The Diversity of Life: Biodiversity and Its Conservation

Biodiversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth, from genes to species to entire ecosystems, as defined at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. It is the living infrastructure beneath every economy: pollinators behind crop yields, forests behind rainfall, wetlands behind flood control. India, with 7 to 8 percent of the world's recorded species on just 2.4 percent of global land, is one of the planet's 17 mega-diverse countries, and also one of the places where biodiversity is under the greatest pressure. This article maps what biodiversity is, why it is collapsing, and how the world is trying to save it.

Three levels of life's variety

Biodiversity is measured at three nested levels. Genetic diversity is the variation within a species, such as the thousands of rice varieties adapted to drought, salinity, or flood, which plant breeders draw on for resilient crops. Species diversity is the variety of species in a region, famously high in places like the Western Ghats with over 1,500 endemic plant species. Ecosystem diversity is the variety of habitats themselves, from India's deserts and coral reefs to wetlands, forests, and alpine meadows. Lose any one level and the others weaken: narrow genetics make species fragile, and shattered ecosystems strand species.

Why it matters: ecosystem services

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment grouped nature's benefits into four ecosystem services. Provisioning services are the tangible goods: food, fresh water, timber, fuelwood, fibre, and medicines, with over 45,000 plant species supporting Ayurveda and modern medicine in India. Regulating services come from ecosystem processes: carbon sequestration, air and water purification, flood control by wetlands and mangroves, pollination, and pest control. Supporting services are the foundations beneath the rest: nutrient cycling, soil formation, and primary productivity. Cultural services are the non-material benefits: recreation, tourism, and spiritual value, from sacred groves like the Sarna of Bihar and Devarakadu of Karnataka to the Sundarbans drawing over a lakh of tourists a year. When UPSC asks why conservation is a development issue, this fourfold classification is the answer.

The IUCN Red List: how extinction risk is graded

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the world's standard inventory of extinction risk, maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It sorts every assessed species into nine categories, from Least Concern to Extinct. The grading matters far beyond biology: protection law, trade controls under CITES, and conservation funding all key off these categories.

Species in the CR, EN and VU bands together are called threatened species, the shorthand used in most reports. Assessments rest on measurable criteria such as population decline over ten years or three generations, a shrinking range, or a very small population, which is why a species can still look common yet be listed if it is collapsing fast.

For India the list gives the extinction crisis a local address. Over a thousand assessed species fall in the threatened bands, and they include national icons such as the tiger, elephant and lion alongside obscure frogs and freshwater fishes of the Western Ghats. Because the schedules of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 roughly track these categories, a change in IUCN status often triggers stronger domestic protection.

India: a mega-diverse country under pressure

The numbers establish India's stake. The country hosts over 1,04,561 species of fauna and 55,387 species of plants, with new species still being documented. It holds four of the world's 36 biodiversity hotspots: the Himalayas, the Indo-Burma region, the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka, and Sundaland. Endemism is striking: India ranks fifth in endemic reptiles with 156 species and seventh in endemic amphibians with 110. Agriculture too is a diversity story, with India's share of global crop diversity at 44 percent against a world average of 11 percent. Iconic wildlife, the Bengal tiger, Asiatic lion, Indian elephant, one-horned rhinoceros, and snow leopard, makes the country a global conservation priority.

Hotspots: where life is richest and most threatened

A biodiversity hotspot is a region that is both exceptionally rich in endemic species and exceptionally threatened. The concept was developed by ecologist Norman Myers, and the formal criteria used by Conservation International are twofold: the region must contain at least 1,500 endemic vascular plant species, and it must have lost at least 70 percent of its original habitat. Only 36 regions worldwide qualify, yet they hold a huge share of terrestrial life.

India's four hotspots each tell a different story. The Himalayas span the young, fragile mountain arc with extraordinary altitudinal zonation. The Indo-Burma region covers the northeast's rainforests, among the most biologically distinct in Asia. The Western Ghats and Sri Lanka hotspot holds ancient forests older than the Himalayas, with exceptional endemism in amphibians. Sundaland extends into the Nicobar Islands' tropical forests. For prelims, the pairing to remember is four hotspots out of 36, with their names.

Case study: the Western Ghats and the committee wars

The Western Ghats, a 1,600 km mountain chain older than the Himalayas, hold around 5,000 flowering plant species, with roughly three-fourths of their amphibians and two-thirds of their fishes found nowhere else on Earth. UNESCO inscribed 39 sites here as a World Heritage Site in 2012.

The political fight is over how much of the range should be notified as an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA), where mining, large construction and polluting industry are restricted. Three official exercises frame the debate:

The lesson for answer writing is that the Ghats show conservation as a federal negotiation, not a scientific verdict. Every committee accepted the ecology; they differed on how much development to trade away, and on who bears the cost.

The flip side: biodiversity cool spots

Biodiversity cool spots are regions where high diversity persists despite intense human pressure, the mirror image of hotspots. River floodplains, urban woodlands and some farmed mosaics keep surprising numbers of species on very little land. They matter because extinction is not only a wilderness story: protecting small, crowded refuges can rescue species that no national park covers, and Indian cities hold several such pockets.

The extinction crisis: the Evil Quartet

The Living Planet Report 2024 by WWF and the Zoological Society of London found that monitored wildlife populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish fell by an average of 73 percent between 1970 and 2020, with freshwater species crashing 85 percent. Global tree-cover loss hit about 30 million hectares in 2024, and the IUCN has confirmed nearly 900 animal extinctions since 1500, a conservative figure that rises past 1,400 when suspected-but-unconfirmed cases are included, with true losses likely far higher. Ecologists summarise the drivers as the Evil Quartet: habitat loss and fragmentation, as forests become farmland, mines, and cities; overexploitation, from overfishing off Tamil Nadu and Gujarat to timber and wildlife poaching; invasive alien species like Lantana camara and Prosopis juliflora that outcompete natives; and co-extinction, where the loss of one species drags down others bound to it by obligate relationships.

