India presented its updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan in Cali, Colombia during the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity on October 30. In doing so, India joined several other countries in aligning its biodiversity strategy with global goals and targets for 2030 and 2050.

The National Biodiversity Plan (NBSAP) seeks to integrate biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use into national decision making. India’s NBSAP was last updated in 2014. The latest update has been at least a year in the making, when the government formed a working group in 2023 to hold consultations with stakeholders and come up with a draft plan.

The 200-page plan takes a “whole of government, whole of society” approach, according to Kirti Vardhan Singh, minister of state of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. “Our commitment and actions will go a long way in advancing the objectives of the Convention on Biodiversity,” he said in a statement.

The 23 targets and goals in the latest national plan align with broader targets set by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, an agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss that was adopted by countries in 2022. Putting the plan into action is projected to cost an average of Rs. 81,664 crores (Rs. 816 billion) per year between 2024-2025 and 2029-2030, split across 23 ministries and departments within government.

“It is good that India has nationalised these targets, but the implementation of any plan hinges on how much buy-in there is from a broader ecosystem that goes beyond government institutions and technical experts. The extent of that buy-in is still unclear,” said Kanchi Kohli, an independent researcher on environmental policy, who contributed to the drafting process of India’s first biodiversity plan.

Managing India’s ecosystems

The national plan’s targets span three broad areas – reducing threats to biodiversity, meeting people’s needs through sustainable use and benefit sharing, and tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming. The plan lists area-based conservation and agrobiodiversity as strengths, noting that India has 22 agrobiodiversity hotspots and developed more than 168 different crop varieties. “However, conservation of wetlands, coastal and marine ecosystems, genetic diversity and biosafety, participatory approaches, eco-development, communication and public awareness are some of the priority areas that need urgent attention,” the plan says.

The plan commits India to making sure that by 2030, at least 30 percent of “prioritised” areas which are degraded terrestrial, inland water, marine and coastal ecosystems, “are under effective restoration in order to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, ecological integrity and connectivity.”

The plan also calls for the “effective” conservation of biologically diverse and important ecosystems “through ecologically representative, well-connected protected areas and Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Methods (OECMs),” while integrating tribal areas and respecting the rights of local communities. OECMs are landscapes that lie outside Protected Areas but deliver long-term biodiversity conservation. India has begun documenting OECMs and found areas that are conserved by private actors, local communities, individuals and government agencies.

According to Kohli, indicators tracking the plan’s implementation don’t necessitate inclusivity as an approach to achieve the targets, particularly when it comes to the custodians of biodiversity “The primary actors for action are government and scientific institutions. The question is, are these targets achievable without a greater diversity of actors? Without that, they will be recipients of implementation, rather than partners.”

Over 20% of the country’s geographical area is under biodiversity conservation, according to a national report submitted to the UNCBD. C.R. Babu, professor emeritus at the Centre for Environment Management of Degraded Ecosystems at Delhi University, said special attention needs to be given to the management of alien invasive plant species that are impacting native biodiversity. “Conservation is still linked to afforestation and managing green cover, trees outside forests, and forest cover. But native species in our forests are being replaced by invasive species in some areas. This needs to be addressed by the government in mission mode,” he said.

Other targets in the updated plan include managing the sustainable use of wild species, increasing and improving sharing of benefits arising from access to biological resources and traditional knowledge, and encouraging businesses to disclose their dependence and impacts on biodiversity.

Updated targets

The updated NBSAPs and Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework succeed the Aichi targets, a set of 20 targets that informed global policy actions and which were active till 2020. A study assessing the achievement of the Aichi targets among a section of parties found, however, that countries had set ambiguous benchmarks that didn’t necessarily align with their goals. Experts also criticised the Aichi targets for being unquantifiable and without proper metrics.

Even though the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework offers a wider set of indicators, progress is still slow. The KMGBF was adopted by 196 countries in 2022, with the expectation that countries update their national plans in line with the higher ambition presented in the KMBGF. According to an analysis by Carbon Brief, however, only 44 countries (including India) had submitted an updated national plan by the end of the COP16 on November 2.

Banner image: Common tiger butterfly. Image by P. L. Tandon via Flickr [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0].

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Aditi Tandon Senior Production Editor

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