Outline: Key Biodiversity Goals of India

Outline: Key Biodiversity Goals of India

Question : Recently, the International Day for Biological Diversity was celebrated. Present an outline of the key biodiversity goals of India.

• India needs to work to conserve biodiversity for present and future generations

• Challenge before India is to imbibe and translate biodiversity for sustainable development

• As a megabiodiverse country, it has the responsibility to promote environmental democracy and biodiversity

• World has undergone crucial paradigm shift from seeing development and environment as opposite ends of the spectrum to viewing them together; India needs to keep up

• Biodiversity or the variety of life on earth plays a key role on social and economic development; India needs to acknowledge and incorporate this

• Political will as well as scientific and technological know how and financial resources must be boosted in India to meet the climate change agenda of the Rio+20 Conference

• Biodiversity must be promoted to attain food security and well being

• India should aim at promoting multiple varieties of staple food-grains apart from switching to multifaceted cropping patterns and initiating water conservation

• India needs to incorporate traditional wisdom along with scientific know how for biodiversity management

• Building community resilience and containing the negative fallouts of depleted and degraded biodiversity resources is a must

• BIOFIN India project has also been formally launched on this day for meeting India’s biodiversity goals

• Best practices in biodiversity management by public as well as private sector need to be highlighted and publicised for replication

About India’s Biodiversity

• Despite only 2.4% of the world’s land area, India is home to 7 to 8% of the recorded species

• It has over 46,000 species of plants and 91,000 species of animals

• India is known as the centre of crop diversity; it is home to diverse flora and fauna

Facts and Stats

• International Day for Biological Diversity is celebrated for recognising the key role of biodiversity to human and planetary welfare

• This day also seeks to celebrate the importance of biodiversity and recognise the threats to it

• In 1992, text of Convention of Biodiversity was adopted

• This year’s theme is Biodiversity for Sustainable Development

• Some of the previous themes were:

- Biodiversity and Poverty Alleviation (2003),
- Biodiversity: Food, Water and Health for All (2004),
- Biodiversity: Life Insurance for our Changing World (2005),
- Protect Biodiversity in Drylands (2006) and
- Biodiversity and Agriculture (2008)