India adds its own entries to the list. The IUCN Red List (2024 assessment) places about 1,170 Indian species in threatened categories, including 57 mammals, 69 birds, 36 reptiles, 86 amphibians and more than 670 plants. Only a small share of India's 1,04,561 documented fauna species has been assessed at all, and India has launched a five-year National Red List assessment (2025 to 2030) for about 11,000 species to fill the gap. Wetland encroachment has shrunk Bengaluru's Bellandur and Koramangala lakes, dams like Farakka have disrupted Hilsa migration, and nearly 40 percent of Indian flora is alien in origin. Climate change is now an amplifier: studies project major shifts in the Western Ghats by 2050: evergreen and deciduous forests could shrink while drier thorn forests expand as temperatures and rainfall patterns change, and high-altitude species like the Nilgiri flycatcher could lose about 45 percent of their habitat.

What biodiversity loss costs India

Biodiversity loss sends the bill to development, not just to ecology. Three channels matter most for India:

• Food security: most Indian crops depend partly on insect pollination, and the wild relatives of rice, millets and pulses hold the genes breeders need for drought and pest resistance. Lose the wild relatives and the insurance policy lapses.

• Disease risk: intact ecosystems dilute contact between wildlife, livestock and people. Fragment and hunt them, and zoonotic spillovers become more likely, a link discussed after outbreaks from Nipah to avian influenza.

• Livelihoods and the exchequer: fisheries, forest produce and nature tourism employ millions. Degraded mangroves and reefs convert directly into storm damage, falling fish catches and higher relief spending.

When wild meets human: human-wildlife conflict

Human-wildlife conflict is the term for interactions between people and wild animals that harm either side, usually arising from competition for space and resources. The IUCN lists it among the major threats to both biodiversity and livelihoods. In India the numbers are stark: Odisha recorded 171 human casualties in wildlife-conflict incidents in 2024-25, the highest of any state, with elephants responsible for the overwhelming majority of human deaths; 1,209 people were killed in elephant attacks in the state over the preceding decade. About 500 people die nationally each year and roughly 100 elephants die annually from non-natural causes such as electrocution, train collisions, and retaliatory poisoning. Crop raiding affects tens of thousands of families a year, and a single elephant raid can cost a farmer a fifth of annual crop income.

The causes are structural, not accidental. Highways, railways, and canals fragment habitats into isolated patches. Forest fringes converted to farmland replace natural fodder with sugarcane and maize that lure herbivores into fields. Invasive weeds like Lantana suppress native grasses while drying waterholes push animals toward village ponds. Paradoxically, conservation success adds pressure: recovering tiger and elephant populations increasingly exceed the carrying capacity of protected areas. And slow, inadequate compensation for losses erodes community tolerance, sometimes triggering retaliatory killings that deepen the cycle.

India's response mixes law, technology, and coexistence planning. The Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972 provides the core legal framework. Its 2006 amendment gave statutory backing to Project Tiger, creating the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, and requires Tiger Conservation Plans to identify corridors and ecologically compatible land uses linking protected areas. The term corridor itself is not defined in the Act, and elephant corridors do not enjoy the same statutory protection; the government has proposed amendments to give elephant reserves and corridors legal status on the lines of tiger reserves. The National Wildlife Action Plan (2017-31) targets coexistence. Technology now helps: the Gajraj system uses AI-linked fibre-optic sensors to warn of elephants on railway tracks, and camera-trap AI watches protected areas in real time. Project Tiger (1973) and Project Elephant (1992) manage flagship species through core-buffer landscapes, while states are raising compensation, Odisha recently lifted death compensation from 6 lakh to 10 lakh rupees, and experimenting with solar fences, early-warning messages, and conflict-resilient livelihoods like beekeeping.

The protected area network: conservation with fences

In-situ conservation in India runs on a four-part protected area network created under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The categories differ chiefly in how much human use they allow:

Together these areas covered about 5.4 percent of India's geographical area in 2023, against the Kunming-Montreal ambition of protecting 30 percent of land and seas by 2030. That gap explains India's parallel interest in Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs): sacred groves, community forests and well-managed wetlands that protect biodiversity outside the formal fence.

The global safety net: from CBD to Kunming-Montreal

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the legally binding treaty for life on Earth, opened at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and in force from 1993, with 196 parties. Its three objectives are the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from genetic resources. Two protocols operationalise it: the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (2000) governs the safe handling of living modified organisms, and the Nagoya Protocol (2010) sets rules for access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing, the ABS framework that guards against biopiracy of resources like neem and turmeric.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), adopted in December 2022 at CBD COP15 in Montreal and often called the Paris Agreement for nature, is the current strategic plan. It sets 4 goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030, headlined by Target 3, the 30x30 target of protecting 30 percent of land and seas by 2030, and Target 2 on restoring 30 percent of degraded ecosystems. Its vision is living in harmony with nature by 2050. At COP16 in Cali, Colombia in 2024, parties created the Cali Fund for sharing benefits from digital sequence information on genetic resources, set up the Kunming Biodiversity Fund under the Global Environment Facility, and gave Indigenous peoples a permanent subsidiary body under Article 8(j). India's protected-area network now numbers over 1,100 protected areas covering about 5.7 percent of its geographical area. India launched its updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan at COP16, aligning national targets with the 30x30 goal.

Should destroying nature be a crime? The ecocide debate

Ecocide means large-scale destruction of ecosystems that severely impairs people's peaceful enjoyment of the environment. The term was coined in 1970 by biologist Arthur Galston to describe the devastation caused by Agent Orange in the Vietnam War, was raised by Sweden's Olof Palme at the 1972 Stockholm Conference, and Vietnam became the first country to criminalise it in 1990. Today the debate is about international law: in 2024, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Samoa formally proposed adding ecocide as a fifth international crime under the Rome Statute, and in October 2025 the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi adopted Motion 061 recognising ecocide as a crime, calling on states to evaluate a Rome Statute amendment.

