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The National Mission

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India, is planning to launch a unique and ambitious National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being (NMBHWB). This Mission is one of nine national missions approved by the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) in 2019. The Mission will strengthen the science of restoring and conserving India’s natural heritage; embed biodiversity as a key consideration in all development programmes, particularly in agriculture, ecosystem services, health, bio-economy, and climate change mitigation; establish a citizen and policy oriented biodiversity information system; and enhance capacity across all sectors for realization of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Our Role In the Mission

From October 2019 to September 2021, the Biodiversity Collaborative implemented the Preparatory Phase Project of the National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being. The endeavour forged interagency collaborations and interdisciplinary approaches to biodiversity conservation, awareness, education and management. This was done by conceptualising different programmes that synergise on biodiversity: from Cataloguing and Mapping Life of India to Ecosystem Services, Climate Change, Agriculture, Health, Bio-Economy and Outreach and Capacity Building. The process included a series of consultations with various governmental and non-governmental agencies across the country, and culminated in the preparation of a detailed roadmap for the Mission. 

 

The Preparatory Phase Project was supported by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India.

Cataloguing & Mapping Life of India

This programme aims to catalogue and map India’s expansive life, including ecosystems and species diversity, genetic diversity, people, cultures and biodiversity management regimes. By continually synergising and updating this information, the programme sets out to identify areas of vulnerability as well as those of great promise for green economy using artificial intelligence to detect vital and informative trends in diversity.
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Ecosystem Services

This programme endeavours to identify, quantify and map key ecosystem attributes and functions that underpin ecosystem services which in turn sustain the well-being of millions of people across diverse biomes such as rain forests, flood-plains, rivers and estuaries and Himalayan forests. The programme is also designed to monitor species interactions, particularly of mobile pollinators and seed dispersers, and interactions between invasive and native biota.
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Climate Change

This programme is oriented towards quantifying and mapping the role of India’s forests in regulating monsoonal rain through recycled evapotranspiration, regulation of floods and reduced sedimentation of irrigation dams. The programme also seeks to examine the role of forests and forest restoration in India’s water and carbon security for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change as well as disaster risk reduction.
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Agriculture

This programme attempts to quantify the contribution of biodiversity in forests, rivers, estuaries and agro-ecosystems to India’s food, nutritional security and livelihoods. The programme also works to enhance agricultural productivity, diversify livelihoods, and increase rural incomes by sustainable use of biodiversity and local ecosystem services.
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One Health

This programme is targeted at exploring the multiple linkages between biodiversity, diseases, and human health, and examines risk factors for disease emergence at the wildlife-domestic animal-human interfaces. The programme also aims to examine the links between emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (ERID) and ecosystem integrity to build a new agenda for the emerging vision of One Health.
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Bio-economy

This programme aims to identify and promote sustainable development pathways that are based on bio-resources, and are both economically viable and ecologically sustainable. The programme also seeks to guide the Mission in developing a unified national perspective to establish a vibrant biodiversity-based economy built on a solid foundation of reliable, scientific information.
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Outreach & Capacity Building

This programme works to develop educational programmes in new biodiversity sciences at the undergraduate and graduate levels and will provide advanced training to scientists in biodiversity sciences. This programme also has the objective of developing and supporting citizen science approaches to mainstreaming biodiversity research and conservation efforts and enables new communication strategies. Further, the programme aspires to engage digital tools for mainstreaming biodiversity.
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Medicinal Plants

This programme seeks to demonstrate a multi-faceted, multi-institutional, multiple stakeholder intervention focused on documentation, conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants for health and livelihood security of rural communities. The programme design contributes to strengthening “One Health” strategies in India. In this context, it also works towards forging relationships particularly with other countries in Asia that have a long history of cultural exchange around medicinal plants.
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Meet the Secretariat

Kamal Bawa

He is Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and the Founder-President of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). He is a recipient of the Linnean Medal in Botany.

Ravi Chellam
Director, Mission Secretariat

He is the Chief Executive Officer of Metastring Foundation. As a wildlife biologist and conservation scientist, he has pioneered research on Asiatic Lions and helmed multiple conservation organisations in India.

Asmita Sengupta
Programme Officer

She is Adjunct Fellow, Suri Sehgal Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation at the Ashoka trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). She is currently examining the drivers of human-primate commensalism as a DST-INSPIRE Faculty Fellow.

Aunindo Ghosh
Project Director - Public Engagement & Outreach

He is a political ecologist and a storyteller with experience in leading outreach and communications initiatives across sectors. He is an alumnus of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.