National Biodiversity Action Plan

The National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP)—now updated as the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP)—is India’s overarching policy framework aimed at conserving biological diversity, promoting sustainable use of its components, and ensuring fair and equitable benefit-sharing of biodiversity resources. It aligns India’s commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) with national priorities for ecosystems, species, genetic resources and livelihood concerns.

Background

India is one of the world’s megadiverse countries, harbouring a large share of the planet’s species in a small land area. Recognising the urgent threats of habitat loss, species extinction, resource over-exploitation, pollution and climate change, the government formulated the first NBAP in 1999, followed by a more detailed version in 2008. Over time, as international frameworks evolved (for example the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the more recent Kunming‑Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework), India commenced updating its national strategy, culminating in the revised NBSAP released in 2024–25.

Objectives

The NBAP/NBSAP broadly sets out to:

• Conserve the full range of India’s biodiversity (ecosystems, species, genetic diversity) through both in-situ and ex-situ measures.
• Promote sustainable utilisation of biological resources in a manner that does not undermine biodiversity and ecosystem services.
• Ensure equitable sharing of benefits from use of biodiversity, including traditional knowledge and genetic resources.
• Mainstream biodiversity concerns into sectoral and developmental policies so that land-use planning, agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure, urbanisation and climate action reflect biodiversity priorities.
• Restore degraded ecosystems, control invasive alien species, safeguard ecosystem services and enhance community participation in biodiversity governance.

Major Features

• Ecosystem approach: The Plan covers a range of ecosystems – forests, wetlands, rivers, coastal and marine systems, agro-ecosystems, urban biodiversity.
• Institutional structure: Implementation involves multiple tiers: the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) at the national level, State Biodiversity Boards and local Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) at grassroots level.
• Inclusive governance: Recognises the role of communities, indigenous knowledge systems, and local participation through people’s biodiversity registers (PBRs) and benefit-sharing mechanisms.
• Mainstreaming & integration: Biodiversity objectives are to be integrated with policies for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, water resources, climate change, urban planning and infrastructure.
• Targets and monitoring: The updated NBSAP aligns with the global framework, setting national biodiversity targets (NBTs) with specific indicators and timelines. It emphasises a monitoring-reporting cycle and resource mobilisation.
• Financial and human resources: The plan recognises the requirement of substantial funding and capacity-building across institutions, departments and local bodies.

Implementation Strategy

• Preparation involved inter-ministerial coordination, stakeholder consultations (including states, union territories, communities, civil society) and assessment of existing biodiversity status and policies.
• Action plans are organised by thematic head-lines: ecosystem restoration, species conservation, sustainable use, traditional knowledge, invasive species management, urban biodiversity, coastal & marine biodiversity, agro-biodiversity, etc.
• For each theme, the Plan outlines strategic actions, responsible agencies, timelines, required resources and monitoring frameworks.
• At the state and local level, biodiversity strategies are to be adapted and implemented via State Biodiversity Boards, local BMCs and collaboration with academic/research institutions and non-governmental organisations.
• Tools such as People’s Biodiversity Registers, biodiversity management plans, digital biodiversity databases, incentives for conservation, restoration projects and outreach campaigns form part of the implementation arsenal.

Significance

• Protects key ecosystem services: Biodiversity underpins water regulation, soil fertility, pollination, climate resilience and cultural values; the Plan thus safeguards socio-economic wellbeing.
• Supports sustainable development: By linking conservation with livelihoods (for example, agro-biodiversity, community-based forest management, ecotourism), it enables ecological goals to support human development.
• Meets international commitments: India’s NBAP/NBSAP shows compliance with the CBD obligations and global biodiversity goals, strengthening its role in global biodiversity governance.
• Enhances resilience: Restoration of degraded ecosystems, controlling invasive species and mainstreaming biodiversity provide long-term ecological security in the face of climate change and land-use pressures.

Challenges and Constraints

• Funding gap: Implementing a nationwide multi-sectoral framework demands substantial financial resources which are often constrained.
• Institutional coordination: The “whole-of-government” and “whole-of-society” approach is conceptually strong but executing coordination across many ministries, departments and levels of governance remains difficult.
• Monitoring and data: Effective tracking of biodiversity indicators, progress reporting and adaptive management require sophisticated systems and consistent data, which remain weak in many regions.
• Mainstreaming inertia: Integrating biodiversity into sectoral policies (agriculture, infrastructure, urbanisation) faces institutional inertia and competing priorities.
• Community engagement: Ensuring genuine local participation, especially of indigenous and tribal communities, and equitable benefit-sharing remains a practical challenge.
• Ecosystem complexity: Biodiversity threats are multi-faceted (climate change, pollution, habitat fragmentation, invasive species) making it difficult to prioritise and sequence actions uniformly across regions.

Recent Developments

The updated NBSAP released by India in 2024 at the COP-16 of the CBD emphasises alignment with the global Kunming-Montreal Framework. It introduces 23 national biodiversity targets, emphasises a national vision for living in harmony with nature by 2050, and gives more weight to ecosystem restoration, marine and coastal biodiversity, urban biodiversity, traditional knowledge, gender-responsive policies, and digital monitoring. The estimated cost of implementation is substantial and spread across multiple ministries and years.