The UN declaration of 2026 as the International Year for Rangelands and Pastoralists offers India an opportunity to redesign its climate and biodiversity governance. Discuss with reference to India's NDC framework and the rights of pastoral communities.

The UN General Assembly's designation of 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, led by FAO [1], places a long-neglected biome on the multilateral agenda. For India — where grasslands cover roughly a quarter of the landmass yet remain outside climate accounting — this is a timely corrective opportunity.

Why the opportunity is real

• Grasslands store carbon below ground in soil; FAO's first Global Assessment found grasslands hold about 20% of the world's soil organic carbon [2], making them more fire-resilient than forest biomass.
• The IPCC's Special Report on Climate Change and Land ranks soil carbon sequestration in croplands and grasslands among the largest carbon-removal options [3].
• Yet UNFCCC's LULUCF accounting, though formally covering all land classes, is dominated in practice by forestry [4] — a scope-versus-practice gap India can help close.

Redesigning the NDC framework

• Build a grassland soil-carbon MRV baseline (remote sensing plus in-situ sampling) so rangelands enter LULUCF reporting alongside the tree-cover carbon-sink target.
• Scale the phase-wise restoration plan (2025–2034) under India's Green Pathway, which already names grassland rejuvenation beside forest restoration and mine reclamation [5].
• Use the National Mission for a Green India, which explicitly targets non-forest lands and multiple ecosystem services [6], as the delivery vehicle — aligning NDC action with the CBD's 30×30 target.

Rights of pastoral communities

• Grasslands lack a dedicated legal category, often recorded as "revenue wasteland", easing diversion to plantations and solar parks.
• Mobile pastoralists — Van Gujjars, Rebaris, Dhangars — find Forest Rights Act, 2006 claims contested, and forest-routed climate finance bypasses them.
• Recognising grazing commons converts pastoralists from displaced claimants into paid custodians of soil carbon.

Integrating rangelands into the NDC would thus align mitigation, biodiversity and livelihood goals simultaneously. India should use 2026 to notify a grassland restoration mission with community stewardship at its core — advancing both Article 48A's conservation mandate and SDG 15 on life on land.