Why in news? India currently hosts 17% of the planet’s human population and 17% of the global area in biodiversity hotspots, placing it at the helm to guide the planet in becoming biodiversity champions.

Highlights

• The importance of our planet’s biodiversity was strongly articulated at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, Canada.
• 188 country representatives adopted an agreement to “halt and reverse” biodiversity loss by conserving 30% of the world’s land and 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, known as the 30×30 pledge.

What are the Potential programmes from Government of India ?

• Union Budget 2023 mentioned “Green Growth” as one of the seven priorities or Saptarishis.
• The National Mission for a Green India aims to increase forest cover on degraded lands and protect existing forested lands.
• The Green Credit Programme has the objective to “incentivize environmentally sustainable and responsive actions by companies, individuals and local bodies”.
• The Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats & Tangible Incomes (MISHTI) is particularly significant because of the extraordinary importance of mangroves and coastal ecosystems in mitigating climate change.
• The Prime Minister Programme for Restoration, Awareness, Nourishment, and Amelioration of Mother Earth (PM-PRANAM) for reducing inputs of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides is critical for sustaining our agriculture.
• Amrit Dharohar scheme to “encourage optimal use of wetlands, and enhance biodiversity, carbon stock, eco-tourism opportunities and income generation for local communities”.
• Ex: The recent intervention by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to stop the draining of Haiderpur, a Ramsar wetland in Uttar Pradesh, to safeguard migratory waterfowl is encouraging.

How can it be science based ?

• New missions and programmes should effectively use modern concepts of sustainability and valuation of ecosystems that consider ecological, cultural, and sociological aspects of our biological wealth.
• Prioritisation of the benefits to ‘resource people’, and fund-services as the economic foundation for generating value has enormous potential for multiple sustainable bio-economies.
• The future of our wetland ecosystems will depend on sustainable ecological flows through encouraging changes to less-water intensive crops such as millets
• It also aims at investments in water recycling in urban areas using a combination of grey and blue-green infrastructure.
• Under Green India Mission, implementation should focus on ecological restoration rather than tree plantation and choose sites to contribute for ecological connectivity in landscapes.
• Choice of species and density should be informed by available knowledge and evidence on resilience under emerging climate change with respect to hydrologic services.
• Site selection for the mangrove initiative with a greater emphasis on diversity of mangrove species with retention of the integrity of coastal mud-flats and salt pans themselves.
• Traditional knowledge and practices of these communities should be integrated into the implementation plans.
• Efforts must be inclusive of local and nomadic communities where these initiatives will be implemented.

Way forward

• The programmes has the potential to greatly improve the state of our nation’s biodiversity if their implementation is based on the latest scientific and ecological knowledge.
• Each programme should include significant educational and research funding to critically appraise and bring awareness to India’s biological wealth.

• Mission seeks to harness the power of interdisciplinary knowledge for greening India and its economy, to restore and enrich our natural capital for the well-being of our people, and to position India as a global leader in applied biodiversity science.