Environment › Biodiversity governance › International
Conservation beyond protected areas
Conservation is running out of room inside notified parks, and the next argument is about everything outside them. On land it is being made for a National Conservation Estate that counts community forests, wetlands and corridors alongside the parks, which is how India reaches the 30x30 pledge. At sea, India has invited private industry into seabed mining, while commercial mining waits on an International Seabed Authority code.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2026: India's Deep Ocean Mission
- Prelims 2023: what changes once an area is notified a Community Reserve
- Prelims 2021: who licenses seabed exploration in international waters
- Prelims 2014: conserving biodiversity together with traditional human life
Why conservation cannot stop at the boundary
- An Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measure (OECM) is a defined area outside the formal protected area network that still conserves biodiversity in situ over the long term.
- An OECM counts whoever owns the land, which is what separates it from a notified protected area.
- OECMs count towards Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which is the 30x30 pledge.
A National Conservation Estate
Protected areas
- National parks and sanctuaries already notified by the State
OECMs
- Community forests, wetlands and other biodiversity rich land outside parks
- Recognised under the Convention on Biological Diversity
Ecological corridors
- Strips of habitat that let animals move between protected areas
What lies on the deep ocean floor
Nodules and sulphides
Polymetallic nodules
- Lumps growing very slowly on abyssal plains, 3,000 to 6,000 m deep
- Manganese, nickel, cobalt, copper
- India: Central Indian Ocean Basin
Polymetallic sulphides
- Deposits at hydrothermal vents along a mid-ocean ridge, where plates move apart
- Copper, zinc, gold, silver
- India: two contracts, including the Carlsberg Ridge
Who governs the seabed beyond national jurisdiction
Exploration contract
Exclusive ISA rights to survey an area
Technology trials
Crawlers tested beyond 5,000 m under the Deep Ocean Mission
Industry and policy
Private participation and a White Paper on Deep Sea Mining
Exploitation Code
Commercial mining in international waters only after the ISA brings it out
- The International Seabed Authority (ISA), set up under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and based in Kingston, Jamaica, regulates mineral activity in the Area and grants exploration contracts.
Where India stands on the seabed
75,000 sq kmExclusive exploration area in the Central Indian Ocean Basin
Beyond 5,000 mDepth at which NIOT has demonstrated indigenous mining crawlers
- India is the first nation to hold two sulphide exploration contracts, one of them on the Carlsberg Ridge in the Arabian Sea.
What mining the seabed risks
- Removing nodules destroys slow growing habitats that may take very long to recover.
- Sediment plumes and noise can spread damage well beyond the mined site.
What has happened
8 Sep 2026
The Ministry of Earth Sciences and the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) invited private industry into deep sea mining at an outreach workshop.
- A White Paper on Deep Sea Mining is to set the terms on which industry comes in.
3 Aug 2026
A column argued for a National Conservation Estate, in which OECMs and corridors would be counted alongside the notified parks.
- Wildlife overpasses on the Delhi-Dehradun Economic Corridor and mitigation in the Pench-Seoni landscape were offered as proof that infrastructure and connectivity can coexist.