From protection to persistence: rethinking biodiversity conservation in India

India occupies a singular position in global conservation debates. As one of the world’s megadiverse countries, it harbours roughly 11% of global floral diversity across ecosystems ranging from alpine meadows and tropical rainforests to grasslands, wetlands and extensive coastal and marine habitats. At the same time, nearly 18% of the global human population lives within its borders, many depending directly on natural ecosystems for their livelihoods. This tight coupling of biological richness, demographic pressure and development ambition makes India a critical test case for conservation in the Anthropocene, and a new synthesis published in One Ecosystem argues that the country’s experience exposes a paradox with lessons far beyond its boundaries.

The paradox is stark. Worldwide, extinction rates far exceed background levels and vertebrate populations have declined sharply in recent decades. India, by contrast, has largely avoided confirmed species extinctions since the mid-twentieth century, a pattern attributed mainly to the establishment of protected areas and targeted species recovery programmes. The country now supports more than 70% of the world’s wild tigers and over 85% of the global population of the one-horned rhinoceros, alongside several highly threatened species that persist largely within or near protected landscapes. Yet success in preventing the extinction of selected, intensively managed species has not translated into broader ecosystem security, and biodiversity loss continues through habitat degradation, fragmentation, population declines and the erosion of ecosystem integrity across multiple biomes.

Part of the discrepancy lies in how forest condition is measured. Official assessments reporting stable or increasing forest and tree cover rely on broad definitions that include plantations, degraded forests and urban green spaces. Independent assessments and long-term analyses such as Global Forest Watch indicate continued declines in dense, natural forests in several regions, particularly parts of central and north-eastern India. The protected area network itself reveals structural limitations: covering roughly 5% of the country’s land cover, strict protection is lower than the global average and unevenly distributed across biomes. Forest ecosystems dominate the network, while grasslands, savannahs, wetlands and other open natural ecosystems remain under-represented.

The fate of grasslands illustrates the problem. Less than 5% of India’s grasslands fall within protected areas, and their frequent classification as wastelands has facilitated conversion through afforestation, infrastructure development and extractive activities. Meanwhile, infrastructure expansion, agricultural growth and urbanisation have reduced ecological connectivity, leaving a substantial proportion of forests in small and isolated patches. Fragmentation limits species movement, genetic exchange and long-term population persistence, and these constraints are likely to intensify under climate change as species distributions shift beyond static conservation boundaries.

Recent years have nonetheless witnessed a diversification of conservation approaches beyond traditional protected area models. Conservation and community reserves have expanded to encourage protection on community lands, wetland conservation has gained prominence through the expansion of Ramsar sites, and species recovery programmes have been initiated for taxa such as vultures, river dolphins, gharials and great bustards. National missions increasingly frame biodiversity as integral to climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction and human well-being, while advances in remote sensing and geospatial monitoring have strengthened the national capacity to track land-use change and ecosystem conditions. Together, these initiatives signal a growing institutional acknowledgement that conservation cannot rely solely on conventional reserve-based strategies.

The effectiveness of any intervention is shaped by the deep interdependence of people and nature in India. An estimated 200 to 400 million people depend directly on forests and their associated ecosystems, with millions residing within or adjacent to protected areas. Historically, conservation policy has often focused on limiting access to forests, a strategy that has in some cases led to displacement and conflict. While such measures have sometimes eased local pressures on ecosystems, they have also disrupted livelihoods and weakened trust between communities and conservation authorities. A growing body of evidence indicates that areas managed or co-managed by indigenous peoples and local communities tend to produce more positive outcomes for both well-being and conservation, with lower rates of habitat loss.

India has also assembled a wide-ranging legal and institutional framework, including the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act of 2023, amendments to the Wildlife (Protection) Act, the creation of National and State Biodiversity Boards, and mechanisms for Access and Benefit Sharing. Yet conservation outcomes remain uneven, largely due to persistent governance and development-related weaknesses. Studies have highlighted limitations in Environmental Impact Assessment processes, including inadequate consideration of cumulative and landscape-scale impacts and weak post-clearance monitoring. Research has shown that many environmental clearance conditions issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change lack a clear scientific basis or site-specific guidance, limiting their effectiveness on the ground.

Development pressures compound these institutional gaps. Linear infrastructure expansion, including roads and hydropower-related development, has been identified as a major driver of habitat loss and fragmentation in ecologically sensitive regions such as the Himalayas. Mining and industrial activities have contributed to forest diversion and landscape degradation across multiple regions, often offset through compensatory afforestation schemes that fail to replicate the ecological functions of natural forests. A further structural constraint lies in the narrow taxonomic focus of conservation investment: large, charismatic species continue to dominate funding, monitoring and public attention, while pollinators, freshwater biodiversity, soil organisms and invertebrates remain poorly integrated into planning. Marine and coastal ecosystems face similar neglect; despite a 7,500-kilometre coastline supporting approximately 250 million people, marine protected areas remain limited and coastal ecosystems are increasingly exposed to overfishing, pollution, infrastructure development and climate-related stressors.

Recent increases in biodiversity-related investment, along with India’s engagement in international commitments such as the Global Biodiversity Framework, point to a renewed political emphasis on conservation. However, evidence from India and other contexts shows that simply expanding the area under protection is unlikely to stop biodiversity loss. Outcomes depend on ecological representativeness, effective management, landscape connectivity and social legitimacy, as well as on the integration of biodiversity objectives into broader development and climate policies. Coverage targets alone, the synthesis suggests, cannot substitute for the harder work of maintaining ecological quality across working landscapes.

The persistence of biodiversity loss despite decades of initiatives, expanding legal frameworks and increasing public investment raises fundamental questions about the coherence and social foundations of prevailing strategies. India’s experience highlights a broader global lesson: conservation cannot rely on static, reserve-based or sectorally fragmented approaches when the underlying socio-ecological systems are complex and dynamic. Moving from protection to persistence will require landscape-scale, climate-adaptive strategies that integrate protected areas with surrounding human-use matrices, strengthen community stewardship, address development-related policy weaknesses and recognise the full diversity of ecosystems beyond forests and flagship species. If these challenges can be addressed, the authors argue, India has the potential to offer influential lessons for biodiversity conservation in a human-dominated world.

Subject of Research: Biodiversity conservation policy and ecosystem protection in India

Article Title: From protection to persistence: rethinking biodiversity conservation in India

Article References: From protection to persistence: rethinking biodiversity conservation in India. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.11.e188496

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/oneeco.11.e188496

Keywords: biodiversity, India, protected areas, habitat fragmentation, climate change, grasslands, governance, Global Biodiversity Framework, community conservation, species recovery, wetlands, environmental impact assessment