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Apr 04, 2022
INDIA-AUSTRALIA TRADE AGREEMENT: ECTA WILL REINFORCE A STRONG GEOECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP
India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement represents a watershed moment in bilateral relations, and a significant turning point for India’s foreign policy – in terms of geo-strategy as well as geo-economics.
History is made in unusual ways and at interesting times
About Desertification
History is made in unusual ways and at interesting times
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Melbourne on November 2014; he was the first Indian PM to visit the city for a bilateral visit since Indira Gandhi.
- Modi’s Australian yatra was unarguably the most important ever made by an Indian PM for its impact on bilateral relations.
- The overarching message was remarkable in its clarity: The millennial long drift in bilateral relations, which began when Australia and India split from the same supercontinent, must now end.
- For the last seven years, almost on every front, the relationship made remarkable strides, but the challenge of economic integration remained elusive.
- As reported in sections of the Australian press, at least the strategic and economic drift will finally be brought to a firm closure because of the personal political heft of the Indian Prime Minister and his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison.
- Both prime ministers will preside virtually over the signing of a bilateral Free Trade Agreement, negotiated in torturous detail over the last decade.
- Fortunately, the agreement will neither be just an “early harvest” of low-hanging fruit nor an interim skeletal FTA as some cynics had predicted, but a deal whose nomenclature and substance seems to bear the firm imprimatur of the prime minister.
- INDAUS ECTA (India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement), reflects PM Modi’s vision of the essential unity of the two countries and of their future being as strong, steadfast and resilient as the mighty Indus.
- While the second phase of the agreement will be in place by the end of the year, the ECTA deal is apparently fully in compliance with WTO rules and Article 24 of GATT which, inter alia, allows countries to grant special treatment to one another by establishing a free-trade association, provided that:
- Duties and other trade restrictions would be eliminated substantially all the trade among the participants.
- The elimination of internal barriers occurred within a reasonable length of time.
- The history of India-Australia free trade negotiations has been one of lost opportunities, missed deadlines and niggardly bureaucrats fighting over trivial details.
- Negotiations for a bilateral Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement began in May 2011. Even then modelling and forecasting by independent agencies in India and Australia demonstrated persuasively that there were absolute gains for both countries, while relative gains expectedly may be asymmetric over sectors. But the negotiations continued in fits and starts, without significant progress or indeed real political direction.
- In June 2020, as part of the Joint Statement after establishing a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, Prime Ministers Morrison and Modi decided to re-engage on a CECA “while suitably considering earlier bilateral discussions, where a mutually agreed way forward can be found.”
- Consequently, at the 17th India-Australia Joint Ministerial Commission meeting in September 2021, CECA negotiations were re-launched and there was “commitment to conclude a CECA, including to reach an interim agreement by December 2021, and to finalise a full CECA by the end of 2022.
- This agreement is a win-win for both sides, and even protectionists and contrarians will be hard put to find fault with it.
- Details of the negotiations, as reported, suggest that the ECTA should give a boost to India’s labour-intensive manufacturing sector, with a considerable leg-up to the pharma, textile, gemstone and jewellery sectors.
- Indian students in Australia will find an easier pathway to employment, and there will be greater ease of visa for a range of skilled human capital from India in demand in Australia, including chefs and yoga instructors.
- Most of the farming and dairy sector seems to have been kept away from the present agreement, given the sensitivities of domestic lobbies, but discerning Indian connoisseurs will be able to sample a Henschke Hill of Grace or a Penfolds Grange at a more affordable price, rather than rely only on the mass-produced Jacob’s Creek wines. No less important, Australian coal will probably get relatively unfettered access to India.
- The ECTA represents a watershed moment in bilateral relations, but also a significant turning point for India’s foreign policy — both in terms of geo-strategy as well as geo-economics.
- India and Australia today represent a partnership with a near complete convergence of interests and values.
- Two multicultural, federal democracies that share concerns about stability in the Indo Pacific, are apprehensive about Chinese hegemonic designs, and are increasingly coordinating their policies, are natural partners of the future.
- On the eve of the summit, the Morrison government invested over USD 280 million to give a fillip to cooperation with India; to further grow its economic relationship and support jobs and businesses in both countries; as well as to empower the Indian diaspora.
