Wildlife, Problems of Wildlife & Wildlife Conservation

• Wildlife is every organism that lives wild in an area without having been introduced there by people: animals, plants, fungi and micro-organisms alike.
• Wildlife populations are falling faster than at any time in human history. The Living Planet Index shows an average 73% fall in monitored vertebrate populations since 1970, and about one million species face extinction.
• Wildlife conservation answers this crisis through global treaties, national law, protected areas and species recovery projects, and increasingly through coexistence with the people who share wildlife’s land.

Wildlife and the Biodiversity Crisis

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What “wildlife” means

• Wildlife traditionally meant undomesticated animals. The term now conventionally includes all plants, fungi and other organisms that grow or live wild in an area without human introduction.
  • This wider meaning places wildlife conservation in the same family as biogeography, ecosystem ecology and biodiversity, rather than treating it as a narrow zoological topic.
• Wildlife occurs in every ecosystem on Earth: deserts, forests, rainforests, plains, grasslands and wetlands, and even the most developed urban areas, which support their own birds, bats, monkeys and leopards.
• Popular culture imagines wildlife as untouched by people, but virtually all wildlife today is affected, directly or indirectly, by human activity. This thread runs from the causes of loss to every conservation response.

How much life is out there

• Estimates of the number of species on Earth range from 5 to 15 million. The best-known modern estimate is about 8.7 million eukaryotic species (Camilo Mora and colleagues, 2011).
• Only about 2.1–2.2 million have been formally described and named, so humanity is losing species it has not even catalogued.
  • Insects make up the largest share of both described and undescribed species; most of the unknown species live in the tropics, in soils and in the deep sea.
• Vertebrates are the best known: about 11,000 species of birds and about 6,500 species of mammals are recognised.
• Extinction is part of the natural turnover of life: speciation, dispersal and extinction stay in rough balance over geological time. Human-driven extinction upsets that balance.

The scale of the crisis

• The Living Planet Index (WWF with the Zoological Society of London) tracks the average change in the size of monitored vertebrate populations since 1970.

• The 2026 report finds the steepest falls in freshwater (85%), then on land (69%) and in the sea (59%). By region, Latin America and the Caribbean (95%) and Africa (80%) lead, ahead of Asia and the Pacific (49%).
  • The index measures average change in abundance, not the share of species lost; about half of monitored populations are stable or increasing.
• The IPBES Global Assessment (2019), by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, found that about 1 million of an estimated 8 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades.
  • Humans have significantly altered 75% of the land surface and 66% of the ocean area; more than 85% of wetlands present in 1700 had been lost by 2000.
  • The current rate of extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years, and accelerating.
• The IUCN Red List (version 2026-1) has assessed 175,909 species, of which 49,505 (about 28%) are threatened with extinction.
  • About 26% of mammals and 11% of birds are threatened, against 41% of amphibians, 44% of reef-building corals and 71% of cycads.
• In response to such losses, India passed the Wild Life (Protection) Act in 1972, and in 1980 the IUCN, with UNEP and WWF, launched the World Conservation Strategy.

Mass extinctions and the sixth extinction

• Earth has passed through five mass extinctions, each wiping out a large fraction of species within a geologically short interval:

• Most scientists hold that the world is now in a sixth mass extinction. Unlike the five earlier events, driven by asteroid impact, volcanism and glaciation, it is driven by one species, Homo sapiens, acting through the drivers below.
  • This anthropogenic causation is what separates modern conservation biogeography from the study of past extinctions.
• How species go extinct:
  • Environmental change faster than adaptation: when climate or habitat changes more rapidly than a species can adjust or move, it dies out.
  • Sudden catastrophes: fires, eruptions and storms can eliminate small, local populations, as the 1883 Krakatau eruption sterilised its island.
  • Disease and pests, especially when new pathogens reach naive populations, as chytrid fungus has done to amphibians worldwide.
  • Competition from stronger or introduced species.
  • Hunting: Paul Schultz Martin (1967) argued in his overkill hypothesis that spreading human hunters caused the late-Pleistocene loss of mammoths and other megafauna; climate change and competition were the alternatives debated.
  • Human-induced habitat change, now the dominant cause: at least 680 vertebrate species have been driven extinct since 1500.

