Open Natural Ecosystems in India remain legally and administratively invisible despite their ecological significance. Discuss in light of India's recent guide launched at UNCCD COP17.

Open Natural Ecosystems (ONEs) — grasslands, savannas, scrublands and deserts — are non-forest ecosystems that Indian land records still largely label "wastelands". India's release of its first-ever Guide to Grasslands and Other Open Natural Ecosystems at UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar (17–28 August 2026) [1][2] is a belated but significant move to make these landscapes visible.

Ecological and social significance

• Host endemic species ill-served by forest-centric conservation — Great Indian Bustard, blackbuck, Indian wolf, caracal.
• Function as carbon sinks in soil rather than biomass, and as buffers against desertification and drought — the core UNCCD mandate [2].
• Sustain pastoralist and grazing-dependent livelihoods; COP17 coincides with the UN International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) 2026 [2].

Legal invisibility

• No standalone statute protects ONEs; they fall between the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, which safeguards forests, and revenue records that treat open land as unproductive.
• Absent legal recognition, such lands are readily diverted for solar parks, industry and compensatory afforestation, converting native ecosystems into plantations.

Administrative invisibility

• The colonial-era "wasteland" category persists in land-use classification, embedding a productivity bias against open ecosystems.
• Custody is split between revenue, forest and rural development departments, with no nodal authority — a classic Centre–State coordination gap in environmental governance.
• Restoration targets have historically been measured in tree cover, penalising treeless ecosystems.

What the guide changes

• Supplies standard ecological classification and mapping criteria, a precondition for legal and budgetary recognition.
• Aligns domestic practice with UNCCD's Land Degradation Neutrality framework, and signals India as a norm-setter among the Convention's 197 Parties [2], continuing its engagement from COP16, Riyadh [3].

The guide converts a conservation blind spot into a measurable policy category. Its promise, however, rests on translating classification into statutory protection, a dedicated nodal mechanism and restoration metrics beyond tree cover. Anchored in Article 48A's duty to safeguard forests and wildlife and in SDG 15 (Life on Land), recognising ONEs on their own ecological terms is essential to genuine land restoration.