- At a time when Cassandras from both sides are busy predicting the demise of the Quad because the central theatre of conflict has moved to Europe, and because of India’s perceived “neutrality” over the war in Ukraine, the ECTA signals that India’s relations with Australia two central pivots of the Quad are as strong and resilient as ever. While Australia is headed for elections in May, the bipartisan consensus on India bodes equally well for the long-term future of the relationship.
- Over the last several months, arguments challenging the constitutionality of the marital rape exception in Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) had gripped the Delhi High Court.
- While the judgment in those petitions is still awaited, in one clean swoop Justice M. Naga Prasanna of the Karnataka High Court, in the case of Hrishikesh Sahoo vs State of Karnataka, pronounced the end of the marital rape exception.
- This judgment was a result of a unique case where a woman had filed a criminal complaint of rape against her husband due to the repeated acts of sexual assault she had to face.
- The police registered her complaint under Section 376 notwithstanding the marital rape exception, a charge sheet was filed and the Sessions Judge took cognisance and framed charges under Section 376.
- The husband filed an application to drop the charge of Section 376 but the Sessions Judge rejected it. This led to the husband approaching the High Court seeking to quash the criminal proceedings.
- In a nuanced and far-reaching judgment, Justice Naga Prasanna refused to quash the charge of rape against the husband.
- He held that if a man, being a husband is exempted for his acts of sexual assault, it would destroy women’s right to equality, which is the very soul of the Constitution.
- He held that the Constitution recognises and grants equal status to women, but the exception to marital rape in the IPC amounts to discrimination because a wife is treated as subordinate to the husband.
- The Constitution considers marriage as an association of equals and does not in any sense depict women to be subordinate to men.
- It guarantees women the fundamental rights under Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 the right to live with dignity, personal liberty, bodily integrity, sexual autonomy, right to reproductive choices, right to privacy, right to freedom of speech and expression.
- He held that the exemption of the husband on committal of such assault/rape cannot be so absolute that it becomes a licence for commission of a crime.
- In provocative words he stated, “a man is a man; an act is an act; rape is a rape, be it performed by a man the “husband” on the woman “wife”, and refused to quash the case.
- There have been other judgments which have already been a precursor to doing away with this exception. In Independent Thought vs Union of India (2017), the Supreme Court of India diluted it and removed the exception to marital rape to a wife not below 15 years and made it 18 years.
- The Court stated that this would not amount to removing the exception to marital rape for women above 18 years as that was not the case before it, but Justice Madan B. Lokur in similar words held, “a rape is a rape. A rape that actually occurs cannot legislatively be simply wished away or legislatively denied as non-existent.”
- The Court held that a girl cannot be treated as a commodity having no say over her body or someone who has no right to deny sexual intercourse to her husband and that the human rights of a girl child are very much alive and kicking whether she is married or not.
- The exception to marital rape in common law was due to the dictum by Chief Justice Matthew Hale of Britain in 1736 where he stated: “But the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract.”
- The concept that by marriage, a woman gave up her body to the husband was accepted as an enduring principle of common law, due to which a husband could not be guilty of raping his wife.
- This was therefore translated into criminal codes, including the Indian Penal Code which India adopted.
- This principle has now been completely abolished. In the United Kingdom, in 1991, the exception to marital rape was done away with in the case of R. vs R. The House of Lords held that where the common law rule no longer even remotely represents what is the true position of a wife in present-day society, the duty of the court is to take steps to alter the rule.
- The court held that a husband’s immunity as expounded by Chief Justice Matthew Hale no longer exists and took the view that the time had arrived when the law should declare that a rapist remains a rapist subject to the criminal law, irrespective of his relationship with his victim.
- It held that it was the duty of the court to remove a common law fiction which had become anachronistic and offensive and that there was no justification for the marital exemption in rape. That was in 1991, more than 30 years ago in the U.K.
- The Karnataka High Court took a similar view of its duties as a constitutional court in the present case and held that the exception to marital rape in Section 375 is regressive, wherein a woman is treated as a subordinate to the husband and against the constitutional guarantee of equality.
- Our courts have now truly pronounced the death knell of the marital rape exception.