Advocates argue existing law fails nature: wartime environmental protections set an almost impossible bar of damage that is widespread, long-term, AND severe together, peacetime corporate destruction falls outside the International Criminal Court's reach, and the law treats the environment as human property rather than a victim in its own right. India has no separate ecocide offence; ecological harm is prosecuted under the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986, the Wildlife (Protection) Act, and the Forest (Conservation) Act, while the Supreme Court in M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India (2024) recognised a right against the adverse effects of climate change under Articles 14 and 21. Acting on expert-committee recommendations, the Court has since approved concrete measures including undergrounding of critical power lines in Rajasthan and Gujarat and a ban on new wind turbines and large solar parks inside revised priority areas. Whether ecocide becomes the fifth international crime will be one of the defining legal battles of this decade.

Social forestry and Joint Forest Management

Not all tree-planting is forest conservation. Social forestry is the programme of raising trees on non-forest lands, village commons, roadsides, canal banks and farm boundaries, to meet the fuelwood, fodder and small-timber needs of rural communities. Launched as a major programme in the Sixth Five Year Plan, its logic was demand-side: if villages get wood from social forestry plantations, pressure on natural forests falls. It is a production and welfare programme, measured in trees planted and needs met, rather than a conservation programme measured in biodiversity protected.

Joint Forest Management (JFM) is a different idea: the participatory management of degraded forest lands by the forest department together with local communities, who protect the forest and share in its usufructs and benefits. Born from the Arabari experiment in West Bengal in the early 1970s and formalised through central guidelines in 1990, JFM created village forest protection committees across the country. The distinction UPSC loves: social forestry grows trees outside forests for people's needs, while JFM manages forests with people's participation. Both, however, face the same critique, that communities often get responsibilities without real power or fair benefit-sharing.

The farm-forestry bridge is the National Agroforestry Policy, 2014, India's policy to integrate trees into farming systems, recognising agroforestry's roles in income diversification, soil health, carbon sequestration and reducing pressure on forests. It was among the first dedicated national agroforestry policies in the world, and it matters for biodiversity because trees on farms create habitat connectivity, support pollinators and birds, and let farmers earn from timber without clearing forest. For mains, agroforestry is the productive middle ground between agriculture and forestry that both conservation and livelihood answers can invoke.

Red sanders and sandalwood: why traffickers want them

Red sanders, Pterocarpus santalinus, is a tree endemic to the Eastern Ghats, concentrated in Andhra Pradesh, whose deep-red wood is prized for furniture, carvings and traditional uses abroad, making it one of India's most smuggled timber species. Its restricted range and high international demand create a classic conservation trap: rarity raises price, price drives poaching, poaching deepens rarity. India lists it under export controls and the species sits in CITES Appendix II, meaning international trade is permitted only with permits certifying it is legal and sustainable, and it is reported as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, a status that keeps it firmly on the enforcement agenda.

Sandalwood, Santalum album, faces a different history: its fragrant heartwood made it so valuable that states long treated it as a government monopoly, with farmers required to declare and surrender sandalwood trees. Over-harvest and the monopoly's perverse incentives, why protect a tree you cannot sell, decimated wild populations, and several states have since liberalised cultivation to make growing sandalwood profitable and legal. The pair teaches one mains lesson: conservation fails when law makes a species more valuable dead than alive, and succeeds when legal cultivation undercuts the smuggler's margin.

Wildlife Institute of India

The Wildlife Institute of India (WII), at Dehradun, is the country's premier institution for wildlife research and training, functioning under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. It trains forest officers and wildlife managers, conducts long-term research from tiger population estimation to river dolphin studies, and advises governments on protected-area management. When a UPSC question needs an institutional anchor for wildlife science, from the National Tiger Estimation to human-wildlife conflict studies, WII is the name.

National Tiger Conservation Authority

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is the statutory body created under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as amended in 2006, to oversee tiger conservation in India. It approves tiger conservation plans for tiger reserves, lays down normative standards for tourism and management, monitors tiger populations through the national estimation exercise, and disburses central assistance to states. Its statutory character matters: unlike an advisory committee, the NTCA's approval is legally required for key decisions in tiger reserves, which is why conflicts over tourism, relocation of villages and reserve notifications so often run through it.

Flagship recoveries: Project Tiger at 50, and the cheetah experiment

Project Tiger began in 1973 with nine reserves and remains India's flagship species programme. Its four-yearly national estimation, run by the National Tiger Conservation Authority with the Wildlife Institute of India, counts tigers with camera traps and genetic sampling instead of the old pugmark guesswork:

The cheetah reintroduction is the bolder bet. Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952; Project Cheetah returned them to Kuno National Park on 17 September 2022 with eight animals from Namibia, followed by 12 from South Africa in February 2023 and nine from Botswana in February 2026. The four-year status review of September 2026 counted 52 cheetahs, 32 of them born in India, split between Kuno (49) and Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary (3). Breeding by India-born females is the milestone that counts: it signals a self-sustaining population rather than a permanent import pipeline.

Both programmes argue the same mains point: apex predators are landscape managers. Protecting a tiger's or cheetah's hunting ground also protects the watershed, the prey base and dozens of lesser-known species beneath it, the umbrella-species logic that the hotspot discussion introduced.

Vultures and diclofenac: the collapse and the comeback

India's vultures suffered one of the fastest bird population collapses ever recorded: through the 1990s and 2000s, three Gyps species fell by over 95 per cent. The killer was diclofenac, a veterinary anti-inflammatory drug; vultures that fed on carcasses of treated cattle suffered fatal kidney failure. The conservation response is a textbook case: research established the cause, the government banned veterinary diclofenac in 2006, promoted the safe alternative meloxicam, and established vulture breeding centres, notably at Pinjore in Haryana, to breed birds for eventual release. Vulture numbers have since stabilised in several areas, though recovery is slow and newer drugs remain under watch. For prelims, diclofenac is the one-word answer; for mains, the episode demonstrates science-led regulation working at speed.

