National Target 7: Areas under agriculture and forestry, including rangeland are managed through the adoption of sustainable management practices, ensuring conservation of biological diversity.

Forestry legislations require all areas under state forest to be strategically guided by sustainable management plans. However, as of now, only 6.4 per cent under Forest Management Units and Working Schemes and 2.2 per cent under community forest have well formulated resource management plans. Although resource allocations for rural uses are also done within the protected areas, the management plans are conservation-centric and lack resource management strategies. The overall impact of the lack of sustainable management plans leaves these areas highly vulnerable to degradation due to factors such as over-extraction of forest resources, land use conversion and overgrazing. Therefore, the progressive inclusion of unmanaged forest areas under a sustainable management regime still remains one of the key challenges. In agriculture, the National Action Plan to Combat Land Degradation addresses unsustainable agricultural practices through appropriate management strategies which are harmonized under this target. Therefore, this target is to focus on strengthening sustainable management practices in the areas under forests and agriculture to ensure the conservation and sustainable utilization of biological diversity.