- The big wheat exporters Russia and Ukraine are missing from the wheat export market due to war and wheat rates are also higher than MSP being offered by the government.
- With export the government can also fulfil the promise it made to the farming community five years ago almost a year before i.e., in 2017-18 the previous Lok Sabha elections, which led to the formation of BJP government at the centre second time in a row with a clear majority.
- At Mundra and Kandla Ports the wheat was exported at the rate of 2,4,000 to 25,000 per tonnes (2,400 to 2,500 per quintal) till a week ago.
- Both rates are higher than the MSP of wheat being provided by the government which is Rs 2,015 per quintal.
- Experts said that in any case, the rates of wheat will not come down to the level of MSP being offered by the government because there is a huge demand for wheat in the international market currently and farmers can earn Rs 300 to 350 higher than the government MSP.
- According to government reports, India’s export has increased three times from 2020-21 to 2021-22 in one year and for the current fiscal year, the export target is almost double the last year.
- In 2020-21 India’s total wheat export was over 2.1 million tonnes, which had already touched 6.6 million tonnes in February end of this year and touched 7.1 million tonnes in March this year (2021-22 fiscal year) as India exported wheat to Bangla Desh, UAE, Sri Lanka and others.
- And the government has projected wheat exports of 12-13 million tonnes for the 2022-23 fiscal year.
- The experts said that it might even go up to 21 million tonnes because of the huge demand for wheat from the Middle East, African and several South Asian countries.
- As Ukraine and Russia were exporting around 48 million tonnes of wheat, which is 25% of the total wheat export market of the world, to the Middle East, African countries and others and now they are missing from this market which increases wheat demand manifold.
- What is the estimated production of wheat in India this year and what is the government’s wheat procurement target?
- India is expecting to produce around 111 million tonnes of wheat this season against 109 million tonnes last year.
- The harvesting of wheat in this season has already begun in a few states. The government procurement target was 44 million tonnes of MSP including 13 million tonnes from Punjab state itself.
- But the government may not achieve even this target because the increasing prices of wheat in the international market also affect the rate in the local market, where they may sell the crop even at a little higher price Rs 50 to Rs 100 per quintal more than the MSP, leading to less procurement by the government.
- If the government links the price that it pays to the farmers with the price at which the wheat is exported then the farmers will gain much more, adding that the government can get a higher price to the farmers in the international market.
- Government should enhance its procurement target by offering higher MSP to the farmers so that they should not go to the local private player, who will offer little above the MSP and sell or export the same at a higher price later.
- Competitive MSP by the government will increase farmers’ income when the input cost is increasing manifold.
- Only a handful of farmers are having the capacity to export its crop on their own and here Government can play a big role by purchasing them at higher prices and exporting them to needy countries and earning huge foreign exchange thus enhancing the income of its farmers too which will lessen their debt burden too.
- If the farmers got recommended MSP of their crop, there would have no debt on them today, hence the government must utilise this opportunity by exporting farmers’ wheat and getting them a good price.
- The rate of any crop is dependent on both national and international markets. When prices of any crop are low in the international market these impact local markets negatively too and now when prices of wheat are higher in the international market it should benefit the farmers here too and in government has a big role to help farmers by procuring more and more at a competitive rate to export the same, with this farmers’ income will increase and rate of suicides will be decreased.
- Even if one goes by the recommendations of MS Swaminathan and Ramesh Chand Committee on MSP the wheat MSP would have been between Rs. 25,00 to 27,00 per quintal by taking all the factors into account.
- Both countries handled India’s accidental firing of a missile with exceptional restraint.
- An Indian trader sent a consignment of sugar from India to Uzbekistan via Pakistan.
- And following Russia’s Ukraine invasion, Prime Minister Imran Khan praised India’s independent foreign policy.
- Rather than waiting for Pakistan to make up its mind, there is much India can do on its own on the economic front.
- India must focus on economic initiatives to change Pakistan’s long-term behaviour.
- By taking unilateral steps on trade and border infrastructure, New Delhi can start working today to favourably shape tomorrow’s terms of connectivity with Pakistan.
- Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh’s strategy of economic interdependence to soften the India-Pakistan border looks like a distant dream.
