







































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 2 (1): 163–168, January 2019 

 
REPORT 
 

A Report on International Biodiversity Congress  
 

A. Biju Kumar  
 
The loss of habitat, over exploitation of resources, invasion of species alien 
to the local context, water-soil-air pollution coupled with climate change 
continue to threaten the functioning of our life-sustaining biosphere. 
Considering the ever-growing demand for bioresources, the UN General 
Assembly declared the period 2011-2020 as “United Nations Decade on 
Biodiversity” to promote living in harmony with nature. Its plan, called the 
2020 Strategic Plan of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), aims 
to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, reduce the pressures 
on biodiversity, safeguard biodiversity at all levels, and to enhance the 
benefits provided by biodiversity. The importance of biodiversity and 
ecosystems is also reflected in many of the United Nations Sustainable 
Development Goals (SDGs) and targets. Acknowledging the importance of 
biodiversity as closely linked to human well-being, the Centre for 
Innovation in Science and Social Action (CISSA), Navdanya (Dehradun), 
Forest Research Institute (FRI), Indian Council of Forestry Research and 
Education (ICFRE, Dehradun), Uttarakhand Biodiversity Board, 
Uttarakhand Council for Science and Technology, and Wildlife Institute of 
India (WII, Dehradun) came together to organise the International 
Biodiversity Congress (IBC 2018) at FRI from 4 to 6 October 2018. Its 
primary objective was to initiate and encourage interdisciplinary and 
inclusive dialogue among relevant stakeholders in the field of biodiversity, 
and to facilitate a shift towards ecological civilization that values, cherishes 
and conserves biodiversity in order to achieve sustainable development 
goals.  

 
 Organising Secretary, International Biodiversity Congress; Professor and Head, 
Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram 
695581, India; bijukumar@keralauniversity.ac.in 

Copyright © Kumar 2019. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 
4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v2i1.66  

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v2i1.66


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [164] 

About 800 delegates and biodiversity experts from India and abroad 
attended the Congress. The Congress was inaugurated by the Hon’ble Chief 
Minister of Sikkim, Pawan Kumar Chamling. He highlighted the need to 
exchange sustainable developmental models across the world and to 
mainstream biodiversity in developmental planning. Giving the example of 
organic state model of Sikkim, he reiterated the need for working towards 
organic Himalaya in order to make agriculture ecologically sustainable and 
to conserve the rich diversity of the mountain ecosystem.  

Presenting the overview of the Congress, Vandana Shiva, Chairperson of 
IBC and founder of ‘Navdanya’, emphasised the need for women’s 
empowerment and their role in biodiversity conservation and the 
sustainable utilisation of resources. Shiva underlined the traditional Indian 
philosophy of Aranya Sanskriti that has conserved the diversity of nature for 
hundreds of years. Shiva emphasized management of natural resources 
based on the principles of resilience, social values, cultural values, and 
linkage of food, nutrition, and health in order to create circular economies 
with happy and sustainable societies that cherish the values of ecology 
besides inheriting the ecological wisdom deep rooted in the society. Savita, 
Director of Forest Research Institute, highlighted the importance of 
biodiversity for sustainable development and emphasised the need to 
educate the people for conservation of natural resources. Shyam Saran, 
former Foreign Secretary and Special Envoy on Climate Change highlighted 
the lethal implications of unsustainable developmental paradigms and the 
need for following Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy on judicious utilization 
of natural resources. 

The IBC hosted  six plenary sessions under six themes —Biodiversity 
Crisis: Challenges & Way Ahead; Legal Framework for Protecting 
Biodiversity; Ecosystem Services and Sustainability of Fragile Mountain 
Ecosystems; Biodiversity For Food, Nutrition & Health; Biodiversity and 
Knowledge Systems; and Climate Change and Planetary Health —ten 
parallel technical sessions, and four poster sessions under themes 
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Microbial, floral and faunal diversity); 
Biodiversity: Legal and Knowledge Systems; Biodiversity: Threats and 
Conservation Strategies, and Biodiversity: Agro-ecosystems and Food 
Security; Medicinal Plants. A total of 27 invited plenary lectures were 
delivered in three days by eminent scholars and103 papers were presented 
by the delegates in parallel technical sessions, besides 410 posters. 

Delivering Indian Perspective on biodiversity crisis, V.B. Mathur, Director 
of Wildlife Institute of India, expressed great concern over accelerated loss 
of genetic variability of species and highlighted prioritizing the conservation 
research and management programmes for the endangered species such as 



[165] A. Biju Kumar 

 

South Asian river dolphin (Platanista gangetica), Dugong (Dugong dugon), Great 
Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps), and Brow-antlered Deer or Sangai 
(Rucervus eldii) inhabiting critical ecosystems of India and facing a series of 
anthropogenic interventions. Highlighting the “trusteeship” concept of 
Mahatma Gandhi, during discussion on “Biodiversity Education to Address 
Sixth Mass Extinction”, Kartikeya Sarabhai, Director of Centre for 
Environment Education, Ahmedabad, emphasized that a range of climate 
friendly traditions and practices are promoting more sustainable life styles, 
and therefore their replication could play a key role in biodiversity 
conservation. Jyotsna Sitling from the Ministry of Skill Development & 
Entrepreneurship, Government of India, stressed the need to develop 
skilled human resources to meet the challenges for nature conservation and 
warranted the need for reskilling and up-skilling professionals to maintain 
the biodiversity. 

