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 for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Kirti Vardhan Singh said that the vision document reflects India’s extraordinary efforts in biodiversity documentation, threat assessment, and conservation. He referred to the IUCN event as a gathering that embodies our collective commitment to safeguarding nature and shaping a sustainable future.
The Minister 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.
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.
Kirti Vardhan Singh said although India occupies only 2.4% of the world’s land area, it harbours nearly 8% of the global flora and 7.5% of global fauna, with 28% of the plants and over 30% 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, he stated.