- It is difficult to think of a peacetime period when India and Pakistan were less connected than today. New Delhi and Islamabad have exhausted the fuel that drove their engagement in the 2000s. Most of those initiatives now lie in ruin, with connectivity at a 20-year low.
- The World Bank estimates India-Pakistan trade potential to be $37 billion, compared to the actual $2.4 billion in 2017-18.
- This has now further declined to a mere $400 million.
- While the world negotiates supply chains and trade deals to integrate different regions, India and Pakistan have created a commercial abyss that divides South Asia.
- There has been no major investment in border infrastructure for almost 10 years since India opened its first Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari.
- There are now over 60 border crossings with northern and eastern neighbour countries, but only one formal crossing with Pakistan.
- Of the 23 ICPs India plans to build by 2025, none is located on the border with Pakistan.
- Direct travel between both neighbours became virtually impossible even before the pandemic. The stagnation of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation wrecked agreements on motor vehicles connectivity and a joint satellite.
- Plans for an integrated power grid and energy interdependence have fizzled out, including the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.
- Pakistan seems content with this growing connectivity gap. The civilian leadership has avoided any initiative and has let the army handle India.
- Pakistan’s geoeconomic priority now lies towards the north and west, especially through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. From Islamabad’s perspective, there are few incentives to connect with India towards the east.
- Pakistan’s economic disinterest and growing role as China’s proxy pose a regional challenge for India. After two failed attempts, Prime Minister Modi realised the diplomatic futility and domestic costs of reaching out to Islamabad.
- India’s geoeconomic focus is now on the east and south, under the Act East and Neighbourhood First policies. New Delhi’s risk-averse policy has kept Pakistan in the freezer and tried to transcend the region by investing in global and Indo-Pacific partnerships.
- Ignoring or isolating Islamabad has brought some benefits, but this tactic will not work forever.
- India’s rising global ambitions may get bogged down by Pakistan’s appetite to disconnect from South Asia and keep the border as hard and securitised as possible through asymmetric warfare and cyclical crises.
- Actions need to be taken by Delhi even if Islamabad does not reciprocate
- The initiative must not be politically salient at home, in order to limit domestic opposition. This means following the strategic sequencing of the 2000s by not involving Kashmir.
- The measure should offer spillover incentives that target specific Pakistani economic constituencies, especially sectors located in the border regions and industries that would benefit from India as an export market. This includes trade, transportation and labour segments that are hurting from Islamabad’s decision to suspend trade.
- Finally, any non-reciprocated initiative should be promoted diplomatically in order to place the ball in Pakistan’s court.
- This will expose Islamabad to international pressure and call its bluff, for example when its National Security Policy proclaims that “shared economic opportunities are the cornerstone for achieving prosperity in Pakistan and the region.”
- Two unilateral initiatives satisfy these conditions.
- One would be for India to lower import duties on Pakistani goods.
- After the Pulwama attack, Delhi withdrew the Most Favoured Nation status and raised the basic customs duty to 200 per cent.
- Reversing this would send a clear signal, and also put the onus on Islamabad to revise its own decision to suspend trade.
- Trade-intensive sectors would likely mobilise to push Islamabad to reciprocate. This includes the textile industry, which constitutes Pakistan’s largest global export and was heavily dependent on cotton imports from India.
- A second option is for India to unilaterally improve cross-border infrastructure.
- New Delhi should massively finance the development of its last-mile road, rail and air network in the peripheral border areas of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab.
- This will not only spur domestic development but also attract attention from the Pakistani borderland economies.
- New ICPs could be set up along the border at Hussainiwala, Munabao, Suchetgarh or Nadabet. At the cost of approximately Rs 150 crore, each new ICP is a bargain investment in the geoeconomic future of India’s borderlands.
- Trade incentives, border infrastructure or any other such unilateral initiatives are simple, low-cost ways for Delhi to reverse the lost time and rising costs of India-Pakistan disconnectivity.
- Even if they fail to immediately alter Pakistani behaviour, they will still help India reap the benefits of trade and mobility when the sunny day of political normalisation finally arrives.
- The primary focus is to draw attention to the role of groundwater in water and sanitation systems, agriculture, industry, ecosystems, and climate change adaptation.
