India, one of the world’s fastest growing economies, has witnessed a significant rise in its GDP over the past decade, climbing from approximately USD 1.85 trillion in 2014 to an estimated USD 3.7 trillion in 2024. Traditionally, this growth has been fuelled by a GDP mechanism that often views nature as an infinite source of raw materials, leading to an immense pressure on forests, wetlands and other critical ecosystems. As one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries, harbouring 7-8% of global biodiversity, India has long recognised the need for wildlife protection regulations.
The Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 is the cornerstone, providing a legal framework for endangered species protection, hunting restrictions, and establishing protected areas. India’s dedication to land management is reflected in its expanded network of 1022 protected areas, covering 5.43% of the country, increased forest cover (from 21.23% in 2013 to 21.71% in 2021), and the establishment of 487 eco-sensitive zones. However, conservation cannot thrive in isolation. Nearly 30-40 percent of human settlements and agricultural landscapes frequently intersect with crucial wildlife corridors, exacerbating human-wildlife interactions. Over 100,000 Joint Forest Management (JFM) Committees, involving 2.2 million people, underscore the indispensable role of local communities in India’s conservation strategy. The challenge now is transitioning from passive participation to active, incentivised engagement—making conservation not just an obligation but a rewarding pursuit.
Recognising Nature as an Asset Class
On a global scale, the advent of Natural capital accounting has brought in a paradigm shift where the concept of Green GDP approach goes beyond economic growth that focuses solely on industrial output. Instead this approach incorporates the available natural capital as standing ecosystems, where we have also put a measurable value on the unseen benefit that countries like India possess within its various biodiversity hotspot.
A 2019 economic valuation revealed that the annual monetary value of flow benefits from the ten tiger reserves range was INR 5,000 crore to INR 16,000 crore from various ecosystem services like provisioning, regulating, supporting and recreational. But ecosystem service valuation goes beyond numbers. It not only quantifies the additional income communities derive from healthy ecosystems, but also provides a precursor for institutionalisation of incentives for sustainable land use practices and safeguarding biodiversity. As a result, the communities have become active participants in forest conservation, taking ownership of maintaining forests in their vicinity.
Harnessing Traditional Knowledge for Biodiversity Conservation
For centuries, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) has been integral to sustainability and human-wildlife coexistence in India. In Himachal Pradesh, local communities act as first responders to forest fires. Idu Mishmi tribe present in the Mishmi hills of Arunachal Pradesh are known for their sustainable hunting approaches and consider tigers as their “elder bother”. The Rabari community in Bera, Rajasthan has been living in the leopard dense area of the Aravali’s considering them to be the guardians. Facing water scarcity and poverty, villagers of Hiware village in Maharashtra adopted watershed management and shifted from water-intensive crops to horticulture and dairy farming resulting in increase of their per capita income from INR 830 in 1995 to INR 30,000 in 2012. Beyond TEK, collaborative conservation initiatives have led to successful conservation successes.
In 2017-18, Nagaland’s Doyang catchment area, once a site of mass Amur falcon killings, transformed into the “Amur falcon capital” through government and community collaboration. The Forest Department combined awareness campaigns, ethical education led by religious leaders, developmental incentives, and community protection squads. Similarly, the ‘Hornbill Nest Adoption’ Programme in Northeast India’s Pakke Tiger Reserve engages the Nyishi tribe in “shared parenting”, encouraging them to protect hornbill nests.
Since 2019 local communities in collaboration with WWF have established a Community Conserved Area (CCA) spanning 92.5 sq km in Chug Valley of Arunachal Pradesh. Driven by the economic and cultural value they place on nature, they aimed at strengthening forest management by strictly regulating wildlife hunting and commercial extraction of timber, firewood, medicinal plant but also focusing on improving livelihoods. This initiative now protects a diverse ecosystem, home to endangered species like the red panda and Himalayan musk deer. The local governance selected leaders to manage the area, including wildlife surveys and patrolling, with strict regulations against hunting and resource extraction.
In the Satpura-Pench wildlife corridor, WWF-India is incentivizing communities to adopt sustainable agriculture, specifically regenerative organic cotton farming, to benefit both livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. Farmers receive support to enhance soil health, reduce input costs, which has led to an increased profits of upto 25 percent.
Meanwhile, in Spiti, a community-managed livestock insurance scheme offers a longer-term solution by directly involving villagers in managing the fund. By contributing to the premium pool, roughly USD 21 per household per year, herders gain access to compensation for livestock depredation by snow leopards and wolves. What sets this scheme apart is the direct community oversight in administering these funds and deciding how surplus capital is utilized, directing investments toward Human Wildlife Conflict (HWC) prevention measures, such as constructing livestock corrals and hiring guards.
In the Western Ghats’ coffee forests, a “wildlife credit” system aims to incentivise farmers to protect biodiversity-rich shade-grown coffee systems, creating sustainable income streams and supporting thriving wildlife. Similarly, in fragmented Central India, integrating private farmlands through incentivized agroforestry enhances landscape permeability and reduces pressure on protected areas, with a Pench Tiger Reserve study suggesting landowners require around USD 940 per acre yearly to adopt such practices. Similarly, in the Rajaji-Corbett corridor of the Western Himalayas, Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are proposed to mitigate human-wildlife conflict and improve connectivity by compensating farmers for abstaining from agriculture on their land for five years, offering a net present value of USD 1302 compared to the accounting profit of roughly USD 3600 per hectare. These examples highlight the importance of recognising farmers as conservation stakeholders and providing financial support that aligns with their livelihood needs while promoting biodiversity.
Scaling Up Community-Led Conservation
To effectively scale up community-based conservation, India must first assess the natural capital embodied within its standing forests, initiation of which has already been done in Uttarakhand and Rajasthan as Green Capital Accounting. By systematically valuing the diverse ecosystem services these landscapes provide, we can gain a clear understanding of how best to incentivize the communities who coexist with them, ensuring their active participation in long-term protection and sustainable management. By implementing well-designed, incentive-based approaches, we can unlock the potential for collaborative conservation, aligning economic development with ecological sustainability and ensuring a thriving planet for generations to come. Success stories from India and around the world demonstrate that when communities are given the tools, resources, and recognition they deserve, they become the best guardians of nature. The future of biodiversity depends on our collective commitment to fostering these partnerships and building a future where people and wildlife can coexist and prosper.
