Climate change, more greenhouse gas emissions, and global warming have contributed to an increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters worldwide. At a time when the world is already grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, a range of disasters worldwide have made matters worse for the poor and vulnerable, particularly in the developing countries. In India, cyclones such as Amphan have shown how overlapping disasters can take a heavy toll on those living below the poverty line.

This month, through our cover story titled, ‘India’s Tryst with Natural Disasters’ we highlight the growth of disaster response and its evolution in India over the years. In the first few decades since Independence, disaster response in India was usually concerned with relief and rehabilitation during the post-disaster period.  It was after the 1999 Odisha super cyclone and the 2001 Bhuj earthquake that disaster management in India came into maturity. But, in spite of the government’s current emphasis on disaster mitigation, a holistic approach to disasters should be adopted by all stakeholders. There is also an urgent need to incorporate the latest technology to mitigate disasters, as was clearly established in India’s handling of cyclones. The Web Flood Risk Information System (WebFRIS), a flood risk information system developed for the first time ever in India, at  IIT Mumbai, can provide precious ground-level information in a simplified form to a wide audience. This can prove enormously helpful for both government bodies and local citizens. Disaster mitigation demands striking at the root causes behind natural disasters, and learning from past experience.

The feature story this month talks about integrating ecosystem restoration and the SDGs together. Ecosystem restoration is defined as “a process of reversing the degradation of ecosystems, such as landscapes, lakes and oceans to regain their ecological functionality; to improve the productivity and capacity of ecosystems to meet the needs of society. This can be done by allowing the natural regeneration of overexploited ecosystems or by planting trees and other plants” (UNEP, 2019). Restoration responses are quite diverse depending on the type of ecosystem in which they are to be applied (croplands, forests, wetlands, etc.). The degradation of land and marine ecosystems undermines the well-being of 3.2 billion people all over the world and costs about 10 per cent of the annual global gross product in loss of species and ecosystems services. To reverse this, The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2021–2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The Decade, a global call to action, will draw together political support, scientific research and financial help to massively scale up restoration from successful pilot initiatives to areas of millions of hectares. Research shows that more than two billion hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded landscapes offer potential for restoration.