Subnational assessment of threats to Indian biodiversity and habitat restoration opportunities

Abstract

The active involvement of subnational authorities, cities and local governments has been identified as one of the enabling conditions to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and progress towards United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal #15 (Life on Land). However, there has not been any systematic application of any biodiversity metric at the subnational level to identify where the main responsibilities and opportunities lie within a country. Here, we therefore apply the recently proposed species threat abatement and restoration (STAR) metric for amphibians, birds & terrestrial mammals in 36 states and 666 districts of India, one of the 17 megadiverse countries. The STAR metric takes into account the endemicity and the scope and severity of all threats affecting each species’ population hosted by the region and can quantify the potential contribution of threat mitigation and habitat restoration in a particular region towards global biodiversity goals. The larger the STAR metric, the larger the contribution of a specified area for global species conservation. Out of 97 individual threats affecting species in India, we found that crop production is the major threat contributing to 44% of total national STAR score followed by biological resource use such as hunting and logging (23%), and residential and commercial development (11%). Just seven out of 36 states and 66 out of 666 districts hosting high numbers of threatened and endemic species contribute 80% to the national STAR score. Importantly, the states and districts with most potential to contribute to threat abatement do not always overlap with those where habitat restoration will yield high benefits. Our analysis demonstrates the applicability and value of the STAR metric to sub-national governments for biodiversity conservation elsewhere in the world.

Recent Developments and Challenges in Projecting the Impact of Crop Productivity Growth on Biodiversity Considering Market-Mediated Effects

“…The main driver behind global land use change has been our food system. A majority of Earth’s ice-free land is currently used for the purpose of agriculture (crops and livestock production), and ongoing agricultural expansion has been the predominant driver behind ongoing deforestation, resulting in habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation for native biodiversity and consequently causing their population decline and eventual extinction. ,− …”

How to achieve a planetary health diet through system and paradigm change?

“…Several studies have shown that per serving of cereals, vegetables, and fruits require less cropland rather than livestock products and thus transitioning from animal-based to plantbased diet can reduce the demand for natural land clearing (Aleksandrowicz et al, 2016;Clark et al, 2019;Chaudhary et al, 2022). Others have shown that a shift toward the recommended healthy pattern (SDG 2 and 3) in affluent countries would co-benefit SDG 15 due to a lower land demand than current average footprints Ridoutt et al, 2020).…”

Short‐term solutions to biodiversity conservation in portfolio construction: Forward‐looking disclosure and classification‐based metrics

“…It is based on the scope (proportion of the global population impacted), severity (rate of decline driven by the threat within its scope) and timing (past, ongoing, or future) of threats. Mair et al (2021) used the STAR metric to identify opportunities for threat abatement and restoration in a global context, and Chaudhary et al (2022) and Mair et al (2023) used it at a national scale. Strassburg et al (2020) used the Red List data to calculate ‘Area of Habitat’ to identify priority areas for conservation.…”