Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav reviewed India's outcomes at the biodiversity and desertification conferences, citing progress on a 26 million hectare restoration target.

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• Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav reviewed India's outcomes at CBD COP17 and UNCCD COP17 at a media briefing on 3 November 2026.
• UNCCD COP17 was hosted by Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar from 17 to 28 August 2026 under the theme "Restoring Land. Restoring Hope".
• India has enhanced its Bonn Challenge commitment to restore 26 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030.
• Yadav said India has so far worked towards restoring around 22 million hectares of land.
• India reported restoring 21.76 million hectares between 2011 and 2020, according to a conference analysis.
• India called for diversified, adequate, predictable and sustained international finance for land restoration and drought resilience.
• It advocated shifting from reactive drought response to long-term drought resilience.
• India supported science-based, community-led restoration of rangelands, treating pastoralists as custodians and partners.
• Yadav cited about 25,000 community-protected sacred groves covering roughly 0.6 million hectares, including Rajasthan's Orans.
• India launched its first Guide to Grasslands and Other Open Natural Ecosystems of India and assumed chairmanship of the Asia-Pacific Regional Group at the conference.
• At CBD COP17 in Yerevan, Armenia, India reiterated commitment to the Kunming-Montreal framework and supported benefit-sharing on digital sequence information through the Cali Fund.
• India also stressed that developed countries must meet their finance obligations for biodiversity implementation.