Problems of Wildlife: The Drivers of Loss

Drivers of biodiversity loss: the overview

• Global biodiversity is being lost much faster than the natural (background) rate of extinction. The IPBES (2019) ranked the direct drivers in order of global impact:
  1. Changes in land and sea use (habitat loss)
  2. Direct exploitation of organisms (hunting, fishing, logging, trade)
  3. Climate change
  4. Pollution
  5. Invasive alien species
• Edward O. Wilson summed up the same drivers in the acronym HIPPO: Habitat destruction, Invasive species, Pollution, human Population and Overharvesting.
• The drivers differ by region:
  • Land conversion is most evident in tropical forests, and less intense in temperate, boreal and Arctic regions.
  • Atmospheric nitrogen deposition is most severe in northern temperate areas close to urban centres.
  • Invasive alien species are spread by human trade, travel and transport, deliberate or accidental.
• Species loss is compounded by indirect drivers:
  • growth of human populations and unsustainable consumer lifestyles;
  • increasing production of waste and pollutants;
  • urban development and infrastructure;
  • international conflict and weak governance.

Habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation

• Habitat loss through destruction, fragmentation and degradation is the primary threat to wildlife. Less natural habitat remains each year, and much of what remains bears little resemblance to the wild areas of the past.
  • Destruction: the outright removal of natural habitat, such as clear-felling forest for farms or settlement.
  • Fragmentation: the breaking of large, continuous habitat into small, isolated patches, which disrupts movement, gene flow and breeding in species that need large ranges.
  • Degradation: a fall in habitat quality without complete removal, through pollution, invasive species, or altered fire and water regimes.
• Fragmentation is explained by island biogeography. Robert MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson (1963, 1967) showed that small, isolated islands hold fewer species.
  • Habitat patches behave like islands: smaller size and greater isolation each lower the number of species a patch can sustain.
  • Edge effects and lost gene flow raise local extinction risk, so habitat fragmentation and landscape connectivity through corridors decide whether patch populations survive.
• Indian examples: roads, railways, canals and mines cut through the Central Indian tiger landscape; the elephant corridors of Odisha, Jharkhand and the Western Ghats are squeezed by settlements and plantations.

Climate change and wildlife

• Global warming makes hot days hotter, rainfall and flooding heavier, cyclones stronger and droughts more severe, adding stress to species and habitats.
  • Many plants and animals have specific habitat requirements; where these can no longer be met locally, species decline or vanish.
  • Even a slight change in average rainfall produces large seasonal changes on the ground.
  • Hibernating mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects suffer most from shifting seasonal cues, because their life cycles are timed to temperature and day length.
  • Plants and wildlife are highly sensitive to moisture change.
• Natural phenomena (floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, lightning and forest fires) also harm wildlife, and floods and fires are growing in frequency and severity with warming.
• Species show two broad biogeographical responses:
  • range shifts, poleward and upslope, as species track a suitable climatic envelope;
  • local extinction, where barriers, fragmentation or the sheer pace of change outstrip dispersal.
• Examples: the Bramble Cay melomys, an Australian rodent, was the first mammal recorded as lost mainly to climate change (declared extinct 2016–19); coral reefs bleach in successive marine heatwaves; Himalayan species are moving upslope, leaving mountaintop species nowhere to go.

Unregulated hunting and poaching

• Unregulated hunting and poaching remain a major threat. Weak enforcement makes it worse: forest departments and guards are often too few and too poorly equipped to police vast, remote habitats.
• Illegal wildlife trade supplies body parts, pets and luxury goods to distant markets:
  • tiger skins and bones, rhino horn, elephant ivory, pangolin scales, shahtoosh wool from the Tibetan antelope, red sandalwood, star tortoises and birds;
  • in India the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), set up under a 2006 amendment of the Act, coordinates enforcement against organised trade.

Pollution

• Pollutants released into the environment are taken up by a wide range of organisms. Pesticides and toxic chemicals poison plants, insects and rodents, and their effects climb the food chain by bioaccumulation and biomagnification.
  • DDT thinned the eggshells of birds of prey in the mid-20th century.
  • In India the veterinary painkiller diclofenac, ingested from cattle carcasses, caused kidney failure in vultures. Gyps vulture populations crashed by more than 95% from the 1990s; the drug was banned for veterinary use in 2006, and related drugs (aceclofenac, ketoprofen) were banned in 2023.
• Other pollution: plastics entangle and choke marine life; nutrient runoff creates dead zones; noise and artificial light disrupt migration and breeding.

