Biodiversity spending must be routed through states: India’s updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan puts the average annual central government requirement for meeting the country’s biodiversity commitments at Rs 81,664 crore through 2029-30. India’s Seventh National Report, submitted on February 26, 2026, says all 23 national targets are currently “on track to achieve”. The first is an aggregate estimate; the second is the government’s assessment of progress. Neither shows how money will be assigned or what ecological improvement it will produce.
An aggregate estimate is not a biodiversity finance plan. It does not specify the cost of each target, the ministries and states responsible for delivery, the funding gaps or the outcomes expected from each rupee. India now needs to connect biodiversity spending with measurable results.
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India is not starting with a blank ledger. Its Biodiversity Expenditure Review mapped 116 schemes across 24 central ministries and 29 departments. Much of the public expenditure affecting biodiversity sits outside the Environment Ministry. Agriculture, rural development, water resources, fisheries, tribal affairs and infrastructure determine how land, water and biological resources are used.
An earlier Biodiversity Finance Plan estimated average annual public finance of Rs 70,121 crore during 2017-18 to 2021-22, against assessed needs of Rs 1,15,970 crore. The resulting gap was Rs 45,849 crore. These figures cannot be directly compared with the Rs 81,664-crore estimate because the periods, targets and assessment methods differ. They do, however, show why the finance plan has to be revised regularly rather than treated as a one-time calculation.
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Cost biodiversity spending target by target
Each national biodiversity spending target should be converted into a costed implementation plan. It should identify the ecological baseline, priority geographies, responsible agencies, annual milestones and sources of finance.
The cost of restoring a mangrove cannot be derived from the cost of reviving a grassland. Wetland protection, forest-corridor management and the recovery of a threatened species require different agencies, time horizons and monitoring systems. A national estimate can aggregate these costs. It cannot substitute for calculating them.
This would also impose discipline on the definition of biodiversity expenditure. Plantation spending cannot automatically be counted as ecosystem restoration. The number of saplings planted reveals little about survival, native diversity, ecological connectivity or long-term maintenance.
The same problem arises with wetlands. Expenditure on civil works or landscaping does not establish that hydrology, water quality or habitat conditions have improved. Biodiversity budgeting should record additional ecological outcomes, not merely completed activities.
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Track biodiversity spending through budgets
The Union Budget should be accompanied by an annual biodiversity finance statement. It should report allocations and actual expenditure against each target, name the ministries responsible and disclose the remaining funding gap.
States should use a common biodiversity budget-tagging framework. The present practice makes it difficult to distinguish expenditure devoted directly to conservation from large schemes in which only a small share of spending has a plausible biodiversity benefit.
The statement should also identify expenditure and incentives that damage nature. Agriculture, fisheries, water, mining and infrastructure programmes should be screened for their effects on habitats, species and ecosystem services.
This does not require withdrawing income support from farmers, fishers or vulnerable communities. It requires redesigning incentives so that public money does not subsidise ecological damage while another arm of government pays for restoration.
Route biodiversity spending via states, local bodies
Planning biodiversity spending cannot remain a central government exercise. A Himalayan spring system, a forest corridor in central India, a semi-arid grassland and a coastal mangrove face different pressures. They also depend on different departments and financial instruments.
State biodiversity finance plans should connect state strategies with departmental budgets, centrally sponsored schemes, compensatory funds and external finance. Without this link, biodiversity strategies will remain separate from the spending decisions that alter ecosystems.
India has established more than 2.76 lakh Biodiversity Management Committees and prepared over 2.72 lakh People’s Biodiversity Registers. By May 2026, nearly Rs 145 crore had been released through the Access and Benefit Sharing mechanism, benefiting around 11,000 committees. This is a substantial institutional base, though most local bodies still have little influence over mainstream budget decisions.
Biodiversity Management Committees should help identify local priorities and monitor ecological change. They also need predictable resources. Registers recording species and traditional knowledge have limited value if the institutions maintaining them cannot finance conservation or restoration.
Private and blended finance can supplement public budgets through green bonds, payments for ecosystem services and carefully regulated biodiversity credits. It cannot replace the state’s responsibility to protect public ecological goods.
Biodiversity markets must not become a licence for avoidable damage. Projects require scientific baselines, evidence of additional benefits, protection of community rights, long-term monitoring and transparent benefit-sharing.
India does not need another catalogue of financial instruments. It needs a pipeline of credible projects that can absorb public, concessional or private capital. Public funds can pay for ecological assessments, local capacity and the early risks of restoration. Private finance has a role where revenue models and risk-sharing arrangements are credible.
India has estimated the overall requirement, mapped public expenditure and built institutions extending to local bodies. The missing link is an operating system that costs each target, assigns responsibility, identifies the gap and reports results. The relevant measure of biodiversity spending is whether ecosystems improve and the communities dependent on them receive durable benefits.
Sayanta Ghosh is an Associate Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute. His work focuses on biodiversity and climate finance, ecosystem restoration, carbon markets and geospatial approaches to natural resource management.