Bridging gaps in the Indian freshwater biodiversity conservation through science-based and policy-backed recommendations

Conserving Freshwater Ecosystems in India: A call to action

“…Similarly, in India, eminent conservation experts have highlighted the need to conserve and improve the health of FWEs without any further delay (De & Dwivedi, 2024), or risk reaching a point of no return, ultimately leading to the collapse of the economy and the society. It is critical that the nation revisits its freshwater and conservation priorities and vision holistically, to propel large-scale and long-term conservation and restoration actions.…”

“…In addition to policy gaps, other factors also limit scaling up of FWE conservation action in the country. For example: a) limited availability of financial resources, b) limited awareness/impetus on freshwater conservation among the stakeholder community, c) limited availability of data and monitoring tools (such as information on freshwater biodiversity/ecology, reliable hydrological data for throughout river systems) (De & Dwivedi, 2024) and d) lack of monitoring of past/ongoing conservation activities (CVD, Conservation Vision Document, 2022). Thus, a paradigm shift in our approach to freshwater management is required to address the continuity of these ecosystems.…”

“…For instance, the current conservation focus is largely biased towards particular geographies, ecosystem types and/or species such as: 1) conservation of large, iconic rivers (predominantly river Ganga through the Namami Gange programme (other such programmes were also initiated such as Namami Narmade, Namami Chandrabhaga, however, without significant progress); 2) springs rejuvenation in the Himalayas (Kulkarni et al, 2021) and Eastern Ghats (MoTA, 2024); 3) protection of wetlands through the Ramsar convention and 4) conservation of certain flagship megafauna species such as river dolphin, gharial, and golden mahseer (De & Dwivedi, 2024). While these efforts are crucial and are important contributions to freshwater conservation, there is a need to diversify and upscale these efforts across representative FWEs/biodiversity, which can be facilitated via a conservation vision.…”

“…There is a consensus that multi-actor collaboration in addressing environmental problems, particularly in the water sector, is critical in addressing them in a long-lasting and sustainable manner (De & Dwivedi, 2024;Tilman, 2023). However, given the complex socioecological context of freshwater systems and their problems spanning geographical scales and jurisdictional boundaries, successful, longterm and effective collaborative platforms have been hard to establish (Bodin, 2017).…”

“…The rate of groundwater resource depletion has increased by 23 per cent between 2000 and 2010 (Rodell et al, 2009). These factors have led to an indiscriminate loss of freshwater biodiversity (WWF, 2020;De & Dwivedi, 2024), habitats and ecological processes, all of which are crucial to providing resources and services (such as clean drinking water, agricultural productivity, fisheries, climate adaptation) to the benefit of people/ economy. If these threats are unaddressed, the impacts are likely to continue and compound in the future, leading to even further loss of FWEs and ecosystem services.…”