National Missions
The National Mission for a Green India or the commonly called Green India Mission (GIM), is one of the eight Missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). It was launched in February, 2014 with the objective to safeguard the biological resources of our nation and associated livelihoods against the peril of adverse climate change and to recognise the vital impact of forestry on ecological sustainability, biodiversity conservation and food-, water- and livelihood-security. It aims at protecting, restoring and enhancing India’s diminishing forest cover and responding to climate change through adaptation and mitigation measures. It envisages a holistic view of greening that extends beyond tree planting. GIM focusses on multiple ecosystem services such as biodiversity, water, biomass, preserving mangroves, wetlands, critical habitats etc. along with carbon sequestration.
The Mission would strive for enhancing carbon sinks in sustainably managed forests and other ecosystems, adaptation of vulnerable species/ecosystems to the changing climate and adaptation of forest-dependent communities. The goals include increased forest/tree cover and improved quality of forest cover in millions of hectares of forest/non-forest lands, improved ecosystem services including biodiversity, carbon sequestration and hydrological services along with provisioning services like fuel, fodder, and timber and non-timber forest produces and increased forest-based livelihood income of households living in and around forests. Traditional Ecological Knowledge of communities, along with forestry science and state-of-the-art technology would improve the Mission interventions.
GIM also aims at convergence with complementary schemes and programmes for better coordination in developing forests and their fringe areas in a holistic and sustainable way, which is required to address the challenges being faced in environment, forest and wildlife sectors. A multidisciplinary team, both from Govt. and NGOs will be mandated to facilitate planning and implementation at cluster/landscape unit level. The Mission's emphasis on the landscape approach i.e. landscapes as large contiguous areas of forest/ non forest land, at different scale/levels provide better opportunity to meet targets for both National and State Forest policy. An integrated cross-sectoral approach would be implemented on both public as well as private lands with the involvement of grass root level organizations and local communities in planning, decision making, implementation and monitoring. Moreover, GIM would take into account the forces of de-greening operating across the country and thereby give special emphasis to relate to processes that halt ‘de-greening’.