India ranks 176 out of 180 countries in nature conservation

New Delhi: India has emerged as one of the five lowest “worst performers” in the inaugural Global Nature Conservation Index (NCI) 2024, ranking 176th out of 180 nations.

With a score of 45.5 out of 100, the index placed India above only Kiribati (180), Turkey (179), Iraq (178), and Micronesia (177), underscoring the country’s substantial challenges in biodiversity conservation and sustainable land management.

The index evaluates nations based on four key indicators: land management, biodiversity threats, capacity and governance, and future conservation trends

Launched in October 2024, the Nature Conservation Index serves as a comprehensive tool for measuring conservation performance across countries.

The NCI was developed by the Goldman Sonnenfeldt School of Sustainability and Climate Change at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in collaboration with BioDB.com, a non-profit organization that maintains global biodiversity data.

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure — so the saying goes. With that in mind, we created the Nature Conservation Index (NCI) which is an unbiased, straightforward tool designed to show how well countries handle conservation challenges,” Yaron Ziv from Goldman Sonnenfeldt School of Sustainability and Climate Change, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, said.

On the Marine conservation, the report said only 0.2% of India’s waterways under protection and none within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

While 7.5% of India’s terrestrial land is designated as protected, the index emphasized that greater action is needed to safeguard marine ecosystems.

The report highlighted alarming deforestation rates, with India losing approximately 23,300 square kilometers of tree cover from 2001 to 2019.

Sensitive ecosystems such as alpine regions and coral reefs are increasingly vulnerable to climate change.

The index revealed that 67.5% of marine species and 46.9% of terrestrial species continue to face declining populations, earning India a score of 54 out of 100 in terms of species protection.