Most Indians have a special memory engraved within them. One of them is sitting against a fogged window, or out on the bench, hearing the chirps of a sparrow as they build their nest, with the scent of wet mud lurking through the moist air and the orange glow of fireflies. Now the sparrows are fleeing, and the fireflies are diminishing.
India’s unparalleled natural diversity is shaped by climate, geography, and history, from the towering Himalayas in the north to wetlands, rainforests and the peninsula in the south. With just 2.4 per cent of the world’s land, India harbors 8 per cent of the world’s known biodiversity. Yet, India ranks 172 out of 180 in the nature conservation index
The nature conservation index is a comprehensive framework that serves as a benchmark for how effectively countries worldwide protect their part of the Earth. It uses 26 key indicators to provide an unbiased review of biodiversity and conservation. Uniquely, it helps identify what works and what doesn’t.
India ranks 152nd in land management, and 53% of our land is dedicated to human use, whether it’s urban infrastructure, agriculture or industrial usage. This could be attributed to factors such as us having the largest population in the world, rapid urbanization, agricultural conversion and much more. Large-scale projects. Highways, mining sites, etc. commonly overlap with ecologically sensitive regions. It’s a common misconception that one must sacrifice infrastructure and urban living to protect land, however it can exist mutually with some innovation and adaptability. India, being a peninsula, has only 0.2% marine protection and a mere 7.5% of terrestrial land protected. Conversely, the global biodiversity goals are 30%. Conservation in India tends to compete with urbanization rather than be integrated into it.
Through this, habitat fragmentation occurs. Instead of one unified habitat, you get something similar to ecological islands, leading to grave situations such as local extinctions. 250 million people live along 50km of our coastline. We complain about cyclones, but we allow the same mangroves to be cut down, which act as a shield against this.
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Conversely, India scored a perfect score on the ecological representation of protected areas. Think of it this way: India has a bookshelf with every genre, but it only has a few books. In the same way, India’s diversity is vast. We protect a wide variety of ecosystems ranging from mountains to wetlands to deserts. Though we don’t protect enough of it.
Another core pillar is the threat to biodiversity. We inadequately rank at 191 globally. We have several large national parks like the historical Jim Corbett National Park, which was opened in 1936 but the data shows these were not enough to halt species decline. 47% of terrestrial species are declining, and 67.5% of marine species are declining, and it’s not a coincidence, nor do we have anyone to blame but ourselves. We think that the heatwaves and erratic weather affect only us. However, habit fragmentation makes it even more disastrous for animals as well as the climate. Habitat destruction worsens climate vulnerability while climate change further weakens ecosystems. Our biodiversity is under attack from multiple threats at once, Habitat loss, illegal wildlife trade and the worst of all, climate change. Conservation failures aren’t driven by policy gaps alone, but the everyday habits that we have as well like single use plastics in coastal areas, food choices etc.
Our best-performing pillar is capacity and governance. India is strong on institutions and policies, getting 61.1/100 or ranking 112. One of our best wins is the species recovery and rehabilitation success, wherein the rhino population has increased 27%, and India has one of the largest tiger populations in the world. India has 55 tiger reserves, and some parts of our budget are allotted to relocation, monitoring, anti-poaching, and conservation. Though there are still enforcement gaps which are often depicted through encroaching on protected land, and worst of all, us ranking 4th globally in illegal wildlife trade.
The last core pillar is climate mitigation. This judges how well a country has utilized the ecosystems to reduce climate change risks and absorb carbon dioxide while preparing nature for climate change. India ranked 133rd and scored a mere 35/100. The main issue remains in separating nature conservation and climate protection. Forests and wetlands are meant to multitask. They are meant to host a variety of organisms, all the while sucking out the excess carbon from the air. India is underutilizing its blue carbon ecosystems, our mangroves, our salt marshes, becoming contaminated and eradicated. The removal of these defense systems also worsens the floods in our country. Due to climate change, biodiversity is forced to migrate, though that is also difficult due to habitat fragmentation stopping area for movement which leads to animal extinction. India’s conservation plans and policies have disproportionately focused on clean energy transitions, with less weightage given to wildlife habitat degradation.
The NCI’s newest addition is the biodiversity intactness index. As mentioned above, it measures the proportion of original, raw biodiversity remaining in an area compared to pre-industrialization. A high score on the BII signals a country is as close to its natural biodiversity as it can be while coexisting with urban landscapes. An ecosystem may appear intact, but without its apex predators, it’s nothing but a piece of land. It allows ‘paper parks’ to be exposed, which is when a large quantity of land is said to be conserved but its wilderness health is no longer at that scale.
A case study which can be referred to is Bhutan’s miracle. Despite having a low GDP, it remains one of the highest ranked in the NCI, securing the 16th rank. They are the first country to be carbon-negative. They have an astounding forest cover of 70%, and their citizens believe even trees have the right to live. In fact, it’s even stated in their constitution. They also believe that without nature, they wouldn’t be happy, again leading them to conserve their environment. Yes, India has a magnanimous population, though is that really the only reason to blame? Bhutan, even Nepal with 76th rank and Sri Lanka at 85th demonstrate what political priority and citizen cooperation can achieve, even with fewer resources.
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India has taken on the global 30×30 goal, promising to protect 30% of the country’s ocean and land by 2030. To reach that goal, the current pace would not suffice. The NCI depicts which areas a country must work on, as well as facilitating healthy competition. The NCI provides factual evidence for the citizens of a country to demand their government for improvements. Reaching 30% in 5 years would require conservation at a pace India has never attempted. Though it is not impossible. Just roughly, India needs to go from 7.5% to 30% terrestrial that is roughly 750,000 sq km of additional protected land in 5 years.
We must regain those serene moments, for us and the environment. Us citizens can demand local conservation, reduce the demand for products which require deforestation and support anti-poaching movements. At the same time, the Indian government must improve the enforcement of policies and increase marine and terrestrial protection. It will be catastrophic if we fail to protect the environment. Nature conservation is not just about protecting some far-off forest. It is about conserving those seas, mountains, forests, etc which quietly shape and help facilitate Indian lives. The NCI’s goal remains protecting what remains and restoring what’s lost.
“Data for this article was sourced from the Nature Conservation Index 2025, shared directly with GreenStories by BioDB. Full dataset available at biodb.com/nci”
Tags: #cimatechange, #climate, #conservation, #ecological, #enviromentalstories, #environment, #getgreengetgrowing, #gngagritech, #greenstories, #india
