"From drought response to drought resilience." Evaluate India's land restoration commitments under the UNCCD and the role of pastoral communities.

Nearly 30% of India's land was degraded in 2018-19, according to ISRO-SAC's Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas [1]. At UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar (August 2026), India said it would move from drought response to drought resilience [2][3]. The goal is ambitious, but delivery has been uneven.

Strengths of India's commitments

• Scale: India restated its target to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 [2].
• Resilience over relief: the focus moves from relief after a drought to early action and land-water management before it [2].
• Right method: restoration is to be science-based, landscape-specific and community-led [2].
• Grasslands recognised: India launched the Guide to Grasslands and Other Open Natural Ecosystems of India [2]. This pushes back against the habit of treating open land as "wasteland".
• Delivery channels: watershed works under PMKSY, the Green India Mission and soil-water conservation under MGNREGA.

Gaps

• Degradation still rising: each Atlas assessment (2003-05, 2011-13, 2018-19) recorded a larger degraded area [1].
• Weak tracking: there is limited public, hectare-wise reporting of progress on the 26 Mha target.
• Plantation bias: tree-planting drives on grasslands harm grassland wildlife and grazing livestock.
• Finance gap: resilience needs predictable money. India ties this to finance, technology and capacity support from developed countries [2].

Role of pastoral communities

• Custodians, not beneficiaries: India called pastoralists custodians of rangelands and partners in restoring them [2]. COP17 itself was built around rangelands and pastoralists [3].
• Traditional knowledge: seasonal migration by groups such as the Raikas, Maldharis and Gaddis rests the land. Rajasthan's community-protected orans (sacred groves) keep grazing in check.
• Constraints: common grazing land is shrinking, encroached on or diverted. The Forest Rights Act, 2006 recognises community grazing rights, but implementation is patchy.

Drought RESPONSE                      Drought RESILIENCE
relief after crisis      ──────▶      early warning + restored land
state-led, short-term                 community-led, long-term

Fig: India's stated shift at UNCCD COP17

Overall, India's UNCCD commitments are credible in intent and method, but results on the ground lag behind. The way forward is to secure grazing commons legally, bring pastoralists into restoration planning and monitoring, and report progress on the 26 Mha target openly. Doing so would make drought resilience real and advance SDG 15.3 on land degradation neutrality.