Over-exploitation

• Over-exploitation is the use of wild species for food, clothing, pets, medicine, sport and other purposes beyond what populations can replace. People have always depended on wildlife, but today more is consumed than nature can sustainably supply.
  • If too many individuals are removed, a species can no longer sustain a viable population.
  • The loss of one species affects many others through the web of ecological interactions.
• Unsustainable hunting, trapping, collecting and fishing are not new:
  • The passenger pigeon, once billions strong, was hunted to extinction; the last bird died in 1914.
  • Over-hunting reduced the American bison from tens of millions to under a thousand by the late 1880s.
  • Commercial whaling drove several whale species to the brink until the international moratorium of 1986.
  • More than a third of marine fish stocks are now fished at unsustainable levels.

Invasive alien species

• An invasive alien species is a non-native species, introduced by people, that spreads and harms native wildlife, ecosystems or livelihoods.
  • The IPBES invasive species assessment (2023) counted more than 37,000 established alien species, of which over 3,500 are invasive. They were a major factor in 60% of recorded global extinctions.
• Indian examples: Lantana camara has invaded about 40% of India’s tiger habitat, and invasive plants threaten about two-thirds of India’s natural systems; Prosopis juliflora has overrun the Banni grasslands of Kachchh.
• The 2022 amendment of the Wild Life (Protection) Act lets the central government regulate or prohibit the import, trade and spread of invasive alien species.

Deforestation

• As human populations grow, forests are cleared for settlement, agriculture and infrastructure, leaving wildlife fewer homes and food sources. This deforestation stresses wildlife populations directly.
• Tropical forests, home to over half of all land species, lose the most; agricultural clearing in the Amazon and Congo basins has removed vast areas of primate, bird and amphibian habitat.

Human population growth

• The growing human population is a root threat. More people consume more food, water and fuel and generate more waste, so pressure on wildlife rises with population. The world passed 8 billion people in 2022.
• Population pressure is therefore treated as a root, systemic driver underlying the other threats rather than an independent cause.

Human–wildlife conflict

• Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) is any interaction in which wild animals harm people, crops, livestock or property, or people harm wildlife in response. As habitat shrinks and settlements expand into former wildlife range, it has become a conservation problem in its own right.
• India’s toll: between 2020 and 2024 elephants killed about 2,869 people and tigers about 382. Odisha, West Bengal and Assam lost the most lives to elephants, and Maharashtra the most to tigers.

Causes

• Habitat loss and fragmentation push animals into farms and villages; blocked elephant corridors turn seasonal movement into conflict.
• Land-use change at forest edges: crops such as sugarcane and paddy, and orchards, attract elephants, wild pigs, nilgai and monkeys.
• Recovering populations without room to expand: tiger, leopard and elephant numbers have risen while most reserves are near capacity, so animals disperse into human-dominated land.
• Degraded habitat and prey loss: Lantana invasion, fire and grazing cut natural food, driving crop raiding and livestock lifting.
• Linear infrastructure: roads, railways and canals cause road kills and train collisions with elephants.
• Garbage and easy food draw leopards, bears and monkeys into towns; climate stress (drought, water scarcity) adds to the pressure.

Consequences

• For people: deaths and injuries, crop and livestock losses, damaged homes, fear and lost working days, falling hardest on poor forest-fringe communities.
• For wildlife: retaliatory killing by poisoning, snares and electrified fences, removal of “problem” animals and growing local hostility that undermines conservation.
• Examples: elephant deaths and human casualties in Odisha and Jharkhand; tiger attacks in the Sundarbans and around Tadoba (Maharashtra); leopards in Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park and the Junnar sugarcane belt; wolf attacks in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh (2024).

Remedies

• Prevention: protect and restore corridors; build wildlife underpasses on highways (NH-44 through the Pench landscape); solar fences, bio-fences and bee-hive fences; guard watchtowers; change crops near forest edges.
• Early warning: SMS and light alert systems for elephant movement (Valparai, Tamil Nadu), camera traps with AI alerts, rapid response teams and radio collaring.
• Compensation and insurance: in November 2025 the Supreme Court directed states to pay ₹10 lakh ex gratia for every death caused by wildlife and urged them to consider declaring HWC a natural disaster. From Kharif 2026, crop loss to wild animals is covered under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.
• Community stewardship: local volunteers, eco-development committees and a share of tourism income build tolerance; Kerala treats HWC as a state-specific disaster to speed relief.

