Wednesday, 30 October 2024
Wednesday, 30 October 2024
India has ranked among the worst five nations in biodiversity loss and a lack of conservation efforts, according to the 2024 Nature Conservation Index (NCI) published last week.
India’s score is 45.5 and rank is 176 out of 180 nations taken for the study. Only Kiribati, Turkey, Iraq and Micronesia have scored poorer than India.
The top five nations in terms of conservation and protection of biodiversity are Luxembourg, Estonia, Denmark, Finland and the United Kingdom, according to the index developed by the Goldman Sonnenfeldt School of Sustainability and Climate Change in Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and nonprofit website BioDB.
“India is one of the world’s mega-diverse countries, with about 7-8 per cent of the world’s documented species spread over only 2.4 per cent of total land area,” the NCI 2024 citation said on the BioDb website.
Even recently becoming the world’s most populous country, India maintains its diverse range of wildlife and habitats. From the snowy Himalayas to the tropical Western Ghats and the arid Thar Desert, India offers a wide range of habitats supporting diverse creatures.
“Along with famous animals like the Asian elephant, Indian rhinoceros, and Bengal tiger, it is home to a wide range of birds, reptiles, and marine life. Four of the 36 globally designated biodiversity hotspots with areas in Indian jurisdiction, are the Himalayas, Indo-Burma, the Western Ghats, and Sundaland. Additionally, India has over 92,037 animal species (of which 61,375 are insects) and 45,500 plant species across its 10 biogeographic regions,” it added.
Why has India fared poorly?
According to the NCI website, the report has examined 25 indicators to analyse biodiversity of 180 countries. The primary pillars of this biodiversity and conservation study are land management, threats to diversity, capacity and governance, and future trends.
Ranking among the worst means that India suffers from habitat loss, pollution, and wildlife and plant populations are diminishing at an unprecedented pace, according to the NCI. And conservation legislation is not up to the mark.
India’s neighbours, Bangladesh (173), Pakistan (151), Sri Lanka (90), Nepal (60), Bhutan (15) and China (164), all rank better than India.
Even comparative economies, Mexico (42), Thailand (80), Indonesia (122), and United Arab Emirates (111), rank better than India.
Here are a few examples. In India, the population of Asian elephants numbers less than 50,000, down 50 per cent in the past 75 years. Gharials number just 650, down 98 per cent in less than a century. And tigers number 3,890, down 96 per cent in less than a century.
The Congress slammed the Modi government over India’s low ranking in the report.
“Whenever India gets a very low rank on some global index or the other, the immediate response of the non-biological PM’s drumbeaters and cheerleaders is to attack the index itself as a plot to defame India by agenda-driven busybody NGOs. But what will be the response to the just-released Nature Conservation Index in which India ranks a miserable 176th out of 180 countries.” Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary in-charge, communications, posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Even in protected areas, “we’re losing forests and wildlife faster than ever," Debadityo Sinha, lead, climate & ecosystems, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, told The Telegraph Online.
“And let’s be clear — golf courses and safari ‘eco’ tours aren’t helping our wildlife. When you’re more focused on tourism revenue than on restoring biodiversity, it’s clear conservation is not the priority.
“Only about 5-6 per cent of India’s land is strictly protected, which leaves most of our wildlife, including a third of our endangered species like tigers, exposed to all kinds of developmental whims,” he added.
Between 2001 and 2019, the country lost 23,300 square kilometers of tree cover, according to the NCI report.
Sinha said the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill of 2023, which sailed through Parliament despite opposition from ecologists, tribal communities and activists, was another problematic piece of legislation.
The Supreme Court had earlier this year issued an interim order in a case against the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act (FCA). The court said that the Centre must use the “dictionary definition” of forests in identifying forest land in all states. It also said that any zoos or safaris in forest areas would require prior approval from the apex court.
The FCA grants unchecked leeway for commercial enterprises in forest lands, undermining decades of legal and ecological gains, Sinha said: “The recent amendments are like handing over the forest’s keys to the highest bidder.
“This is no longer about conservation,” he said. “It’s about exploiting the forest under the guise of ‘ecotourism’. It’s ironic when projects in forests include police battalions or golf courses, where biodiversity conservation is an afterthought.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who heads the National Board of Wildlife, has barely attended its meetings, Sinha said: “With the prime minister barely participating in these critical discussions, it’s hard to argue that biodiversity protection is even on the government’s radar.”
Climate change, too, is adding fuel to the fire, threatening sensitive zones like alpine forests and coral reefs, ecosystems that are crucial buffers against natural disasters and biodiversity loss.
So, what could be the way forward?
Sinha said the solution lies in science-backed protections and a commitment to biodiversity – not profit: “We’re at a crossroads where conservation policies could actually make a difference”.
