Conservation of Natural Resources

What a resource is, and how it’s classified

• Everything in the environment that can be used to satisfy needs, and is technologically accessible, economically feasible, and culturally acceptable, is a resource. Resources are not free gifts of nature, but a function of human activities.
• They are classified by origin (biotic/abiotic), exhaustibility (renewable/non-renewable), ownership (individual, community, national, international), and status of development (potential, developed stock, reserves).
• The oceanic area up to 12 nautical miles is territorial water. Resources beyond 200 nautical miles of the Exclusive Economic Zone belong to the open ocean.

The network’s scale, and CAMPA

• As of March 2025, India’s Protected Area Network has 1,015 protected areas: 107 National Parks, 573 Wildlife Sanctuaries, 115 Conservation Reserves, and 220 Community Reserves. Together, these cover about 5.32% of India’s geographical area — roughly 1,75,169 km².
• India also runs 58 Tiger Reserves and 18 Biosphere Reserves, each under its own dedicated framework.
• The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 created CAMPA. It requires afforestation whenever forest land is diverted for non-forest use.

Two ways to conserve

• National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries, Biosphere Reserves, and Ramsar wetland sites are all in-situ conservation. Species are protected within their own natural habitat.
• Zoos, botanical gardens, seed banks, and gene banks are ex-situ conservation. Species are conserved outside their natural habitat, often as a backup when wild populations are critically low.
• India has 101 Ramsar Sites (wetlands of international importance) as of August 2026, part of its in-situ conservation network alongside protected areas.

A 2011-2020 plan, and its successor

• The 17% land-protection goal was Aichi Target 11, one of 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets adopted at COP10 in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010. Together they formed the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, 2011-2020, under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
• India’s 5.32% falls well short of that 17% goal. It wasn’t alone — no country fully met all its Aichi Targets by the 2020 deadline, with insufficient global financing a major reason.
• The Aichi framework’s successor, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, was adopted at COP15 in Montreal in December 2022. Its headline goal, called “30×30,” targets protecting 30% of the world’s land and sea area by 2030.

CAMPA’s funding, and the 85% figure

• Between 2019-20 and 2023-24, National CAMPA approved ₹38,516 crore for state afforestation plans.
• States achieved 1,78,261 hectares of compensatory afforestation, against a target of 2,09,297 hectares — about 85%.
• A Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee flagged governance gaps in how some states actually spent their CAMPA funds.

Area planted isn’t ecosystem quality restored

• CAMPA’s 85% looks close to the target, but that figure counts area planted, not ecosystem quality restored. A newly planted patch isn’t the same forest as the one it replaced.

A scale problem, not a legal one

• The protected-area shortfall is a scale problem, not a legal one. India already has strong conservation law — it simply hasn’t designated enough land under it yet.
• CAMPA’s governance gaps show a familiar pattern. Money approved and released doesn’t guarantee money well spent — exactly why independent oversight bodies like the Central Empowered Committee matter.
• Mountain ecosystems get their own dedicated mission: the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE), one of eight missions under India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change. It supports research, monitoring, and adaptation across Himalayan states, alongside eco-sensitive zones and community conservation on the ground.
• For the legal and institutional structure behind India’s conservation efforts, including the Gadgil Committee and the Western Ghats debate, see EnvEco0003. For CAMPA’s full history, see EnvEco0114. For protected-area figures by category, see EnvEco0014.