2021-2030 has been declared as the decade for Ecosystem Restoration, and there has been a lot of momentum toward restoring degraded habitats, across the world and in India. In the United Nations SDGs, Goal 13 on Climate action and Goal 16- Life on Land, both point towards restoration as an important objective and means in making a positive impact. In India’s Nationally Determined Contributions as well, India has committed to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.
Given these commitments, it would be imperative for the nation to plant native flora to achieve its targets. As native flora is far more resilient than exotic trees, which are not used to the climatic vagaries compounded by climate change. The base material for any ecological restoration project is having suitable plants of that ecology available for planting. Even then, there is an acute shortage of native plants available for planting. One of the major challenges in propagating native species is a knowledge gap and the lack of native plant nurseries in India.
Since India has a vast diversity of species, it is essential for projects to propagate and grow their own native plant species in their own nurseries, till the time native plant nurseries become accessible and have sufficient stock. Therefore, germination protocols are one of the key pieces of information essential for anyone who is interested in starting restoration work in forest ecosystems that are in a degraded state.
Over the past year the ERA has been gathering information on germination protocols from across the network in a series of workshops with its members. This work has now been collated and there are now 300 species for which germination protocols have been recorded. This project seeks to build upon this initial work and expand the database to over 800 species over the next 3 years.
It will also build educational and information resources to support people who wish to start their own native plant nurseries. This is probably the only platform where germination techniques for species across ecoregions will be made publically available. This is a foundational element for the ecological restoration movement in India as such practices are not documented, and this limits the creation of native plant nurseries as well.
You are invited to volunteer to build on the database by contributing germination techniques of native plants that you have used in your practice. Please fill in this form, to get involved in the project.
Image Credit: Sapling of Aquilaria agallocha in rainforest plant nursery, Seijosa, Arunachal Pradesh, Rohit Naniwadekar, CC BY-SA 4.0