scholarly journals Environmental Protection Acts in India

Author(s):  
Nishant Shyam Chavan

The environment of our planet is degrading at an alarming rate because of non-sustainable urbanization, industrialization and agriculture. There is need of management of natural resources, biodiversity loss, land use, convention on biological diversity and ecosystem diversity. The rapid increase in industrialization and human needs, environment has been badly suffered. That why there was need of creating law for conversion of environment in India. So environmental laws made for huge to maintain an ecological balance of environment by safeguarding the forests and wildlife, biodiversity, forest conservation of the country. The ministry of environment forest & the nodal agency is the administrative structure of the central government for the planning, promotion, co-ordination and overseeing the implementation of environment& forestry programmes. The principle activity taken by ministry of environment& forest and wildlife prevention control of pollution, afforestation regeneration of degraded areas and protection of environment in the framework of legislation. This research paper will be focus on what has action & laws are made by Indian government for protection of environment.

Author(s):  
Yrjö Haila

The term biodiversity was introduced in the 1980s as a novel framing for the human dependence on the Earth's biosphere. 'Biodiversity loss' became the way to capture a major dimension of global environmental problems. The chapter describes stages of this process. The first phase of the spread of the term was its enthusiastic reception among environmentalists. Second, concern was integrated into international environmental policy at the Rio Conference in 1992 through the adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Efforts to implement the convention have created an environmental regime both internationally and within different countries. However, due to its broad coverage of processes of living nature and its huge ambition to regulate human modification of nature and exploitation of natural resources, there have been major difficulties with implementation. In particular, how to integrate specific issues manifested in local contexts, and the global concern, has proved problematic.


2010 ◽  
Vol 67 (8) ◽  
pp. 1205-1210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Hutchings ◽  
Cóilín Minto ◽  
Daniel Ricard ◽  
Julia K. Baum ◽  
Olaf P. Jensen

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) established a target in 2002 to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Using a newly constructed global database for 207 populations (108 species), we examine whether the 2010 target has been met for marine fishes, while accounting for population biomass relative to maximum sustainable yield, BMSY. Although rate of decline has eased for 59% of populations declining before 1992 (a pattern consistent with a literal interpretation of the target), the percentage of populations below BMSY has remained unchanged and the rate of decline has increased among several top predators, many of which are below 0.5BMSY. Combining population trends, a global multispecies index indicates that marine fishes declined 38% between 1970 and 2007. The index has been below BMSY since the mid-1980s and stable since the early 1990s. With the exception of High Seas pelagic fishes and demersal species in the Northeast Pacific and Australia – New Zealand, the multispecies indices are currently below BMSY in many regions. We conclude that the 2010 CBD target represents a weak standard for recovering marine fish biodiversity and that meaningful progress will require population-specific recovery targets and associated time lines for achieving those targets.


2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 249-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Buck

AbstractThe Ninth Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP9) in May 2008 in Bonn was one of the major international environmental meetings in 2008. Its decisions significantly advance global biodiversity politics on a range of critical issues and thereby help achieving the global target of substantially reducing current rates of biodiversity loss by 2010. This article describes the main decision adopted by COP9 on biofuels, marine biodiversity, biodiversity and climate change, access and benefit-sharing and the science-policy interface of international biodiversity politics.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.J. Milner-Gulland ◽  
Prue Addison ◽  
William Arlidge ◽  
Julia Baker ◽  
Hollie Booth ◽  
...  

The upcoming meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, and future adoption of the new Global Biodiversity Framework, represent an opportunity to transform humanity's relationship with nature. Restoring nature while meeting human needs requires a bold vision, but this will only succeed if biodiversity conservation can be mainstreamed in society. Here, we present an overarching framework that could support this mainstreaming: the Mitigation and Conservation Hierarchy. This novel framework places the well-established four-step Mitigation Hierarchy for mitigating and compensating the impacts of developments on biodiversity (1: Avoid, 2: Minimise, 3: Restore, 4: Offset, towards a target such as No Net Loss of biodiversity) within a broader framing that encompasses all conservation actions. We illustrate the potential application of the framework in four cases; national governments, sub-national levels (specifically the City of London, a fishery, and indigenous groups), companies, and the general public. The Mitigation and Conservation Hierarchy supports decisions about both the choice of actions to conserve and restore nature, and evaluation of the effectiveness of those actions, across sectors and scales. As such it can guide actions towards a sustainable future for people and nature in support of the CBD's vision.


PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e9616
Author(s):  
Paola Fajardo ◽  
David Beauchesne ◽  
Alberto Carbajal-López ◽  
Rémi M. Daigle ◽  
L. Denisse Fierro-Arcos ◽  
...  

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) have inhabited coastal areas, the seas, and remote islands for millennia, and developed place-based traditional ancestral knowledge and diversified livelihoods associated with the biocultural use of marine and coastal ecosystems. Through their cultural traditions, customary wise practices, and holistic approaches to observe, monitor, understand, and appreciate the Natural World, IPLCs have been preserving, managing, and sustainably using seascapes and coastal landscapes, which has been essential for biodiversity conservation. The international community has more than ever recognized the central role of IPLCs in the conservation of biodiversity-rich ecosystems, in particular, for the achievement of the Global Biodiversity Targets determined by the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity to tackle biodiversity loss. However, much remains to be done to fully recognize and protect at national levels IPLCs’ Traditional Biodiversity Knowledge (TBK), ways of life, and their internationally recognized rights to inhabit, own, manage and govern traditional lands, territories, and waters, which are increasingly threatened. At the 2018 4th World Conference on Marine Biodiversity held in Montréal, Canada, eight themed working groups critically discussed progress to date and barriers that have prevented the achievement of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets agreed for the period 2011–2020, and priority actions for the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Discussions in the “Application of Biodiversity Knowledge” working group focused on Targets 11 and 18 and the equal valuation of diverse Biodiversity Knowledge Systems (BKS). This Perspective Paper summarizes the 10 Priority Actions identified for a holistic biodiversity conservation, gender equality and human rights-based approach that strengthens the role of IPLCs as biodiversity conservation decision-makers and managers at national and international levels. Furthermore, the Perspective proposes a measurable Target 18 post-2020 and discusses actions to advance the recognition of community-based alternative conservation schemes and TBK to ensure the long-lasting conservation, customary biocultural use, and sustainable multi-functional management of nature around the globe.


BioScience ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 330-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Tickner ◽  
Jeffrey J Opperman ◽  
Robin Abell ◽  
Mike Acreman ◽  
Angela H Arthington ◽  
...  

Abstract Despite their limited spatial extent, freshwater ecosystems host remarkable biodiversity, including one-third of all vertebrate species. This biodiversity is declining dramatically: Globally, wetlands are vanishing three times faster than forests, and freshwater vertebrate populations have fallen more than twice as steeply as terrestrial or marine populations. Threats to freshwater biodiversity are well documented but coordinated action to reverse the decline is lacking. We present an Emergency Recovery Plan to bend the curve of freshwater biodiversity loss. Priority actions include accelerating implementation of environmental flows; improving water quality; protecting and restoring critical habitats; managing the exploitation of freshwater ecosystem resources, especially species and riverine aggregates; preventing and controlling nonnative species invasions; and safeguarding and restoring river connectivity. We recommend adjustments to targets and indicators for the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Sustainable Development Goals and roles for national and international state and nonstate actors.


2005 ◽  
Vol 360 (1454) ◽  
pp. 221-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Balmford ◽  
Peter Crane ◽  
Andy Dobson ◽  
Rhys E Green ◽  
Georgina M Mace

