Destroyed old grasslands take over a century to recover, PNAS study finds; ecologist seeks restoration programme

The news

A new global study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) finds that grasslands which grew for millennia almost never regenerate the same way once destroyed, at least for a century, The Hindu reports. Researchers, including one at IISER Pune, compared 742 plant species from Indian, Australian and Brazilian savannas and the US prairies. “Secondary” grasslands that regrow have taller, less resource-conserving plants, fewer species and non-native weedy annuals, because soil nutrients and pH have changed. Grasslands store about one-third of Earth’s land carbon yet are often called “wastelands”. Ornithologist Asad Rahmani says restoration still works partly: in Solapur it brought back the bustard, in Kutch the lesser florican, and in Assam’s Orang grasslands the pygmy hog. He seeks a National Grassland Restoration Programme and a National Grazing Policy, noting India holds 15% of the world’s livestock on 4% of its surface area.

Static syllabus linkage

1. ‘Wasteland’ is an administrative label. The Wastelands Atlas of India, prepared by the Department of Land Resources with the National Remote Sensing Centre, maps categories that include degraded pastures and scrub. Open grassland and savanna thus often appear as land to be ‘developed’. India pledged under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 towards land degradation neutrality.
2. Grassland birds are in the courts. The Great Indian Bustard is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN and in Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. In M.K. Ranjitsinh v Union of India the Supreme Court first ordered overhead power lines in bustard habitat in Rajasthan and Gujarat to go underground (2021), then in 2024 modified that order and recognised a right against the adverse effects of climate change under Articles 14 and 21.

Why UPSC loves this

1. Ecosystem questions are moving beyond forests. GS3 covers “Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation”, and GS1 “distribution of key natural resources”. The United Nations has declared 2026 the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, making grasslands an obvious theme this year.

Analysis

1. Lens — Development and environment: a grassland is not empty land waiting for a project. Solar parks and plantations go to grasslands because the land is flat, cheap and officially ‘waste’. The PNAS finding changes the arithmetic: the loss is permanent on any policy timescale. A thoughtful officer would place renewable energy on genuinely degraded land, rooftops and canal tops first, and require a grassland impact screen before allotting open land.
2. Tree-planting can harm a grassland as much as a mine. Afforestation targets reward planting trees, and grasslands are the easiest place to plant them. But trees shade out grasses and shelter predators of ground-nesting birds, and counting carbon only in trees ignores grassland soils. The counter-view: some grasslands are degraded forest, so classification must be site-specific.
3. Restoration is partial, so protection must come first. Rahmani’s examples show wildlife can return to restored grassland, but the study shows the original plant community does not. The long-term choice is to protect remaining old grasslands through a clear legal category and a grazing policy that treats pastoralists as managers rather than encroachers.

Administrator's brainstorm