Sacred groves: conservation by faith

Sacred groves are patches of forest protected by religious belief and community custom, where cutting trees or harming wildlife is taboo. They survive across India under local names, the Mawphlang sacred forest in Meghalaya, the Sarna groves of central India, the Devarakadu of Karnataka, and they conserve biodiversity, including rare and endemic species, without a single guard or fence. Their significance for conservation policy is that they prove community institutions can protect nature effectively, which is why sacred groves are cited in debates on community reserves and on recognising traditional conservation in formal law.

India's green ledger: forest cover in ISFR 2023

Forest cover in Indian statistics means any land patch above one hectare with tree canopy density over 10 percent, whatever its ownership or legal status. The biennial India State of Forest Report (ISFR), published by the Forest Survey of India from satellite imagery, is the official scoreboard:

Handle the headline with care. Very dense forest grew, but moderately dense and open forest shrank, and most gains came outside recorded forest areas. A rising green total can therefore hide thinning natural forest, the quality gap that examiners probe when they pair ISFR data with questions on clearances and compensatory afforestation.

Restoring what was lost: the global restoration push

Conservation protects what remains; restoration rebuilds what was degraded. The Bonn Challenge is the flagship restoration pledge: launched in 2011 by Germany and the IUCN, it asks countries to bring 150 million hectares of degraded land into restoration by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. India pledged 21 million hectares at the 2015 Paris climate summit and raised the bar to 26 million hectares at the 2019 UNCCD conference in Delhi. The Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration (GPFLR), an IUCN-led network of governments, communities and organisations, backs such pledges with technical support. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021 to 2030), led by UNEP and FAO, is the decade-long banner under which these efforts march, tying restoration to the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement and land-degradation-neutrality goals.

Two other global instruments matter for India. UNESCO World Heritage Sites are places of outstanding universal value protected under the 1972 World Heritage Convention; a site qualifies on at least one of ten criteria covering exceptional biodiversity, geological significance, ecological processes or natural beauty, and India's natural listings include Kaziranga, Manas, Keoladeo, the Sundarbans, Nanda Devi and the Valley of Flowers, the Western Ghats and the Great Himalayan National Park. The International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA), launched by India in 2023 with its headquarters in India, is the country's own coalition for conserving the seven big cats, tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar and puma, through shared knowledge, capacity building and habitat corridors.

