MoS Kirti Vardhan Singh leads Indian team at Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi

New Delhi, Oct 9 (IANS) Inaugurating the programme on the launch of India’s National Red List Roadmap at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, Union Minister of State (MoS) for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh noted that the document reflects efforts in biodiversity documentation and conservation.

He referred to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) event as a gathering that embodies our collective commitment to safeguarding nature and shaping a sustainable future.

The Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change presented India’s Vision 2025-2030 for the National Red List Assessment (NRLA), a comprehensive framework prepared by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and the Botanical Survey of India (BSI), in close collaboration with IUCN-India and the Centre for Species Survival, India.

“This vision outlines our roadmap for a nationally coordinated, inclusive and science-based system to assess and monitor the conservation status of our species”, he stated.

Addressing the session, the Minister informed that India stands proudly 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 pr 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 Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, recently amended in 2022 to extend protection to species listed under CITES appendices, he stated.

“To fulfil our commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF), India has launched the National Red List Assessment initiative, aligned with IUCN global standards,” Singh stated.

This initiative will establish a nationally coordinated red-listing system, a tool for accurate assessment, conservation planning, and informed policy development. The Minister laid stress on the important role of documentation of traditional knowledge in biodiversity conservation.

--IANS

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