Problems of wildlife conservation and management in India

• Small, fragmented protected areas: India’s protected areas cover only about 5% of its land, most are small, and many are islands in farmland.
• People–park conflict: millions live inside or around reserves. Relocation is slow and contested, and the Forest Rights Act, 2006 must be balanced with “critical wildlife habitats”.
• Weak enforcement: staff vacancies, poor equipment and organised poaching networks; tiger deaths still number over a hundred a year from all causes.
• Development pressure: mining, dams, highways and power lines; overhead power lines in the Thar kill the Great Indian Bustard, of which only about 150 survive.
• Invasive weeds, fire, overgrazing and disease (canine distemper among Gir lions in 2018).
• Funding and science: budgets favour flagship mammals; plants, amphibians, insects and marine life get little attention, and data outside reserves are thin.
• Tourism pressure and the climate-driven shift of species outside fixed boundaries.

The Global Conservation Framework

The IUCN

• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a membership union made up of both governments and civil-society organisations, now more than 1,400 members.
• It was founded in 1948 at Fontainebleau, France, and is headquartered in Gland, Switzerland. It is the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.
• The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (begun in 1964) is the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the conservation status of plant, animal and fungal species.
  • It uses quantitative criteria relevant to most species and all regions, so assessments are comparable worldwide.
  • It is the most authoritative guide to the status of biodiversity, a key indicator for the Sustainable Development Goals and for the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, as it was for the earlier Aichi Biodiversity Targets.
• The IUCN also publishes the Green Status of Species (2021), which measures recovery, and national red lists support country-level assessment.

The IUCN Red List and its nine categories

• The IUCN Red List Categories define the extinction risk of assessed species. There are nine categories, from Not Evaluated (NE) to Extinct (EX).
• Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN) and Vulnerable (VU) together are “threatened with extinction”.

• A species is placed in a threatened category if it meets any one of five quantitative criteria (A–E):

• Indian examples: the Great Indian Bustard, the white-rumped vulture, the gharial and Jerdon’s courser are Critically Endangered; the tiger, the Asian elephant and the red panda are Endangered; the snow leopard and the Indian one-horned rhinoceros are Vulnerable.

CITES and the global wildlife-trade regime

• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was signed in Washington in 1973 and came into force in 1975; India joined in 1976. It has 185 Parties and covers more than 40,000 species.
• It works by permits for trade in listed species, but many species remain unprotected from illegal trade or over-harvest, because coverage depends on formal listing in one of its Appendices:

• The 20th Conference of the Parties met in Samarkand, Uzbekistan (November–December 2025). In India, CITES is now implemented through the 2022 amendment of the Wild Life (Protection) Act.

Other key international conventions

CBD (1992) and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

• The Convention on Biological Diversity, agreed at the Rio Earth Summit (1992), has three objectives: conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of its components, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits from genetic resources.
• Its post-2020 targets are set by the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), adopted at COP15 in Montreal in December 2022, which replaced the Aichi Targets: 4 goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030.
  • Target 3 (“30×30”): conserve at least 30% of land, inland waters, and coastal and marine areas by 2030 through protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs), respecting indigenous and traditional territories.
  • Target 2: bring 30% of degraded ecosystems under effective restoration; Target 4: halt human-induced extinction of known threatened species; Target 6: halve the rate of introduction of invasive species.
• Progress: about 18.4% of land and 10% of the ocean are now conserved, against 17.6% and 8.4% in 2024. The first global review, before COP17 in Yerevan, Armenia (October 2026), finds progress too slow to meet any target by 2030.
• India submitted an updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan with 23 national targets aligned to the KMGBF in 2024.

CMS or Bonn Convention (1979)

• The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals protects species that cross international boundaries during their life cycle (migratory birds, whales, sea turtles), since no single country can conserve them alone.
  • Its first State of the World’s Migratory Species report (2024) found 44% of CMS-listed populations declining and more than one in five species threatened. India hosted COP13 at Gandhinagar (2020) and champions the Central Asian Flyway.