Key Terms

• biodiversity: Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth at three levels: genetic diversity within species, species diversity across ecosystems, and ecosystem diversity across landscapes. It underpins ecosystem services such as pollination, water purification, soil fertility and climate regulation, making it the foundation of agriculture, fisheries and human well-being. India, one of the world's 17 mega-diverse countries, protects biodiversity through the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and a network of protected areas. Example: The Western Ghats' rich assemblage of endemic amphibians is an example of high species and genetic diversity.
• genetic diversity: The variety of genes and their combinations within a single species, reflected in differences between individuals and populations. It is the raw material of evolution, giving species the capacity to adapt to diseases, pests and changing climates, and it underpins crop breeding and conservation. Loss of genetic diversity, through monoculture or habitat loss, makes populations vulnerable to a single shock wiping them out. Example: India's thousands of traditional rice landraces, each carrying genes for drought, flood or salinity tolerance, are a reservoir of genetic diversity for breeding climate-resilient varieties.
• species diversity: Species diversity is the variety of species found in a given region or ecosystem, measured both by the number of species present (richness) and by how evenly individuals are distributed among them (evenness). It is one of the three levels of biodiversity, alongside genetic diversity and ecosystem diversity. High species diversity generally makes ecosystems more stable and resilient to shocks such as disease or climate change. Example: The Western Ghats, one of the world's 36 biodiversity hotspots, hosts thousands of endemic plant and animal species.
• ecosystem diversity: Ecosystem diversity is the variety of ecosystems and habitats within a given geographical area, and it is one of the three standard levels of biodiversity alongside genetic diversity and species diversity. It captures differences in habitat types, ecological processes and community structures across landscapes. High ecosystem diversity generally supports greater overall biodiversity and more resilient ecosystem services. Example: India's ecosystem diversity spans Thar desert, Western Ghats rainforests, Sundarbans mangroves and Himalayan alpine meadows within one country.
• Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: A UN-backed global scientific assessment conducted between 2001 and 2005 that evaluated the state of the world's ecosystems and their services to humanity. It classified ecosystem services into four groups: provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting, and found that about 60 per cent of assessed services were degraded or used unsustainably. It remains the foundational reference for ecosystem-services thinking in policy. Example: The assessment's fourfold classification of ecosystem services is the standard framework used in Indian environment textbooks and UPSC answers on biodiversity economics.
• ecosystem services: Ecosystem services are the benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems, classified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) into four groups: provisioning (food, water, timber, medicines), regulating (climate regulation, flood control, pollination, disease control), cultural (recreation, spiritual and aesthetic values) and supporting services (nutrient cycling, soil formation, primary production). Valuing these services makes the economic case for conservation and underpins mechanisms like eco-compensation and payments for ecosystem services. Example: The Sundarbans mangroves buffering cyclone storm surges for coastal West Bengal and Bangladesh, a regulating service worth far more than the timber they contain.
• Provisioning services: Provisioning services are one of the four categories of ecosystem services in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework, covering the material products that humans obtain directly from ecosystems. They include food, fresh water, timber, fuelwood, fiber, genetic resources, and medicinal plants. Their sustainable management is central to debates on food security, forest policy, and biodiversity conservation. Example: Marine fisheries supplying food and livelihoods, or forests providing timber and non-timber products like honey and medicinal herbs
• Regulating services: Regulating services are the benefits ecosystems provide by regulating natural processes, one of the four categories of ecosystem services recognised by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. They include climate regulation, flood control, water purification, pollination, pest control and disease regulation. Unlike provisioning services such as timber or fish, they are often invisible and therefore undervalued in policy decisions. Example: Mangroves regulate coastal flooding by absorbing storm surges, and wetlands purify water by filtering pollutants.
• Supporting services: Supporting services are one of the four ecosystem service categories of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. They are the underlying ecological processes, such as nutrient cycling, primary production, soil formation and the water cycle, that make all other ecosystem services (provisioning, regulating and cultural) possible. Example: Photosynthesis and nutrient cycling are supporting services that sustain food production and clean water.
• Cultural services: Cultural services are the non-material benefits that people obtain from ecosystems, one of the four categories of ecosystem services recognised by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) alongside provisioning, regulating and supporting services. They include recreation and ecotourism, spiritual and religious values, aesthetic appreciation, cultural heritage and opportunities for education and research. Because they are intangible, cultural services are the hardest ecosystem benefits to value in money terms, yet they often motivate conservation most strongly. Example: The spiritual value attached to the Ganga and the ecotourism economy around Kaziranga National Park are cultural services provided by those ecosystems.
• biodiversity hotspots: Biodiversity hotspots are biogeographic regions with exceptional species richness and high endemism that have lost at least 70 percent of their original habitat, a concept introduced by Norman Myers. Conservation International recognises 36 hotspots globally, four of them partly or wholly in India. For UPSC environment prelims, hotspots are a high-frequency topic linked to endemic species, protected areas, and conservation strategy. Example: The Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot shared with Sri Lanka
• biodiversity hotspot: A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region that contains at least 1,500 endemic vascular plant species and has lost at least 70% of its original habitat, making it both irreplaceable and severely threatened. The concept, introduced by Norman Myers, now covers 36 hotspots worldwide that hold most of Earth's endemic species on a small fraction of land, guiding conservation prioritisation. India hosts four hotspots: the Himalaya, the Western Ghats, Indo-Burma and Sundaland (the Nicobar Islands). Example: The Western Ghats qualify as a hotspot because of exceptional endemism in amphibians, reptiles and flowering plants combined with heavy habitat loss.
• Norman Myers: A British environmentalist (1934 to 2019) who introduced the concept of the biodiversity hotspot in papers published in The Environmentalist in 1988 and 1990. He argued that conservation should prioritise regions combining exceptional plant endemism with severe habitat loss, a framework Conservation International adopted and quantified, and 36 hotspots are recognised worldwide today. Example: India is home to four of his hotspots: the Himalaya, Indo-Burma, the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka, and Sundaland (including the Nicobar Islands).
• Himalayas: The Himalayas are the world's highest and youngest fold mountain system, formed by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates that began around 50 million years ago. Their three parallel ranges, the Himadri, Himachal and Shiwalik, act as India's climatic barrier, the source of its great rivers, and a biodiversity hotspot. For UPSC they underpin questions on physiography, monsoon, disasters, and border and environmental issues. Example: Mount Everest (8,848.86 m), on the Nepal-Tibet border, is the highest peak of the Himalayas.
• Indo-Burma: One of the world's biodiversity hotspots, spanning tropical forests from north-eastern India (south of the Brahmaputra) through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and southern China. It is recognised for exceptionally high species richness and endemism, alongside severe habitat loss. Example: The north-eastern Indian portion of the Indo-Burma hotspot harbours rich endemic flora and fauna but faces pressure from shifting cultivation and deforestation.
• Western Ghats and Sri Lanka: The Western Ghats and Sri Lanka is recognised as one of the world's 36 biodiversity hotspots, a region of exceptional species richness and endemism under severe threat. The Western Ghats run along India's west coast and harbour thousands of endemic plants, amphibians and mammals, including the lion tailed macaque and the Nilgiri tahr, while Sri Lanka's wet zone forests add further unique species. Conservation here is politically significant because of the Gadgil and Kasturirangan committee reports on ecologically sensitive areas. Example: The lion tailed macaque, found only in the evergreen forests of the Western Ghats, is a flagship endemic species of this hotspot.
• Sundaland: Sundaland is a biogeographic region of South-East Asia formed by the exposed Sunda shelf, and it is recognised as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. It spans Borneo, Java, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, and its Indian portion includes the Nicobar Islands. It is noted for exceptional species richness and endemism under severe threat from habitat loss. Example: The Nicobar Islands are India's part of the Sundaland biodiversity hotspot.
• Living Planet Report 2024: The biennial flagship assessment published by WWF with the Zoological Society of London's Living Planet Index, tracking trends in monitored wildlife populations. The 2024 edition reported a catastrophic 73 per cent decline in the average size of monitored wildlife populations between 1970 and 2020, covering nearly 35,000 populations of 5,495 species. Freshwater populations fell most sharply (85 per cent), with habitat loss and degradation, driven largely by the food system, as the dominant threat. Example: UPSC prelims has used the report's headline figure: monitored wildlife populations declined 73 per cent on average between 1970 and 2020.