- Groundwater helps reduce the risk of temporary water shortage and caters to the needs of arid and semiarid regions, but its value has not been fully recognised in policymaking.
- While dependence on groundwater is increasing everywhere, there are serious issues of depletion of stored groundwater and deterioration of quality.
- High temperatures and drought threaten water security.
- Due to its high storage capacity, groundwater is more resilient to the effects of climate change than surface water.
- The international conference on ‘Groundwater, Key to the Sustainable Development Goals’ (May 2022) and the UN-Water Summit on Groundwater (December 2022) are part of global initiatives to highlight the significance of groundwater in sustainable development.
- With an annual groundwater extraction of 248.69 billion cubic meters (2017), India is among the largest users of groundwater in the world.
- Almost 89% of the groundwater extracted is used for irrigation and the rest for domestic and industrial use (9% and 2%).
- According to the Central Ground Water Board, the annual groundwater withdrawal is considered to be safe when the extraction rate is limited to below 70% of the annual replenishable recharge.
- Available data indicate that the level of extraction for the country in 2017 was 63%, from 58% in 2004. However, the level varied across regions.
- Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry have crossed the 70% mark.
- Of 534 districts in 22 States/UTs, 202 districts had stage of extraction ranging from 71% to 385%.
- NITI Aayog has set the 70% extraction value as the target to be achieved by 2030.
- Besides the high level of extraction, quality is also an issue of concern. A quantity-wise safe district may be vulnerable due to deterioration of water quality.
- Fluoride, iron, salinity, nitrate, and arsenic contamination are major problems.
- As many as 335 districts reported nitrate pollution compared to 109 in 2006.
- A high level of nitrate affects human health.
- Source of nitrates are mainly anthropogenic and depend on local actions. Biological contamination has also been reported from different parts of the country.
- The existing approach of dealing with surface water and groundwater independently has severe limitations. As the Mihir Shah Committee (2016) proposed, the Central Water Commission and the Central Ground Water Board could be united and a national water framework with an integrated perspective developed.
- There is also a need to work out local-level plans covering water resources in all its forms: rainwater, surface water, soil water and groundwater and the resource use sectors.
- Groundwater, surface water and the intervening landscape form part of a matrix, and together with the vegetation system they constitute the Critical Zone, where most terrestrial life resides.
- Re-establishing connections between surface and groundwater systems, both for governance and management, entails a local area approach that will involve revisiting the present groundwater estimations process, large-scale aquifer mapping, linking aquifers with river basin/watershed boundaries, hydrogeomorphology analysis, and factoring land uses and human-induced changes in the water system.
- Linking cropping patterns and crop intensity with groundwater availability, aquifer type, and the present state of groundwater extraction at the farm level is imperative.
- At present, there is an energy subsidy for groundwater extraction with little regulation. This encourages farmers to withdraw water at their will.
- There is a larger issue of ownership of community resources in this context. Although groundwater recharging takes place through a geohydrological process and is not confined to administrative or property boundaries, a landowner has the exclusive right to groundwater available in their property.
- A community resource thus turns into a private resource due to the location of extraction site. Re-articulation of the legal framework for groundwater use gains relevance in this context.
- The new paradigm for groundwater management is a socio-ecological challenge, where localism matters. It warrants technical, economic, legal and governance remediation with space for active public participation and community regulatory options to maintain groundwater balance at the village/ watershed level.
- In a bid to keep Indian workers relevant in the job market of Gulf nations, the government is launching a programme to upskill and re-skill overseas workers to cope with requirements in the post-pandemic scene.
- The project, launched at the “Dubai expo”, is aimed at skilling, certification and overseas employment of Indians.
- Tejas is aimed at creating pathways to enable Indian workforce to get equipped for skill and market requirements in UAE.
- This programme has the objective of skilling, providing certification, and employment of Indians overseas. Under this project, 10,000 strong Indian workforces will be created in the UAE during the initial phase of implementation.
- Under the new programme — dubbed Tejas, or Training in Emirate Jobs & Skills — the government has partnered with leading employers in the UAE to “train, certify and place 10,000 Indian workers in a year” and “100,000 across the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region over the next five years”.
- The government has also decided to extend the programme for those who have returned to India during the pandemic, thus giving them an opportunity to return to their employers with new skills.
