How India’s National Biodiversity Strategy Addresses Conservation

India is one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries, home to roughly 7-8% of all recorded species on just 2.4% of the global land area. Protecting this extraordinary biological wealth requires more than goodwill – it demands a structured national plan. That is exactly what the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) provides. Mandated by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the NBSAP serves as India’s official roadmap for conserving ecosystems, sustainably using biological resources, and sharing the benefits of biodiversity fairly among communities.

Origins and purpose of the strategy
Key components of the action plan
Reducing threats to biodiversity
Meeting people’s needs through sustainable use
Tools and solutions for implementation
Role of central and local governments
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC)
The three-tier institutional structure
Outcomes and future directions
What lies ahead

Origins and purpose of the strategy

The story of India’s NBSAP begins with the Convention on Biological Diversity, an international treaty that came into force in 1993. India became a party to the CBD in 1994, and Article 6 of the Convention requires every signatory nation to develop a national strategy for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. This is not optional – it is a binding commitment that each country must tailor to its own ecological circumstances and development priorities.

India prepared its first national biodiversity action plan in 1999, titled the “National Policy and Macro Level Action Strategy on Biodiversity.” This was followed by a Global Environment Facility (GEF) project from 2000 to 2003 that brought wider stakeholder participation into the planning process. The formal National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP) was then published in 2008 and refined in 2014 to align with the Aichi Biodiversity Targets set during the CBD’s 2010 meeting in Nagoya, Japan.

The most recent and significant update came in October 2024, when India released its updated NBSAP for 2024-2030 at COP 16 in Cali, Colombia. This version aligns with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), which was adopted at COP 15 in 2022. The KMGBF sets out four overarching goals and 23 action-oriented global targets, all of which need to be achieved by 2030, with a longer-term vision of living in harmony with nature by 2050.

The core purpose of the NBSAP is threefold: conserve biological diversity, promote the sustainable use of biological resources, and ensure the equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources. In practical terms, this means protecting threatened habitats, managing natural resources responsibly, and making sure local communities – especially indigenous and tribal groups – benefit from the biological wealth found in their regions.

Key components of the action plan

The updated NBSAP sets out 23 National Biodiversity Targets (NBTs) organized under three broad thematic areas. Each target is accompanied by specific strategies and actionable steps to guide implementation across different sectors and levels of governance.

Reducing threats to biodiversity

The first theme contains eight targets that directly address the primary drivers of biodiversity loss. Five of these focus on land and sea use changes, pollution, overexploitation of species, climate change impacts, and the spread of invasive alien species. The remaining three deal with ecosystem restoration, management of species and genetic diversity, and the legal and sustainable use of wild species.

A standout commitment under this theme is National Biodiversity Target 3, which aims to expand protected areas and Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) to cover 30% of India’s terrestrial, inland water, and coastal marine areas by 2030. This is India’s version of the widely discussed “30 by 30” global target. The plan also sets Target 2, which commits to restoring at least 30% of degraded terrestrial, inland water, coastal, and marine ecosystems by the same deadline.

The NBSAP explicitly acknowledges that agricultural expansion, industrialisation, mining, urbanisation, and overexploitation of natural ecosystems – particularly since independence – have caused large-scale ecosystem degradation, reducing the ecological services these areas once provided. This honest assessment makes ecosystem restoration one of the highest-priority areas for focused action.

Meeting people’s needs through sustainable use

The second theme includes five targets centered on the sustainable management of agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, and forestry. These are the sectors that millions of rural Indians – farmers, herders, fisherfolk, and tribal communities – depend on for their livelihoods. The NBSAP recognizes that conservation cannot succeed if it ignores the people who live closest to the biodiversity being protected.

Specific strategies under this theme promote sustainable agricultural practices, the conservation of agrobiodiversity (including traditional crop varieties and indigenous livestock breeds), and the fair sharing of benefits derived from biological resources. The plan also highlights the importance of improving access to green and blue spaces in urban areas, which directly enhances quality of life for city residents.

Tools and solutions for implementation

The third theme is the broadest, covering ten targets that deal with mainstreaming biodiversity into national development goals, promoting sustainable production and consumption, reducing waste, reallocating harmful subsidies, building institutional capacity, mobilizing financial resources, and fostering inclusive governance. A key element here is Target 16, which specifically addresses overconsumption and waste generation as root causes of biodiversity loss.

The plan also includes a detailed Biodiversity Finance Plan. According to the NBSAP, India spent approximately ₹32,200 crore on biodiversity protection, conservation, and restoration between 2017-2018 and 2021-2022. The projected annual average financial requirement for the period through 2029-2030 is estimated at ₹81,664.88 crore. Proposed funding mechanisms include augmenting public finance, corporate social responsibility contributions, ecological fiscal transfers, and strengthening access and benefit-sharing (ABS) agreements.