Ramsar Convention (1971)

• An intergovernmental treaty for the conservation and wise use of wetlands, which hold a share of wildlife (waterbirds, fisheries) far greater than their land area. India, a Party since 1982, has more than 100 Ramsar sites (2026).

World Heritage Convention (1972)

• A UNESCO mechanism protecting sites of “outstanding universal value”, including natural sites of exceptional biodiversity. Kaziranga, Manas, the Sundarbans, Keoladeo, Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers, the Western Ghats and the Great Himalayan National Park are India’s natural sites; Khangchendzonga is a mixed site.

The World Conservation Strategy, 1980

• The World Conservation Strategy was prepared in 1980 by the IUCN, with advice, cooperation and finance from UNEP and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and in collaboration with FAO and UNESCO.
  • Its stated aim was to “provide an intellectual framework and practical guidance for conservation actions.”
  • It set out three objectives: maintain essential ecological processes and life-support systems, preserve genetic diversity, and ensure the sustainable use of species and ecosystems.
• The guide covers everything from its intended “users” to its priorities for action.
  • It includes a map section identifying areas of heavy seafood consumption endangered by overfishing: an early link between consumption patterns and conservation risk mapping.
• It was one of the first documents to articulate “sustainable development”, seven years before the Brundtland Commission popularised the term in Our Common Future (1987).

Wildlife Conservation in India

India’s legal and institutional framework

• In 1972 India enacted the Wild Life (Protection) Act, the statutory foundation of wildlife conservation. Its key architecture:
  • Schedules grade species by the protection they receive. The original Act had six Schedules: Schedule I species (tiger, snow leopard, several vultures) had the highest protection and stiffest penalties; Schedule V listed vermin; Schedule VI listed specified plants barred from cultivation and trade.
  • Protected-area categories created or recognised under the Act:
    • National Parks: highest protection; no human rights or activity without special permission. India’s first, the Hailey (now Jim Corbett) National Park, dates from 1936.
    • Wildlife Sanctuaries: slightly more permissive; certain regulated activities may continue.
    • Conservation Reserves and Community Reserves, added by a 2002 amendment: conservation reserves are buffer or connector zones, usually on government land next to protected areas, declared after consulting local communities; community reserves are on private or community land where the community volunteers to conserve wildlife.
  • Biosphere Reserves are not created under the Act. They follow UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme as adapted by India’s national programme, with a core zone (strict protection), buffer zone (regulated use) and transition zone (sustainable use by local communities). India has 18, of which 13 are in the UNESCO world network (the Cold Desert reserve joined in 2025).
• Institutions:
  • The National Board for Wildlife (NBWL), chaired by the Prime Minister, and its Standing Committee approve projects that affect protected areas and wildlife corridors.
  • The Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, is an autonomous research and training institution under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
  • The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the WCCB were created by the 2006 amendment.

The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022

• Passed in December 2022 and in force since 1 April 2023, the amendment modernised the Act and brought it in line with CITES.
• Schedules cut from six to four:

• The vermin schedule was removed, though the central government can still declare a species vermin for a place and time.
• CITES implementation: a Management Authority issues trade permits, a Scientific Authority advises on the effect of trade on survival, and holders of live CITES-listed animals must register them.
• Invasive alien species: the Centre can regulate or prohibit their import, trade, possession or spread.
• Higher penalties: the maximum fine for general violations rose from ₹25,000 to ₹1 lakh, and the minimum fine for offences against specially protected animals from ₹10,000 to ₹25,000.
• Other changes: the Centre can also notify conservation reserves; anyone may voluntarily surrender captive animals or products; and captive elephants may be transferred or transported for religious or any other purpose, a provision criticised by conservationists.

India’s protected-area network

• India has 1,034 protected areas (March 2026): 106 national parks, 574 wildlife sanctuaries, and about 354 conservation and community reserves. Together they cover only about 5.3% of the country’s geographical area.
• Overlaid on them are 58 tiger reserves (the newest, Madhav in Madhya Pradesh, in 2025), 33 elephant reserves, 18 biosphere reserves and more than 100 Ramsar sites.
• The network spans every biogeographic zone, from Hemis in the Trans-Himalaya to the Rann of Kachchh, the Sundarbans and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, though the Deccan, the Thar and coastal and marine zones remain under-represented.
• Meeting 30×30 will need wildlife-friendly land outside reserves: community conserved areas, sacred groves, Biodiversity Heritage Sites, Ramsar wetlands and other OECMs.