• Evil Quartet: The Evil Quartet is the term given to the four major human-driven causes of biodiversity loss identified by ecologist Jared Diamond. They are habitat loss and fragmentation (the most important cause), over-exploitation of species, invasion by alien species, and co-extinctions, where dependent species die out when their obligate partner species goes extinct. It is a standard UPSC and ecology framework for analysing biodiversity loss. Example: The extinction of Steller's sea cow and the passenger pigeon illustrates over-exploitation, one member of the Evil Quartet.
• habitat loss and fragmentation: Habitat loss is the outright destruction of a species' natural home, while fragmentation is the breaking of a large habitat into smaller, isolated patches by roads, farms, mines, or settlements. Together they shrink living space, cut off breeding populations from each other, and push wildlife into conflict with humans. This combination is the single biggest driver of biodiversity loss in the world. Example: Highways and mining that cut through central India's forest corridors isolate tiger populations into disconnected reserves.
• overexploitation: Overexploitation is the harvesting of a natural resource, such as fish, timber, medicinal plants, or wildlife, at a rate faster than it can regenerate, driving population declines and ecosystem damage. It is one of the five direct drivers of biodiversity loss identified by the IPBES, alongside habitat change, climate change, pollution, and invasive species. Sustainable quotas, bans, and protected areas are the standard policy responses. Example: The collapse of Atlantic cod stocks off Newfoundland after decades of industrial overfishing, which forced a moratorium in 1992.
• invasive alien species: Invasive alien species are non-native plants, animals or microbes that are introduced into a new ecosystem and spread aggressively, outcompeting native species and damaging the ecology or economy. Unlike harmless introduced species, they alter habitats, spread disease or clog waterways, and are ranked among the leading global drivers of biodiversity loss. India has notified them as a serious threat under its biodiversity law and rules. Example: Lantana camara, an ornamental shrub brought from tropical America, has invaded forests across India, suppressing native plants and reducing forage for wildlife, while the water hyacinth chokes lakes and wetlands such as those in Kerala and Assam.
• co-extinction: Co-extinction is the extinction of a species as a consequence of the extinction of another species on which it depends, such as a host, pollinator or obligate symbiont. It means that biodiversity loss can cascade through ecological networks beyond the directly affected species. Example: A host-specific parasite or a pollinator-dependent plant can go extinct when its partner species disappears.
• Human-wildlife conflict: Human-wildlife conflict describes situations where the needs of wild animals clash with human activities, such as elephants raiding crops, leopards or tigers preying on livestock, and retaliatory killing of wildlife. It intensifies as habitats fragment and wildlife corridors are blocked by farms, roads and settlements. Mitigation combines physical barriers like solar fences, early-warning systems, habitat corridors and compensation for losses, alongside community participation. Example: Elephants raiding paddy fields along forest corridors in Assam and West Bengal are managed with early-warning alerts and maintained elephant corridors.
• fragment habitats: To break a continuous habitat into smaller, isolated patches separated by roads, farms, mines or settlements, a process called habitat fragmentation. Fragmentation shrinks the area available to wildlife, cuts off gene flow between populations, increases harmful edge effects such as predation and human disturbance, and blocks seasonal migration routes. Linear infrastructure through forests is the most common cause, and mitigation uses wildlife corridors, underpasses and overpasses. Example: National Highway 44 widening through the Pench-Kanha tiger corridor fragmented a key wildlife linkage, prompting the construction of animal underpasses to restore connectivity.
• Compensation: Compensation is payment made to a person for loss, damage, or the acquisition of their property or rights. In UPSC contexts it appears in land acquisition law, where the 2013 Act mandates market-value-based payment with rehabilitation; in environmental law through the polluter-pays principle; and in criminal law through victim compensation schemes. For UPSC, it links fundamental rights, especially Article 300A on property, with welfare and justice. Example: Under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Act, 2013, rural landowners receive up to four times the market value of acquired land.
• Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972: The Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972 is India's landmark law for the protection of wild animals, birds and plants, enacted partly to fulfil obligations under CITES. It created a framework of national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, conservation reserves and community reserves, and listed species in schedules with graded penalties for hunting and trade, with the highest protection for Schedule I species like the tiger and elephant. The 2022 amendment rationalised the schedules and strengthened CITES implementation in India. Example: Project Tiger's reserves, such as Corbett and Kaziranga, derive their legal protection from the national park and sanctuary provisions of this Act.
• Gajraj system: The Gajraj system is a technology toolkit for reducing human-elephant conflict, built around AI-linked fibre-optic sensors that detect elephants approaching railway tracks and warn railway staff in advance. It also includes AI-enabled camera traps that monitor protected areas in real time. Together with wildlife corridors and compensation schemes, it forms India's technology-led response to elephant mortality on rail lines. Example: Fibre-optic sensors of the Gajraj system alert loco pilots to elephant herds on the tracks, allowing trains to slow down before a collision.
• Project Tiger: Project Tiger is the centrally sponsored scheme launched in 1973 for in-situ conservation of the Bengal tiger, beginning with nine reserves including Jim Corbett National Park. It funds habitat protection, anti-poaching and relocation of villages from core areas, and is administered with the National Tiger Conservation Authority (statutory since 2006). For UPSC it is the flagship species-conservation programme and the model for Project Elephant and Project Lion. Example: The 2022 all-India tiger estimation reported about 3,682 tigers, a figure routinely used to judge Project Tiger's five-decade record.
• Project Elephant: Project Elephant, launched in 1992, is a centrally sponsored scheme of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for protecting elephants, their habitats, and migratory corridors, and for mitigating human-elephant conflict. It supports a network of Elephant Reserves across elephant-range states and funds anti-poaching and habitat work. It is a prelims environment staple, asked alongside Project Tiger of 1973. Example: Gaj Yatra, the nationwide awareness campaign launched in 2017
• Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety: The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is a supplementary agreement to the Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted in 2000 and in force since 2003, governing the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms (LMOs) resulting from modern biotechnology. It establishes an advance informed agreement procedure, requiring exporters to notify and obtain consent from importing countries before the first shipment of an LMO intended for release into the environment. India is a party and implements it through the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Example: Bt cotton, India's only approved GM crop, went through biosafety assessment under this framework before its commercial release in 2002.
• Nagoya Protocol: The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits, adopted in 2010 under the Convention on Biological Diversity, entered into force in October 2014. It requires that access to a country's genetic resources (and associated traditional knowledge) needs prior informed consent and mutually agreed terms, with benefits from their commercial use shared fairly with the provider country and communities. It operationalises the CBD's third objective of benefit-sharing. Example: India's Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and the National Biodiversity Authority implement access and benefit-sharing in line with the Protocol.
• Target 3: Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is the commitment to ensure that by 2030 at least 30 percent of terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine areas are effectively conserved and managed. Popularly called the 30x30 target, it is the headline conservation goal of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework adopted at COP15 in 2022. Example: India's expanding network of protected areas and community reserves contributes to the 30x30 target.
• 30x30 target: Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which calls for at least 30 percent of the world's terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas to be effectively conserved and managed by 2030. It succeeds and extends the earlier Aichi Target 11, which aimed at 17 percent of land and 10 percent of seas by 2020. Example: progress toward it is tracked through the World Database on Protected Areas maintained by UNEP-WCMC and IUCN. Example: Extends Aichi Target 11 (17 percent land, 10 percent seas by 2020); tracked via the World Database on Protected Areas.
• COP16 in Cali, Colombia: The CBD's 2024 conference in Cali, Colombia, the first COP after the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted at COP15. Its headline outcomes were the Cali Fund, into which companies using digital sequence information contribute a share of profits for Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and a permanent subsidiary body for Indigenous participation. Finance talks stalled and continued later in Rome. Example: The Cali Fund agreed at COP16 in Cali channels company payments for using genetic data back to Indigenous communities.
• Cali Fund: The Cali Fund is a global benefit-sharing fund created at the COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, in 2024 under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It collects voluntary contributions from companies that commercially use digital sequence information (DSI), which is digitised genetic data taken from biodiversity, with an indicative rate of 1 per cent of profits or 0.1 per cent of revenue. At least half the money is earmarked for Indigenous peoples and local communities, the traditional custodians of biodiversity. Example: A pharmaceutical company that develops a drug from a plant's DNA sequence downloaded from a public database is expected to contribute part of its profits to the Cali Fund.
