GS-2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
GS-3: Environmental Conservation
National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being (NMBHWB)
Context: Preserving biodiversity is directly relevant to the social, economic, and environmental well-being of our people.
Estimates suggest our forests alone may yield services worth more than a trillion rupees per year. Imagine how much greater this value will be with grasslands, wetlands, freshwater, and marine added.
Repairing our dysfunctional relationship with nature is one of the ways to mitigate climate change and curtail future outbreaks of infectious diseases.
Our biodiversity also serves as a perpetual source of spiritual enrichment, intimately linked to our physical and mental well-being.
In 2018, the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) in consultation with the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change and other Ministries approved NMBHWB
Key features of National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being (NMBHWB)
Sustainable Utilization: The Mission will strengthen the science of restoring, conserving, and sustainably utilising India’s natural heritage
Integration in Development: The mission will embed biodiversity as a key consideration in all developmental programmes, particularly in agriculture, ecosystem services, health, bio-economy, and climate change mitigation;
Database: It will establish a citizen and policy-oriented biodiversity information system
International Commitments: The mission aims to enhance capacity across all sectors for the realisation of India’s national biodiversity targets, UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and its commitments under the new framework for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
Leadership role: The Mission will allow India to emerge as a leader in demonstrating linkage between conservation of natural assets and societal well-being.
Solutions to create resilience: Mission programmes will offer nature-based solutions to numerous environmental challenges, including degradation of rivers, forests, and soils, and ongoing threats from climate change, with the goal of creating climate-resilient communities.
Mission’s “One Health” programme, integrating human health with animal, plant, soil and environmental health, has both the preventive potential to curtail future pandemics along with the interventional capability for unexpected public health challenges.