Role of central and local governments

One of the NBSAP’s defining features is its multi-tier governance structure, which ensures that conservation is not just a top-down directive but a collaborative effort reaching down to the village level.

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC)

The MoEFCC is the central agency responsible for coordinating all biodiversity conservation efforts across India. It formulates national environmental policies, oversees enforcement of laws like the Biological Diversity Act (2002), the Forest Conservation Act (1980), and the Wildlife Protection Act (1972), and represents India in international forums such as CBD meetings. The MoEFCC led the consultative process behind the updated NBSAP, bringing together 23 central ministries, multiple departments, state-level organizations, communities, NGOs, and international bodies.

The updated NBSAP was developed using a “Whole-of-Government” and “Whole-of-Society” approach. This means that biodiversity is not treated as the concern of one ministry alone – it is integrated across sectors including agriculture, water resources, urban planning, trade, and finance.

The three-tier institutional structure

India’s Biological Diversity Act, 2002 established a three-level institutional framework for biodiversity governance:

National Biodiversity Authority (NBA): Based in Chennai, the NBA operates at the national level. It regulates access to biological resources by foreign entities, advises the central government on biodiversity conservation, and coordinates with State Biodiversity Boards. The NBA also manages the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) mechanism, which ensures that when companies or researchers use India’s biological resources, a fair share of the benefits flows back to local communities.

State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs): Each state and union territory has its own biodiversity board that implements national policies at the state level. SBBs regulate activities by Indian entities regarding biological resources, advise state governments, and coordinate with local bodies to ensure conservation targets are met.

Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs): These are the grassroots-level bodies, constituted by every local body – panchayat, municipality, or town council – under Section 41 of the Biological Diversity Act. BMCs are responsible for promoting conservation, sustainable use, and documentation of biodiversity within their jurisdictions. Their most important function is the preparation of People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBRs), which document local flora, fauna, traditional knowledge, and community practices related to biological resources. Each BMC must include women and members from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, ensuring representation of marginalized groups.

This bottom-up structure is critical because biodiversity conservation ultimately depends on local action. BMCs facilitate community consent for access to biological resources, document indigenous knowledge, and serve as the interface between local people and the formal governance system. Over 400 access and benefit-sharing agreements have been signed between local communities and resource users, generating significant revenue for state biodiversity funds.

Outcomes and future directions

India has made measurable progress in biodiversity conservation over the past two decades. The country’s forest cover has shown improvement, its network of protected areas has expanded, and several species-specific recovery programmes – for tigers, elephants, rhinos, and Asiatic lions, among others – have yielded positive results. The creation of thousands of BMCs and the documentation of biodiversity through PBRs have significantly strengthened community-level participation in conservation.

Financial commitment has also grown. India is recognized as one of the leading countries in the implementation of the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN), a global partnership launched by UNDP and the European Commission to support countries in managing their biodiversity finances more effectively.

However, significant challenges remain. Funding gaps between current expenditure and the projected requirement are substantial. Policy fragmentation across sectors sometimes leads to conflicting priorities – for instance, infrastructure development projects can directly conflict with habitat conservation goals. Climate change adds another layer of complexity, altering ecosystems faster than conservation plans can adapt. Public awareness about biodiversity, while improving, still falls short of what is needed for widespread behavioural change.

What lies ahead

The updated NBSAP charts a clear path forward. Key future directions include strengthening legal enforcement, expanding the network of protected areas and OECMs, scaling up ecosystem restoration across degraded landscapes, building wildlife corridors to reduce habitat fragmentation, and deepening the integration of biodiversity considerations into economic planning. The plan also emphasizes the development of sustainable agricultural and forestry practices, a Gender Action Plan to include women in conservation decision-making, and greater investment in scientific research and traditional knowledge systems.

India’s Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) initiative is another important element, encouraging citizens to adopt sustainable consumption patterns that reduce pressure on natural ecosystems. The NBSAP also stresses the importance of adaptive management – using real-time monitoring data to adjust strategies as conditions change, rather than rigidly following a fixed plan.

Ultimately, the success of the NBSAP depends on sustained political commitment, adequate funding, inter-sectoral coordination, and – most importantly – the active participation of local communities who are both the custodians and beneficiaries of India’s biodiversity.

What do you think? Can a governance framework that depends on village-level committees realistically achieve national-scale conservation targets? And with the projected funding gap in the hundreds of crores, how should India prioritize its spending across the 23 biodiversity targets?

References

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Table of Contents

Origins and purpose of the strategy 🔗

Key components of the action plan 🔗

Reducing threats to biodiversity 🔗

Meeting people’s needs through sustainable use 🔗

Tools and solutions for implementation 🔗

Role of central and local governments 🔗

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) 🔗

The three-tier institutional structure 🔗

Outcomes and future directions 🔗

What lies ahead 🔗