• ecocide: Ecocide refers to severe, large-scale destruction of the natural environment, and a campaign is underway to make it an international crime. In June 2021 an Independent Expert Panel convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation proposed a legal definition: unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment. In 2024 Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa formally proposed adding ecocide as a fifth crime under the International Criminal Court's Rome Statute, alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression. Example: Campaigners citing the large-scale destruction of the Amazon rainforest as the kind of act an international ecocide law would criminalise.
• Arthur Galston: Arthur Galston (1920-2008) was an American plant biologist who coined the term ecocide in 1970 to describe the large-scale ecological destruction caused by the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. His research on plant hormones had inadvertently contributed to defoliant science, and he became a prominent bioethicist and critic of chemical warfare. He connects UPSC environment topics to the history of environmental law. Example: His framing of wartime environmental destruction as ecocide underlies the modern campaign, led by small island states like Vanuatu, Fiji, and Samoa, to make ecocide an international crime.
• fifth international crime: The campaign to make ecocide the fifth international crime prosecutable by the International Criminal Court, alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. Ecocide is defined by an independent expert panel (2021) as unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge of a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long term damage to the environment. The Stop Ecocide International campaign seeks an amendment to the Rome Statute so that mass environmental destruction can be tried at The Hague. Example: A 2021 independent expert panel convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation proposed a formal legal definition of ecocide for inclusion in the Rome Statute of the ICC.
• Rome Statute: The Rome Statute is the 1998 treaty that established the International Criminal Court, which began functioning in 2002 with its seat at The Hague. It gives the court jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. India is not a party to the statute, having concerns about the court's jurisdiction and the UN Security Council's referral powers. Example: The ICC's prosecution of war crimes in ongoing conflicts proceeds under the authority of the Rome Statute.
• Environment (Protection) Act of 1986: The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 is India's umbrella environmental legislation, enacted in the wake of the Bhopal gas tragedy of December 1984. It empowers the Central Government to take all measures to protect and improve the environment, including setting emission and effluent standards, restricting industrial operations in specified areas, and issuing rules on hazardous substances and waste. Key subordinate instruments, including the EIA Notification (2006), the Coastal Regulation Zone notification and the waste-management rules, are issued under this Act. Example: The EIA Notification, 2006, which mandates environmental clearance for listed projects, is issued under the authority of this Act.
• Key takeaways: Key takeaways is a quick-revision summary box placed at the end of each article, listing the most exam-relevant points in a short numbered list. It distils definitions, dates, figures, provisions and examples into a form suited for last-minute revision before Prelims and Mains. Together with the article's practice questions, it turns every topic into a self-contained study unit.
• genetic, species, and ecosystem: The three hierarchical levels at which biodiversity is measured and conserved, as recognised by the Convention on Biological Diversity. Genetic diversity is variation within species; species diversity is the variety of species in an area; ecosystem diversity is the variety of habitats, communities and ecological processes, from coral reefs to alpine meadows. Conservation policy must address all three levels, since protecting species without their habitats, or habitats without genetic variation, is incomplete. Example: India, one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries, conserves biodiversity at all three levels: gene banks for crop diversity, Project Tiger for species, and biosphere reserves for whole ecosystems.
• provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural: These are the four categories of ecosystem services identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005. Provisioning services supply material goods like food, water and timber; regulating services include climate regulation and flood control; supporting services such as nutrient cycling underpin the other three; and cultural services cover recreation, spiritual and aesthetic benefits. The classification is the standard framework for valuing what ecosystems do for people. Example: A mangrove forest provisioning fish and timber, regulating storm surges, supporting nutrient cycling, and offering cultural value through ecotourism.
• Gajraj: Gajraj is an AI-based intrusion detection system developed to prevent elephant deaths in collisions with trains. It uses fibre-optic acoustic sensors laid along railway tracks through elephant corridors, which detect the movement of elephants and trigger alerts to loco pilots and control rooms in time to slow or stop trains. Example: The Gajraj system has been deployed along elephant corridors in states such as Assam and West Bengal, where train hits are a major cause of elephant mortality.
• CBD: The Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and in force from December 1993, with 196 parties making it near-universal. Its three objectives are conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of its components, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits from genetic resources. It is implemented through the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing. Example: India's Biological Diversity Act 2002 implements the CBD's access-and-benefit-sharing obligations domestically.
• Kunming-Montreal GBF: The Kunming-Montreal GBF is the short form of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the global plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss adopted at the COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal in December 2022. It sets four long-term goals for 2050 and 23 action targets for 2030, covering conservation, restoration, sustainable use, pollution, invasive species and finance. The GBF is to biodiversity what the Paris Agreement is to climate: the central negotiated framework guiding national biodiversity strategies worldwide. Example: India's updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan aligns its domestic conservation goals with the GBF's 2030 targets, including on protected areas and ecosystem restoration.
• 30x30: The shorthand for the global target of effectively conserving and managing at least 30 percent of terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine areas by 2030. It is Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted at CBD COP15 in 2022. Example: India's protected-area network, including national parks and wildlife sanctuaries notified under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, is the country's main vehicle for contributing to this target. Example: Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022): conserve 30 percent of land and seas by 2030.
• National Wildlife Action Plan (2017-31): India's third National Wildlife Action Plan, covering 2017 to 2031, structured around five components, 17 themes, 103 conservation actions and 250 projects. It marked a shift from a protected-area-centric approach to a landscape approach to conservation, and was the first Indian wildlife plan to explicitly integrate climate change into wildlife planning, alongside priorities like human-wildlife conflict mitigation, poaching control, eco-tourism management and people's participation. Example: Its landscape approach means conservation strategies now extend beyond national parks and sanctuaries to the wider region wildlife actually moves through.
• Convention on Biological Diversity: The Convention on Biological Diversity is the principal global treaty for the conservation of life on Earth, opened for signature at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and in force since 1993. It has three objectives: conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components, and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from genetic resources. It was supplemented by the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety (adopted 2000) and the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing (adopted 2010). India implements it through the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. Example: The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted at the CBD's COP15 in 2022, sets the 30 by 30 target of protecting 30 percent of land and oceans by 2030.
• Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework: The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is the landmark agreement adopted at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal in December 2022, under China's presidency of the talks. It commits the world to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and to live in harmony with nature by 2050, through four goals for 2050 and 23 measurable targets for 2030. Its targets cover the 30x30 conservation goal, restoration of degraded ecosystems, cutting pollution and pesticide risks, controlling invasive species, and mobilising 200 billion US dollars a year in biodiversity finance by 2030. Example: The framework's finance target has driven new funding channels such as the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund and the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, aimed at closing the biodiversity funding gap for developing countries.
• M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India (2024): A 21 March 2024 Supreme Court judgment (CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra) balancing conservation of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard against India's renewable energy push. It modified the Court's sweeping 2021 order on undergrounding power lines across GIB habitat and appointed an expert committee to recommend workable protection measures. In a landmark move, it recognised that citizens have a right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change, grounded in Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. Example: The Court later accepted the expert committee's revised priority areas of 14,013 sq km in Rajasthan and 740 sq km in Gujarat for focused GIB protection.