- The programme, to be converged with existing skill development programmes of the Centre and state governments, will leverage the training infrastructures of the National Skill Development Corporation, ITIs, Indian Institutes of Science, and private and public skill training institutions.
- The Tejas project extends across blue-collar jobs, including electricians, plumbers, multi-skilled technicians, welders, food and beverage service operators, cooks, car/bike riders and the mid-level workforce, which includes IT, finance and healthcare professionals.
- Through pilot project Training in Emirates Job and Skills (TEJAS), the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) is collaborating with top employers working in following sectors:
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- Construction & Allied Sectors
- Information Technology
- Construction, Manufacturing
- Automotive
- Financial Services
- Construction & Allied Sectors
- The Government launched the SWADES (Skilled Workers Arrival Database for Employment Support) scheme which aims to create a database of returning citizens based on their skill sets and experience.
- Tap the Potential of Youth:
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- The youth are the largest stakeholder in both nation building and image building.
- The focus is to skill this population and provide the world with a large skilled workforce from India.
- Tackle the Rising Unemployment:
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- India's unemployment rate reached an all-time high in 2020.
- India’s unemployment rate touched a 7.9% in December 2021.
- There were several factors responsible for this, including the coronavirus pandemic-induced lockdown.
- Potential to contribute in the Economy:
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- According to the World Economic Forum report released in January 2021, investment in upskilling could potentially boost the global economy by USD6.5 trillion by 2030, and India's economy by USD570 billion.
- India had the second-highest additional employment potential through upskilling as it could add 2.3 million jobs by 2030, second only to the US's 2.7 million jobs.
- Unskilled Labour Force:
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- According to the UNDP’s Human Development Report-2020, only 21.1%of the labour force was skilled in the period 2010-2019 in India.
- This dismal result is due to lack of cohesion within policy actions, absence of holistic approach and working in silos.
- India has a youthful population. The youth are the largest stakeholder in both nation building and image building.
- This project will be looking to skill the Indian population overseas thus providing the world with a large workforce from India who is skilled.
- TEJAS project will create a pathway between UAE and India. Through this project’s implementation pathways will be created between India and the UAE enabling the Indian workforce according to the needs of the UAE market.
- The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a political and economic alliance of six countries in the Arabian Peninsula: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
- Established in 1981, the GCC promotes economic, security, cultural and social cooperation between the six states and holds a summit every year to discuss cooperation and regional affairs.
- The Secretariat is located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
- It is a political, economic, social, and regional organisation according to its charter.
About Desertification
- Desertification is defined as land degradation in arid, semiarid, and dry subhumid areas resulting from temporary climatic crises, especially droughts that occur periodically, and harmful human activities in vulnerable ecosystems.
- Desertification has been described as “the greatest environmental challenge of our time” and climate change is making it worse.
- In 1994, the UN established the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) as the “sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management”. The Convention itself was a response to a call at the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to hold negotiations for an international legal agreement on desertification.
- The UNCCD set out a definition of desertification in a treaty adopted by parties in 1994. It states that desertification means “land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities”.
- Animal grazing is a huge problem for many areas that are starting to become desert biomes. If there are too many animals that are overgrazing in certain spots, it makes it difficult for the plants to grow back, which hurts the biome and makes it lose its former green glory.
- When people are looking to move into an area, or they need trees in order to make houses and do other tasks, then they are contributing to the problems related to desertification. Without the plants (especially the trees) around, the rest of the biome cannot thrive.
- Some farmers do not know how to use the land effectively. They may essentially strip the land of everything that it has before moving on to another plot of land. By stripping the soil of its nutrients, desertification becomes more of a reality for the area that is being used for farming.
- The use of excessive amounts of fertilizers and pesticides to maximize their crop yields in the short term often leads to significant damages for the soil.
- In the long run, this may turn from arable into arid land over time, and it will no longer be suitable for farming purposes after a few years of excessive farming since the soil has been damaged too much over time.
- Groundwater is the freshwater found underground and also one of the largest water sources. Over drafting is the process in which groundwater is extracted in excess of the equilibrium yield of the aquifer that is pumping or the excessive pulling up of groundwater from underground aquifers. Its depletion causes desertification.
