Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation Planning

This programme integrates various approaches to explore, document, monitor and help safeguard India’s unique biodiversity. It aims to provide evidence-based insights on the status of biodiversity and its future threats and facilitate informed policy (re)formulation, conservation planning and implementation for protecting biodiversity, ecosystem processes and human well-being.

Our key areas of research include Biodiversity and Global Change, Biodiversity and Conservation Planning and Biodiversity and Capacity-building.

Objectives

Assess, describe and monitor biodiversity across scales, taxa and landscapes in the context of global change.
Understand the biotic and abiotic determinants of ecosystem structures and functions.
Study human-biodiversity interfaces, analyse the impact of human activities on biodiversity, wildlife behaviour, ecology and plant-animal interactions, and understand its implications for biodiversity and human well-being.
Design interventions in selected critical habitats and promote socially just conservation.
Develop and maintain a comprehensive open-source database on India’s biodiversity to support conservation action and sustainability.
Enhance connectivity of natural landscapes and study associated movement patterns of flora and fauna.
Contribute towards capacity building of various stakeholders and create awareness among citizens about biodiversity conservation.

Research Questions

What are the major factors responsible for long-term changes in wetlands, grasslands and forest ecosystems? How do they interact with global processes?
In what ways do human interventions impact ecosystem functions and services?
What socio-ecological factors enable the communities dependent on these ecosystems to respond and adapt to changes?
What policy gaps hinder effective conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity?
What are the primary obstacles to deploying models of sustainable agriculture that promote biodiversity? What policy framework changes are needed to overcome these obstacles
What are the factors needed to create effective wildlife corridors? How can landscapes be made into functional corridors, especially in human-dominated landscapes?

Alignment with India’s International Commitments

This programme will contribute to India meeting its commitments to:
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework 2022 (Targets 2, 3, 4, 11, 14)
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2018 (Targets 15.1, 15.3, 15.4, 15.5, 15.9)