• Social forestry: Social forestry is the programme of raising trees on non-forest lands such as village commons, roadsides, canal banks and farm boundaries to meet rural fuelwood, fodder and small-timber needs, launched as a major programme in the Sixth Five Year Plan. Example: A village woodlot on common land that supplies firewood reduces pressure on the nearby reserve forest.

• Joint Forest Management (JFM): Joint Forest Management is the participatory management of degraded forest lands by the forest department together with local communities, who protect the forest and share in its usufructs and benefits. It grew from the Arabari experiment in West Bengal and was formalised through 1990 guidelines. Example: A village forest protection committee that guards a degraded patch and shares the harvested produce practises JFM.

• National Agroforestry Policy, 2014: The National Agroforestry Policy, 2014 integrates trees into farming systems for income diversification, soil health, carbon sequestration and reduced pressure on forests, and was among the first dedicated national agroforestry policies in the world. Example: Farmers growing timber trees on field bunds earn additional income while creating habitat connectivity.

• Red sanders: Red sanders, Pterocarpus santalinus, is a tree endemic to the Eastern Ghats whose deep-red wood is prized internationally, making it one of India's most smuggled timber species. It is in CITES Appendix II and reported as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Example: Seizures of red sanders logs bound for overseas markets are a recurring enforcement story.

• Sandalwood: Sandalwood, Santalum album, is valued for its fragrant heartwood, and was long kept under state monopoly, with farmers required to declare and surrender trees. Over-harvest decimated wild populations, and several states have liberalised cultivation to make legal growing profitable. Example: Legal sandalwood plantations now aim to undercut the smuggler's margin.

• Wildlife Institute of India (WII): The Wildlife Institute of India at Dehradun, under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, is the country's premier institution for wildlife research and training, advising governments on protected-area management. Example: WII anchors major exercises such as the national tiger population estimation.

• National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA): The National Tiger Conservation Authority is the statutory body under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as amended in 2006, that oversees tiger conservation, approves tiger reserve plans, sets management standards and monitors populations. Example: NTCA approval is legally required for key decisions in tiger reserves.

• Diclofenac and the vulture crisis: Diclofenac, a veterinary anti-inflammatory drug, caused fatal kidney failure in vultures feeding on treated cattle carcasses, driving a collapse of over 95 per cent in three Gyps species through the 1990s and 2000s. Its 2006 veterinary ban and breeding centres such as Pinjore anchor the recovery effort. Example: The vulture crisis is the standard case of science-led conservation regulation.

• Sacred groves: Sacred groves are forest patches protected by religious belief and community custom, where harming trees or wildlife is taboo, conserving biodiversity without formal guards or fences. Example: The Mawphlang sacred forest in Meghalaya protects rich biodiversity through community faith alone.

• IUCN Red List: The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the global inventory that grades species by extinction risk, from Least Concern to Extinct, using measurable criteria such as population decline and range size. Example: the Great Indian bustard is Critically Endangered, which pushes it to the front of protection and funding queues.
• Threatened species: Threatened species is the collective label for species assessed as Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Example: the Bengal tiger (Endangered) and the clouded leopard (Vulnerable) are both threatened species.
• Biodiversity cool spot: A biodiversity cool spot is an area where high species diversity survives under heavy human pressure, the mirror image of a biodiversity hotspot. Example: urban woodlands and floodplain wetlands that shelter rare species inside city limits.
• Ecologically Sensitive Area: An Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) is a notified zone where damaging activities such as mining and large construction are restricted to protect a fragile ecosystem. Example: the long-running ESA notification process for the Western Ghats.
• Forest cover: Forest cover is all land above one hectare with tree canopy density over 10 percent, regardless of ownership or legal status, as measured in the India State of Forest Report. Example: ISFR 2023 put India's forest cover at 7,15,343 sq km, or 21.76 percent of the land area.

Prelims practice