- Development can cause people to go through and kill plant life. It can also cause issues with the soil due to chemicals and other things that may harm the ground. As areas become more urbanized, there are fewer places for plants to grow, thus causing desertification.
- Climate change plays a huge role in desertification. As the days get warmer and periods of drought become more frequent, desertification becomes more and more eminent.
- Unless climate change is slowed down, huge areas of land will become desert; some of those areas may even become uninhabitable as time goes on.
- If an area of land has natural resources like natural gas, oil, or minerals, people will come and mine it or take it out. This usually strips the soil of nutrients, which in turn kills the plant life, and eventually leads to the process of becoming a desert biome as time goes on.
- There are some cases where the land gets damaged because of natural disasters, including drought. In those cases, there isn’t a lot that people can do except work to try and help rehabilitate the land after it has already been damaged by nature.
- Soil pollution is a significant cause of desertification. Most plants are quite sensitive to their natural living conditions. When soil becomes polluted due to various human activities, the respective area of land may suffer from desertification in the long run. Higher the level of pollution more will be the degradation of soil over time.
- Since our world population is continuously growing, the demand for food and material goods is also increasing at an alarming rate. Our overall level of consumption is also increasing at a steady rate.
- Thus, to fulfil our demand, we have to optimize our farming processes to harvest even higher crop yields. However, this excessive optimization of farming will hurt the soil and will eventually turn into the desertification of land in the long run.
- Mining is another big reason for desertification. Large amounts of resources have to be extracted by industries to meet our demand for material goods. For mining, large areas of land have to be used, which causes deforestation as well as pollution of the nearby areas.
- Desertification affects topsoil, groundwater reserves, surface runoff, human, animal, and plant populations.
- Water scarcity in drylands limits the production of wood, crops, forage, and other services that ecosystems provide to our community.
- The result is declines in crop and livestock productivity, loss of biodiversity, increasing chances of wildfires in certain areas. Naturally, these will have negative impacts on food security and livelihoods, especially in developing countries.
- Desertification often brings with it “a reduction in vegetation cover, so more bare ground, a lack of water, and soil salinisation in irrigated areas”. This also can mean a loss of biodiversity and visible scarring of the landscape through erosion and the formation of gullies following heavy rainfall.
- Degradation can also open the land up to invasive species and those less suitable for grazing livestock.
- The UNCCD estimates that around 12m hectares of productive land are lost to desertification and drought each year. This is an area that could produce 20m tonnes of grain annually. This has a considerable financial impact. In Niger, for example, the costs of degradation caused by land use change amounts to around 11% of its GDP.
- Loss of livestock, reduced crop yields and declining food security are very visible human impacts of desertification.
- Another impact of desertification is an increase in sand and dust storms. These natural phenomena – known variously as “sirocco”, “haboob”, “yellow dust”, “white storms”, and the “harmattan” – occur when strong winds blow loose sand and dirt from bare, dry soils. Research suggests that global annual dust emissions have increased by 25% between the late nineteenth century and today, with climate change and land use change the key drivers.
- Dust storms can have a huge impact on human health, contributing to respiratory disorders such as asthma and pneumonia, cardiovascular issues and skin irritations, as well as polluting open water sources. They can also play havoc with infrastructure, reducing the effectiveness of solar panels and wind turbines by covering them in dust, and causing disruption to roads, railways and airports.
- Dust particles in the atmosphere can scatter incoming radiation from the sun, reducing warming locally at the surface, but increasing it in the air above. They can also affect the formation and lifetimes of clouds, potentially making rainfall less likely and thus reducing moisture in an already dry area.
- Without plant life in an area, flooding is a lot more imminent. Not all deserts are dry; those that are wet could experience a lot of flooding because there is nothing to stop the water from gathering and going all over the place.
- If an area becomes a desert, the water quality is going to become a lot worse than it would have been otherwise. This is because plant life plays a significant role in keeping the water clean and clear; without its presence, it becomes a lot more difficult for you to be able to do that.
- When areas start to become desert, animals and people will go to other areas where they can actually thrive. This causes crowding and overpopulation, which will, in the long run, end up continuing the cycle of desertification that started this whole thing anyway.
