous stretch of land but small land parcels across the district handed over to us one after another,” says Colonel K S Jaggi, the battalion commander.

The land parcels vary in size and condition. The government’s forest department is consulted throughout the rehabilitation process – selecting species to be planted, helping raise awareness among local villagers of the importance of forest conservation, and dealing with flooding and other problems. Forest department personnel also help train the army units in forest conservation and management.

The ETF battalions were established in the early 1980s as part of a scheme to tackle forest problems, particularly in more remote areas, or in parts of the country with law and order problems.

The scheme – jointly implemented by the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change – was the idea of Dr Norman Borlaug, the American Nobel laureate and biologist who is often referred to as the father of the green revolution. The scheme was later taken up by the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi. – Climate News Network

  • Nivedita Khandekar, an independent journalist based in New Delhi, India, writes on environmental, developmental and climate change-related issues. Email: nivedita_him@rediffmail.com; Twitter @nivedita_Him



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
53
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
67
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
34

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

UN Climate Change/flickr

BREAKING: Don’t Attend COP 28 Unless You’re There to Help, Figueres Tells Oil and Gas

September 21, 2023
404
Kristoferb/Wikimedia Commons

Canadians Could Save $10.4B, Cut Climate Pollution by Replacing Central Air with Heat Pumps

August 28, 2023
810
/Piqusels

‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak

September 19, 2023
469
Asurnipal/wikimedia commons

Agrivoltaics a Win-Win for Farmers, Communities, Solar Developers, and Alberta’s UCP

September 20, 2023
171
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote

September 21, 2023
592
Rennett Stowe/flickr

‘I’ve Been Ghosted,’ Rural Mayor Says, as Alberta Towns Push Back on Renewables Moratorium

September 8, 2023
1.9k

Recent Posts

Rewat Wannasuk/Pexels

Virtual Power Plants Could Cut Peak Demand 20%, Save U.S. Grid $10B Per Year

September 20, 2023
95
Jeremy Bezanger/Unsplash

Indoor Heat Leaves Canadians Unsafe with ‘No Escape’, CBC Investigation Finds

September 20, 2023
62
Wesley Fryer/flickr

Smart Thermostats Boost Grid Stability Amid Intense Heat

September 20, 2023
45
Cullen328/wikimedia commons

Manufactured Housing Could Dent the Affordable Housing Crunch with Energy-Efficient Designs

September 20, 2023
120
Mr Renewables/Wikipedia

Californians Fight for New Community Solar Plan

September 20, 2023
106
Plug'n Drive/Wikimedia Commons

Rural Carshares Ensure EV Push Leaves No One Behind

September 20, 2023
39
Next Post

Climate may have defeated Mongol invaders

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
The Energy Mix - Energy Central
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}