The National Mission for a Green India/Green India Mission is one of the eight Missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). The Mission recognizes that climate change phenomena will seriously affect and alter the distribution, type, and quality of natural resources of the country and the associated livelihoods of the people.
Mission Aim
- Respond to climate change by a combination of adaptation and mitigation measures, which would help:
- Enhancing carbon sinks in sustainably managed forests and other ecosystems
- Adaptation of vulnerable species/ecosystems to the changing climate and
- Adaptation of forest-dependent local communities in the face of climatic variability.
Mission Objectives
- Increased forest/tree cover on 5 m ha of forest/non-forest lands and improved quality of forest cover on another 5 m ha (a total of 10 m ha)
- Improved ecosystem services including biodiversity, hydrological services, and carbon sequestration as a result of treatment of 10 m ha.
- Increased forest-based livelihood income for 3 million forest-dependent households
- Enhanced annual CO2 sequestration of 50-60 million tonnes by the year 2020
Key innovations:
- Focus on quality of forests: Primary focus on improving the density of forest cover
- Focus on ecosystem services: Emphasis on biodiversity, water, and improved biomass – Carbon sequestration as co-benefit – Addressing ecosystems like grasslands, wetlands, urban and peri-urban
- Focus on democratic decentralization: Gram Sabha as an overarching institution to facilitate the implementation of the Mission activities at the village level, nested as Polycentric Approach, not one size fits all.
- Creating a new cadre of Community Youth as Foresters: Build a skilled cadre of young “community foresters” from scheduled tribes and other forest-dwelling communities
- Adoption of Landscape-based Approach: Interventions at scale (5000-6000 hectares) at a time – Simultaneous treatment of forest and non-forest areas – Addressing key drivers of degradation
