Environment › Biodiversity governance
Biodiversity and wildlife law in India
India's own biodiversity and wildlife law and the bodies that run it: the Biological Diversity Act and its three tiers, access and benefit sharing, the Wildlife (Protection) Act and its schedules, zoos and animal welfare. Prelims has asked about Biodiversity Management Committees and what Schedule I protection means.
Showing 3 of 5 subjects, those that changed from 1 to 15 July 2026.Show all
Biological Diversity Act, 2002
Copy link to Biological Diversity Act, 2002Prelims and Mains
The Act is how India gives effect to the Convention on Biological Diversity at home, and it splits the work across three tiers, with the committee in the village at the bottom of it.
- The Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023 made most offences civil rather than criminal, and Rules followed in 2024.
- The Environment Minister has asked States to make their 2.76 lakh Biodiversity Management Committees functional rather than merely constituted.
- He also asked that People's Biodiversity Registers become dynamic planning instruments rather than one time records.
- State rules are to be aligned with the 2023 amendment and the 2024 Rules.
Who does what
National level
- National Biodiversity Authority, a statutory body in Chennai
- Decides access by foreign entities and fixes benefit sharing
State and UT level
- State Biodiversity Boards and UT Biodiversity Councils
- Regulate commercial use by Indian entities
Local level
- Over 2.76 lakh Biodiversity Management Committees, set up by local bodies
- Prepare People's Biodiversity Registers
What changed
5 Sep 2026
7 Jul 2026Updatealso in news
- The Natural History Museum at Mizoram University has been notified as the 21st Designated Repository under Section 39 of the Act. A repository keeps authenticated specimens of biological resources accessed under the Act.
Background reading: PIB, 6 Sep 2026: 16th National Meet of State Biodiversity Boards and Union Territory Biodiversity Councils held at Chandigarh (opens in a new tab)
National Board for Wildlife
Copy link to National Board for WildlifePrelims and Mains
The National Board for Wildlife is the apex statutory wildlife body under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, chaired by the Prime Minister with the Environment Minister as vice chairperson. Its Standing Committee gives the wildlife clearance that any project inside a protected area needs. Such a project must pass two separate gates: environmental clearance under the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006, and wildlife clearance routed through the State Board for Wildlife.
What changed
30 Jul 2026Update
- The PARIVESH clearance portal now carries a map based tool that measures how close a proposed site lies to protected areas, eco sensitive zones, wetlands and coastal zones.
9 Jul 2026Update
- The 91st Standing Committee meeting took up more than 100 proposals, a conservation strategy for the one horned rhinoceros based on the Rhino DNA Indexing System, and inclusion of the pygmy hog in the Species Recovery Programme.
8 Jul 2026New subject
- Retired forest officers have moved the Delhi High Court, saying the Standing Committee approved more than 97 per cent of proposals to divert or denotify protected land between 2014 and 2026, and that the full Board met in 2025 after a gap of 13 years.