India launches National Red List Assessment to map species extinction risk

• India launched a National Red List Assessment initiative to accurately assess the conservation status of its species and fulfil commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

• The National Red List Roadmap was unveiled at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi on August 9.

• It will create a nationally coordinated red-listing system to support conservation planning, policy making and threat mitigation.

• Union Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh presented India’s Vision 2025-2030 for the National Red List Assessment.

• It is a framework prepared by the Zoological Survey of India and the Botanical Survey of India in collaboration with IUCN-India and the Centre for Species Survival.

• The programme aims to publish National Red Data Books for both flora and fauna by 2030, using IUCN-aligned scientific guidelines.

The need for such an endeavour

• India is among the world’s 17 megadiverse countries, home to four of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots: the Himalayas, the Western Ghats, Indo-Burma, and Sundaland. 

• Although India occupies only 2.4 per cent of the world’s land area, it harbours nearly 8 per cent of the global flora and 7.5 per cent of global fauna, with 28 per cent of the plants and over 30 per cent of the animals being endemic. 

• India has long upheld robust legal frameworks for protection of biodiversity, foremost among them, the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, recently amended in 2022 to extend protection to species listed under CITES appendices.

• The National Red List Assessment of Indian flora and fauna will be a first-of-its-kind national endeavour, spearheaded by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, with the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) serving as the nodal agencies. 

• Some Asian nations such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and China have undertaken similar multi-taxa assessments. 

• But India’s National Red List Assessment will distinguish itself as one of the most comprehensive and collaborative national efforts, bringing together the country’s leading taxonomists, conservation biologists, and subject experts under a unified, nationally coordinated framework to accomplish this significant task.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)