India has officially started the National Red List Assessment (NRLA) program to meet its obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the important Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF).
While speaking at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi, Kirti Vardhan Singh, the Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, revealed the Vision 2025–2030 for the NRLA.
The goal is to have National Red Data Books for plants and animals by 2030. We will use these books to plan development, protect species, and reduce threats.
Framework for Assessment and Working Together
The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) worked closely with IUCN-India and the Centre for Species Survival, India to carefully plan the NRLA framework.
Minister Singh underlined that the NRLA project follows IUCN global standards and will create a national system that will be very useful for making accurate assessments, planning conservation efforts, and making smart policy decisions. He also stressed how important it is to write down traditional knowledge as part of these conservation efforts.
India’s special duty to protect biodiversity
The Minister talked on how India is a unique place for biodiversity around the world:
India is one of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world.
Biodiversity Wealth: India has 8% of the world’s plants and 7.5% of the world’s animals, even though it only covers 2.4% of the world’s territory.
Endemism: The country has a lot of unique species. For example, 28% of plants and more than 30% of animals are only found in the country.
India is home to four of the world’s 36 biodiversity hotspots: the Himalayas, the Western Ghats, Indo-Burma, and Sundaland.
India has historically protected its biodiversity with strong laws, such as the Wild Life (Protection) Act of 1972, which was recently changed in 2022 to safeguard species included in CITES appendices.
By 2030, the most important results of the project
The NRLA project has a number of important goals in mind to create capacity and make sure it is successful in the long term:
Trained Staff: Making a trained group of at least 300 qualified Red List assessors.
Certified Trainers: At least five national-level trainers must be certified to teach Red List assessment training.
Specialist Groups: Setting up National Species Specialist Groups to help with and keep an eye on the evaluations.
Integration into a Database: Independent peer-reviewed species assessments will be published and added to a national database.
This all-encompassing project is a direct response to the global biodiversity catastrophe, which has seen vertebrate populations drop by about 73% since 1970 and deforestation kill off by 40% of plant species.