India budgets for mangroves and wetlands

India budgets for mangroves and wetlands

Subject : Environment

Context: India’s 2023-24 budget announces new schemes for mangroves and wetlands.

More on the News:

• India’s finance minister has announced two major programmes – MISHTI, Amrit Dharohar for mangrove plantation and wetlands conservation in the country’s latest annual budget.

MISHTI (Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats & Tangible Incomes)

• MISHTI is a new programme that will facilitate mangrove plantations along India’s coastline and on salt pan lands.
• It will aim at the intensive afforestation of coastal mangrove forests.
• The programme will operate through convergence between MGNREGS, CAMPA Fund and other sources.

Amrit Dharohar Scheme:

• The Amrit Dharohar scheme will be implemented over the next three years to encourage optimal use of wetlands, and enhance biodiversity, carbon stock, eco-tourism opportunities and income generation for local communities.
• The scheme will emphasize on the importance of wetlands and their preservation with an outlook that is inclusive of local communities as caretakers of the ecosystem.

About Mangroves:

• Mangroves are salt-tolerant plant communities found in tropical and subtropical intertidal regions.
• They are important refuges of coastal biodiversity and also act as bio-shields against extreme climatic events.
• Mangrove forests are formed when there is intertidal flow and where adequate sediments are available for the trees to set down roots.
• The tree species that form a mangrove forest or ecosystem are broadly classified as true mangroves and mangroves associates. True mangroves are the ones which display morphological adaptations for a high saline mangrove ecosystem such as pneumatophores, vivipary or crypto vivipary germination and salt-secreting cells.
• India has about 4,992 sq km (0.49 million hectares) of mangroves, according to the Indian State of Forest Report (IFSR) 2021. Mangroves in India are distributed across nine States and three Union Territories with West Bengal having the highest mangrove cover of 2,114 sq km.
• The IFSR report also points out that there has been an increase in the mangrove cover from 4,046 sq km in 1987 to 4,992 sq km in 2021.
• ‘State of World Mangroves 2022’ points out that mangroves are estimated to hold up to four times the amount of carbon as some other ecosystems.
• The loss of even 1% of remaining mangroves could lead to the loss of 0.23 gigatons of CO2 equivalent, equating to over 520 million barrels of oil, the report states
• An initiative like MISHTI is in line with India’s Nationally Determined Contributions announced by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5-3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent, through additional more forest and tree cover by 2030.
• India joined the Mangrove Alliance for Climate, at the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties in Egypt.