- Without food and water, it becomes harder for people to thrive, and they take a lot of time to try and get the things that they need. Further, it will lead to poverty.
- In general, the destruction of habitats and desertification may also contribute to a loss of biodiversity. While some species may be able to adjust to the altered environmental conditions properly, many species will not be able to do so and may suffer from serious declines in population.
- The desertification results in a decline in population for which species may become endangered or even extinct. This problem is especially severe for species that are already endangered as the small number of animals or plants that remains may also die off over time, which may even lead to the extinction of species.
- Limiting global warming is therefore one of the key ways to help put a break on desertification in future.
- Prevention is better – and much cheaper – than cure. Once desertification has occurred it is very challenging to reverse. This is because once the “cascade of degradation processes start, they’re hard to interrupt or halt”.
- Stopping desertification before it starts requires measures to “protect against soil erosion, to prevent vegetation loss, to prevent overgrazing or land mismanagement.
- Sustainable land management practices, which are based on the local socio-economic and ecological condition of an area, help to avoid desertification in the first place but also to reduce ongoing degradation processes.
- Research shows that using traditional knowledge can be particularly beneficial for tackling land degradation.
- If people are using land to get natural resources or they are developing it for people to live on, then the policies that govern them should be ones that will help the land to thrive instead of allowing them to harm the land further. The policy changes could be sweeping or they could be depending on the type of land use at hand.
- In developing countries, education is an incredibly important tool that needs to be utilized in order to help people to understand the best way to use the land that they are farming on. By educating them on sustainable practices, more land will be saved from becoming desert.
- Research is the key to overcome most of our environmental problems, and it applies to desertification also.
- There are some ways that we can go back and rehabilitate the land that we’ve already pushed into desertification; it just takes some investment of time and money.
- The areas that have been subject to deforestation in the past should be considered for reforestation. Planting trees in those areas are quite important since they are natural carbon dioxide storage spaces; they slow down global warming and contribute to maintaining a natural balance.
- National Afforestation and Eco-Development Board (NAEB) is implementing National Afforestation Programme (NAP) for ecological restoration of degraded forests and adjoining areas through people's participation.
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- The scheme is implemented through 3 tier institutional set up of State Forest Development Agency (SFDA) at State level, Forest Development agency (FDA) at Forest Division Level and Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMCs) at village level.
- An amount of 157.78 crore has been released to the States/UTs to treat an area of 37110 hectares during 2018-21 under NAP.
- National Mission for Green India (GIM) aims at protecting, restoring and enhancing India’s forest cover by means of plantation activities in forest and non-forest areas.
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- GIM activities were started in the FY 2015-16. A sum of Rs. 594.28 Crores have been released to fifteen States namely Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur, Mizoram, Odisha, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Sikkim, West Bengal, and one union territory Jammu & Kashmir for creation of plantation over an area of 117503 hectares.
- In the last three years (2018-19 to 2020-21), an amount of Rs 298.10 crore has been sanctioned, out of which Rs. 233.44 crore has been utilized.
- Demand driven action-oriented research work is carried out through projects under National Mission on Himalayan Studies (NMHS).
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- Certain projects include the development of models for land reclamation, soil conservation and watershed management, etc. Rs,10.84 crore was sanctioned under NMHS and the entire amount was utilized in the last three years (2018-19 to 2020-21).
- Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) is implemented under Watershed Development Component of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojna, with objective to develop rainfed and degraded lands.
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- The activities undertaken include, inter-alia, ridge area treatment, drainage line treatment, soil and moisture conservation, rainwater harvesting, nursery raising, pasture development, livelihoods, etc through interventions to ensure sustainable development and improved natural resource management with better resilience to climate change.
- Goal 15 of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), 2030 declares that “we are determined to protect the planet from degradation, including through sustainable consumption and production.”
- The Bonn Challenge has been taken up as per which 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land is expected to be restored by 2020 and around 350 million hectares to be restored by 2030
- In 1994, the UN established the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) as the “sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management”.
- The Convention itself was a response to a call at the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to hold negotiations for an international legal agreement on desertification.
- Apart from this, every year, June 17 is observed as the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.
POSTED ON 04-04-2022 BY ADMIN
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