Webinar on the Restoration Opportunities Atlas for India

WRI India recently launched the Restoration Opportunities Atlas for India, an interactive and web-based platform that can enable strategic planning for forest protection and landscape restoration in the country. The Restoration Opportunities Atlas brings together fragmented data, and through rigorous analysis, answers three questions:

• Where can forest and tree cover be protected and increased, and how much carbon sequestration will this result in?

• Which tree-based restoration interventions have been implemented in different states? Who are the principal actors who have implemented these projects?

• What necessary enabling conditions need to be in place and what risks addressed to ensure achievement of protection and restoration goals?

Key highlights from the Atlas include restoration opportunity in nearly 140 million hectares (Mha) where forests can be protected, near contiguous forest and tree cover can be established through wide-scale restoration, and where trees can be integrated into different land uses through mosaic restoration. The Atlas estimates that forest protection and landscape restoration can sequester between 3 to 4.3 billion tons of carbon by 2040 through above-ground biomass alone. Furthermore, improving forest and tree cover can deliver critical co-benefits. Interventions in protection and wide-scale restoration areas, for instance, could be key for supporting the sustenance and livelihoods of nearly 275 million forest dependent population. In rainfed cultivated areas, agroforestry interventions can improve the productivity of land and diversify livelihood opportunities of dependent farmers, particularly small land holders and women. As India develops roadmap for achieving the NDC and SDGs, the Atlas could help policy makers and funders prioritise areas for climate action as well as plan actionable pathways for achieving climate and social goals.

Download the brochure, technical note and state level reports here. Podcast on the atlas is available here.