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he world is a India and overlaps with over 35 per cent since 2000 we thought it was due to
greener place croplands world-wide. mostly owing to an increase a warmer, wetter climate
than it was 20 China, according to the in harvested area through and fertilization from the
years ago. And, report, alone accounts for multiple cropping facilitated added carbon dioxide in
T according to a lat- 25 per cent of the global net by fertiliser use and sur- the atmosphere, said Rama
est report, India and China increase in leaf area with face- and/or groundwater Nemani, a research scientist
are leading the global green- only 6.6 per cent of global irrigation. at NASA’s Ames Research
ing effort from the front. The vegetated area. The green- When the greening of Center and a co-author of
development may sound ing in China is from forests the Earth was first observed, the study. This study was
contrary to the general made possible thanks to
perception worldwide but World is a bit a two-decade-long data
the NASA study based on record from the Moder-
data received and analysed ate Resolution Imaging
from its satellite support it. greener place noW Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
“China and India account instruments on NASA’s
for one-third of the green- Terra and Aqua satellites.
ing but contain only 9 per India and China are leading the global greening Now with the MODIS data,
cent of the planet’s land area we see that humans are also
covered in vegetation,” said effort from the front, finds Tehelka Bureau contributing, she said.

Chi Chen of Boston Univer- (42 per cent) and croplands China and India Observing that once
sity, lead author of the study. (32 per cent), but in India it is people realise there is a
“That is a surprising finding, mostly from croplands (82 account for problem, they tend to fix it,
considering the general percent) with minor contri- one-third of Nemani said in the 1970s
notion of land degradation bution from forests (4.4 per and 80s in India and China,
in populous countries from cent), the NASA study said. the greening the situation around vegeta-
over exploitation,” he said. China is engineering but contain tion loss was not good. In the
The study published on ambitious programmes to 1990s, people realized it, and
February 11, in the journal conserve and expand forests only 9% of the today things have improved.
Nature Sustainability said with the goal of mitigating planet’s land Humans are incredibly re-
that recent satellite data land degradation, air pol- silient. That’s what we see in
(2000 2017) reveal a green- lution and climate change. area covered in the satellite data, she said.
ing pattern that is strikingly Food production in China
prominent in China and and India has increased by vegetation letters@tehelka.com

Tehelka / 28 february 2019 58 www.Tehelka.com