At the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, 190 countries endorsed a commitment to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national levels. A wide range of approaches is available to the monitoring of progress towards this objective. The strengths and weaknesses of many of these approaches are considered, with special attention being given to the proposed and existing indicators described in the other papers in this issue. Recommendations are made about the development of indicators. Most existing and proposed indicators use data collected for other purposes, which may be unrepresentative. In the short term, much remains to be done in expanding the databases and improving the statistical techniques that underpin these indicators to minimize potential biases. In the longer term, indicators based on unrepresentative data should be replaced with equivalents based on carefully designed sampling programmes. Many proposed and existing indicators do not connect clearly with human welfare and they are unlikely to engage the interest of governments, businesses and the public until they do so. The extent to which the indicators already proposed by parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity are sufficient is explored by reference to the advice an imaginary scientific consultant from another planet might give. This exercise reveals that the range of taxa and biomes covered by existing indicators is incomplete compared with the knowledge we need to protect our interests. More fundamentally, our understanding of the mechanisms linking together the status of biodiversity, Earth system processes, human decisions and actions, and ecosystem services impacting human welfare is still too crude to allow us to infer reliably that actions taken to conserve biodiversity and protect ecosystem services are well chosen and effectively implemented. The involvement of social and Earth system scientists, as well as biologists, in collaborative research programmes to build and parameterize models of the Earth system to elucidate these mechanisms is a high priority.


Author(s):  
Falko Buschke

In May, nations of the world will meet to negotiate the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity. An influential ambition is “bending the curve of biodiversity loss”, which aims to reverse the decline of global biodiversity indicators. A second relevant, yet less prominent, milestone is the 20th anniversary of the publication of The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography. Here, I apply neutral theory to show how global biodiversity indicators for population size (Living Planet Index) and extinction threat (Red List Index) decline under neutral ecological drift. This demonstrates that declining indicators alone do not necessarily reflect deterministic species-specific or geographical patterns of biodiversity loss. Thus, “bending the curve” could be assessed relative to a counterfactual based on neutral theory, rather than static baselines. If used correctly, the 20-year legacy of neutral theory can be extended to make a valuable contribution to the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework


Oryx ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim H. Sparks ◽  
Stuart H. M. Butchart ◽  
Andrew Balmford ◽  
Leon Bennun ◽  
Damon Stanwell-Smith ◽  
...  

AbstractThe target adopted by world leaders of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 was not met but this stimulated a new suite of biodiversity targets for 2020 adopted by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October 2010. Indicators will be essential for monitoring progress towards these targets and the CBD will be defining a suite of relevant indicators, building on those developed for the 2010 target. Here we argue that explicitly linked sets of indicators offer a more useful framework than do individual indicators because the former are easier to understand, communicate and interpret to guide policy. A Response-Pressure-State-Benefit framework for structuring and linking indicators facilitates an understanding of the relationships between policy actions, anthropogenic threats, the status of biodiversity and the benefits that people derive from it. Such an approach is appropriate at global, regional, national and local scales but for many systems it is easier to demonstrate causal linkages and use them to aid decision making at national and local scales. We outline examples of linked indicator sets for humid tropical forests and marine fisheries as illustrations of the concept and conclude that much work remains to be done in developing both the indicators and the causal links between them.


2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1823) ◽  
pp. 20152454 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Bellard ◽  
P. Genovesi ◽  
J. M. Jeschke

Biological invasions as drivers of biodiversity loss have recently been challenged. Fundamentally, we must know where species that are threatened by invasive alien species (IAS) live, and the degree to which they are threatened. We report the first study linking 1372 vertebrates threatened by more than 200 IAS from the completely revised Global Invasive Species Database. New maps of the vulnerability of threatened vertebrates to IAS permit assessments of whether IAS have a major influence on biodiversity, and if so, which taxonomic groups are threatened and where they are threatened. We found that centres of IAS-threatened vertebrates are concentrated in the Americas, India, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. The areas in which IAS-threatened species are located do not fully match the current hotspots of invasions, or the current hotspots of threatened species. The relative importance of biological invasions as drivers of biodiversity loss clearly varies across regions and taxa, and changes over time, with mammals from India, Indonesia, Australia and Europe are increasingly being threatened by IAS. The chytrid fungus primarily threatens amphibians, whereas invasive mammals primarily threaten other vertebrates. The differences in IAS threats between regions and taxa can help efficiently target IAS, which is essential for achieving the Strategic Plan 2020 of the Convention on Biological Diversity.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document