National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being – UPSC GS3

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Utility: Direct question can be asked on topic. It can also be mentioned in answers / essay related to Environmental Conservation.
National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being:
  • The mission was approved in 2018 by the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) in consultation with MoEF&CC and other Ministries.
  • It aims to strengthen the science of restoring, conserving, and sustainably utilising India’s natural heritage.
Significance of Biodiversity
  • India is home to nearly 8% of global biodiversity on just 2.3% of the global land area.
  • India contains four of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots.
  • The varied ecosystems across land, rivers, and oceans provide us with the following benefits : (#diagram)
    • Food security
    • Enhanced public health security
    • Protection from environmental disasters.
    • Source of spiritual enrichment, catering to our physical and mental well-being.
    • The economic value provided by ecosystem services.
Thus, preserving biodiversity is directly relevant to the social, economic, and environmental well-being of our people
Benefits of Mission:
  • It will empower India to restore, and even increase, our natural assets by millions of crores of rupees.
  • It will help in rejuvenating agricultural production systems and increase rural incomes from biodiversity-based agriculture.
  • It will also result in creating millions of green jobs in restoration and nature tourism. For instance, Restoration activities across India’s degraded lands (1/3rd of our land area), alone could generate several million jobs.
  • The Mission will help India to meet its international commitments under the new framework for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and UN SDGs by facilitating poverty alleviation, justice and equity.
  • It will facilitate the creation of climate-resilient communities by offering nature-based solutions to numerous environmental challenges.
  • It will aid in conservation and ecosystem management by gaining from the Scientific inputs related to geospatial informatics and policy.
Way forward
To improve the results of the National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being further, India can implement the following suggestions. Such as, 
  • India needs to build an extensive cadre of human resources required to meet the enormous and complex environmental challenges of the 21st century.
  • Capacity building of professionals in sustainability and biodiversity science.
  • Investment in civil society outreach.
  • Public engagement, in the exploration, restoration and conservation of biodiversity, is critical.
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