30 pc ecosystem protection by 2030: India's updated biodiversity action plan explained

New Delhi: India has launched its updated biodiversity action plan, aiming to protect at least 30 percent of its terrestrial, inland water, coastal, and marine areas by 2030. This initiative aligns with global biodiversity targets established at the 16th UN Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Colombia.

National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan

The updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) outlines 23 national targets that correspond with the 23 global goals set under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF). The KM-GBF, adopted at the 15th UN Biodiversity Conference in Canada in 2022, emphasises the necessity to safeguard at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean areas by 2030 while restoring degraded ecosystems, such as forests, wetlands, and rivers, to ensure they continue providing essential resources like clean water and air.

Recognised as one of the 17 megadiverse countries, India became a party to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1994. The country harbours 7-8 percent of the world’s recorded species within just 2.4 percent of the global land area. According to the updated NBSAP, India invested approximately Rs 32,200 crore in biodiversity protection, conservation, and restoration from 2017-2018 to 2021-2022. The projected annual average expenditure for biodiversity conservation through 2029-2030 is estimated to be Rs 81,664.88 crore.

Three Key Areas of Focus

India's biodiversity goals are structured around three main themes:

Reducing Threats to Biodiversity: This theme includes eight targets directly addressing major threats to biodiversity, such as land and sea use changes, pollution, species overuse, climate change, and invasive alien species. The remaining three targets focus on restoring ecosystems, managing species and genetic diversity, and ensuring the legal, sustainable use of wild species.

Meeting People’s Needs through Sustainable Use and Sharing Benefits: This theme encompasses five targets aimed at sustainably managing agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, and forests. These areas are crucial for the livelihoods of rural communities, including farmers, herders, fishers, tribal people, and forest dwellers. The targets also cover the sustainable use of wild species, management of ecosystem services, better access to green spaces for urban residents, fair sharing of biodiversity benefits, and encouraging public support for conservation.

Tools and Solutions for Implementation: This theme includes ten targets focused on integrating biodiversity into broader development goals, promoting sustainable production and consumption, reducing waste, repurposing harmful subsidies, building skills, sharing knowledge, mobilising resources, and supporting inclusive, fair, and gender-responsive planning and decision-making in biodiversity efforts.

Targeting Ecosystem Restoration

Under National Biodiversity Target 3, India aims to expand Protected Areas and Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) to cover 30 percent of the country's landscapes. This target emphasises the crucial role of communities in biodiversity conservation while ensuring sustainable use.

Additionally, India's National Biodiversity Target 2 acknowledges widespread ecosystem degradation and aims for the effective restoration of at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial, inland water, coastal, and marine ecosystems by 2030.

"Agricultural expansion, industrialisation, linear infrastructure development, mining, urbanisation, and other developmental activities, coupled with the overexploitation of natural ecosystems by resource-dependent communities, especially post-independence, have led to large-scale ecosystem degradation, reducing the ecosystem services they once provided. This makes the target a top priority for focused actions," the NBSAP stated.

The NBSAP's Target 16 addresses overconsumption and waste generation as root causes of biodiversity loss. To combat this, India has launched Mission Life to promote the adoption of environmentally friendly lifestyles.

Adopted in 1992 to protect the world's biodiversity, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) requires countries to create an NBSAP, which is a key tool for conserving and sustainably using biodiversity at the national level. Countries are also required to report their progress every four years through national reports.

With PTI inputs