Species-specific conservation projects

• Latest counts: Asiatic lions 891 (2025, Gir landscape); snow leopards 718 (2024, the first national assessment); wild elephants about 22,446 (first DNA-based estimate, 2025, not comparable with the 27,312 of 2017); leopards about 13,874 (2022); Ganges river dolphins 6,324 (2025).

Project Tiger and the tiger estimate

• Project Tiger began on 1 April 1973 at Corbett, with 9 tiger reserves. Reserves are zoned into an inviolate core and a multiple-use buffer.
• The All India Tiger Estimation 2022 (fifth cycle, using camera traps and the M-STrIPES monitoring system) gave a mean of 3,682 tigers (range 3,167–3,925), about 75% of the world’s wild tigers.
  • Madhya Pradesh led (785), followed by Karnataka (563) and Uttarakhand (560).
  • The sixth cycle is under way in 2025–26, with results expected in 2027. Most reserves are near carrying capacity, so new growth is expected in buffers and corridors, with more conflict.
• The tiger as flagship and umbrella species shows the value of single-species projects, and their limits: plants, smaller animals and non-forest habitats get less attention.

Project Cheetah

• Launched on 17 September 2022 at Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh: the world’s first intercontinental translocation of a large wild carnivore.
  • Founders: 8 cheetahs from Namibia (2022), 12 from South Africa (February 2023) and 9 from Botswana (February 2026).
  • Status in September 2026: 52 cheetahs, including 32 born in India: 49 at Kuno and 3 at Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, the second site. Nauradehi (Madhya Pradesh) and the Banni grasslands (Gujarat) are proposed next sites.
• Issues: high adult mortality in the early years from infection, heat and fights; small, fenced habitat; dependence on management; and the debate on whether open grassland and savanna ecosystems, the real targets, gain enough.

Approaches and concepts in conservation

• Wildlife conservation is the practice of protecting wild species and their habitats. Wildlife balances ecosystems and stabilises natural processes, and conservation aims to keep nature available for future generations while recognising its value for humans and other species.
  • Many nations have government agencies and NGOs for wildlife conservation, and numerous independent non-profit organisations support particular causes.
  • Conservation has become increasingly important because of the negative effects of human activity on wildlife.
• An endangered species is a population of a living species in danger of becoming extinct, because its numbers are very low or falling, or because adverse environmental or other factors threaten it.

1. In-situ vs ex-situ conservation

• The two are complementary: ex-situ stocks are an insurance and a source for reintroduction, as with gharials in the Chambal, pygmy hogs in Assam and vultures in Maharashtra and Haryana.
• Gene banks such as the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi, and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault store the crop genetic diversity rooted in the gene pool centres.
• Both belong to a wider toolkit of conservation measures of biodiversity that also includes restoration, sustainable use and community conservation.

2. Species concepts used in conservation planning

• Keystone species: its impact on the ecosystem is disproportionately large relative to its abundance; its removal triggers cascading change (sea otters in kelp forests, fig trees in tropical forests).
• Flagship species: a charismatic species used to raise public awareness and funds (the tiger in India).
• Umbrella species: its habitat needs are so large that protecting it automatically protects many co-occurring species; tiger landscapes protect prey and forest alike.
• Indicator species: its presence, absence or condition reflects the health of an ecosystem (lichens for air quality, amphibians for wetland health).

Biodiversity hotspots

• With finite conservation resources, Norman Myers’ (1988) concept of biodiversity hotspots sets priorities: regions with at least 1,500 endemic vascular plants that have lost 70% or more of their original habitat. Conservation International adopted it in 1989.
• Of the 36 recognised hotspots, four include Indian territory: the Western Ghats, the Himalaya, Indo-Burma and Sundaland (through the Nicobar Islands), each rich in endemic species.

Comparative note: the US Endangered Species Act

• In the United States, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects domestic species endangered by over-exploitation and habitat loss: the American counterpart of India’s Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
• The two were enacted within a year of each other, part of the same early-1970s surge of conservation law that also produced CITES (1973) and the Ramsar Convention (1971).