Sanjay Molur, Executive Director of Zoo Outreach Organisation, discussed 
the conservation strategies for different threatened taxa and highlighted the 
need for protecting freshwater fauna with more diversity of threatened 
point endemics in India. While presenting an overview of various laws, 
Acts, government schemes and projects for biodiversity conservation, 
Balakrishna Pisupati, former Chairman of National Biodiversity Authority, 
said declining biodiversity is still not seen as a threat to our survival by non-
conservationists, including the general public. He highlighted the need for 
“social-proofing” or social informational influence through the involvement 
of brand ambassadors for raising awareness about biodiversity crisis. M.K. 
Ramesh, National Law School, Bangalore, suggested that the Biological 
Diversity Act of India is one of the finest globally in terms of managing 
biodiversity, though refinement is required for the implementation of the 
Act. The experts also highlighted the need for vigil in protecting indigenous 
biodiversity in the spirit of Conservation of Biological Diversity and 
sensitizing the people about the traditional knowledge, plant varieties and 
protection of farmer’s rights for controlling biopiracy. 

Arguing that the market does not transfer money from consumers to 
ecosystems facilitating various services, S.P. Singh, former Vice chancellor, 
H.N.B. Garhwal University, Srinagar, stressed the need for incorporating 
Himalayan ecosystem services in national accounting. The plenary lectures 
also highlighted the need for accelerating the R&D interventions to 
strengthen the mountain ecosystems under changing climatic regimes. 

Expressing concern over biodiversity loss for monetary benefits in the 
western world, Renate Kunast, former Minister of Consumer Protection, 
Food and Agriculture, Germany, advocated the adaption of international 
protocols and agreement to protect biodiversity and highlighted the need to 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [166] 

break the dependency and monopoly, and work towards pluralism for 
sustainable economies.  

James Buchanan from Xavier University, USA remarked that our education 
system is stuck in a moribund and dangerous atomistic or mechanistic 
worldview that is wholly inadequate for understanding the complex system 
of biodiversity. He said, if we are to address the growing crisis, we must 
begin by reshaping our education systems so that future generations 
understand, organize and value the world in fundamentally new ways. He 
then outlined the key criteria and steps in the radical reshaping of 
education. Erach Bharucha, Director of Bharathi Vidyapeeth, Pune and 
Bittu Sehgal, Editor, Sanctuary Asia, discussed the need for incorporating 
biodiversity conservation case studies in formal education and the role of 
the youth in transforming biodiversity science and creating ecological 
civilization. According to Ravindra Singh (Indo-German Biodiversity 
Program, GIZ), scientists, policy makers and media are the three key 
interconnected players in prioritizing and implementing solution for 
conservation challenges.  

In the valedictory session, B.P. Singh, former Governor of Sikkim and 
former Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forest, Government of 
India, spoke on building an ecological civilisation and called upon to remain 
associated with Indian concept of “Unity in Diversity” to preserve our 
biological diversity and cultural diversity which are mutually dependent. 
Chief Guest Trivendra Singh Rawat, Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, 
highlighted Uttarakhand’s rich heritage and biodiversity that draws tourists, 
philosophers, scientists and saints. He stressed the need to combine the 
best of traditional wisdom and science with stakeholder participation for 
holistic perspective for biodiversity conservation and sustainable 
development. 

The children who participated in the Children’s Biodiversity Congress of 
IBC initiated a campaign to reduce their carbon footprint and increase their 
handprint (positive contributions towards conservation and sustainable use) 
for better life on the planet. The participants of the IBC 2018 took the 
Doon Valley Biodiversity pledge for ecological civilization.  

The three-day conference forwarded the following major recommendations:  

(i) Initiate and encourage a dialogue among stakeholders of biodiversity, 
including civil society organisations and farmers, to chart out 
programmes to facilitate a shift towards an ecological civilization that 
values, cherishes and conserves biodiversity to achieve United Nations 
Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), both at national and 
international platforms. Necessary polices may be adopted by the 



[167] A. Biju Kumar 

 

governments across the world to establish a legal and policy framework 
that initiates a shift towards biodiversity-based civilization that facilitates 
green, low-carbon, and circular development and economy, promotes 
afforestation and protects the ecosystems and ecosystem services, 
strengthens wetland conservation and restoration, promotes organic and 
nutrition-rich farming practices, and ensures stronger action against 
those who debilitate the environment; implements nation-wide 
“Biodiversity Literacy Programme” based on ecological civilization in 
order to spread the message of biodiversity and its conservation. 

(ii) The Indian philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (One earth one 
family) needs to be promoted and implemented in a holistic manner for 
effective management and sustainable utilization of biodiversity. 

(iii) Biodiversity utilization should be integrated with sustainable 
development goals and there should be holistic action plans involving 
the youth, women and citizen scientists to popularise the need for 
biodiversity conservation for sustainable development. 

(iv) As the governments have already announced adoption of the 
concept of sustainable development in planning process, the concept of 
biodiversity and related livelihoods should be flagged as the central 
principle of all developmental processes. 

(v) Considering the fact that habitat degradation is one of the primary 
reasons for biodiversity loss, spatial planning using GIS technology is 
recommended to prioritise land use for developmental and conservation 
planning and to demarcate areas rich in indigenous biodiversity 
including that of the agro-biodiversity. 

(vi) Develop new foodscapes in cities and villages, primarily using 
resources from the local areas and by promoting the good food culture 
and conservation of biodiversity. 

(vii) Transparent and fair labelling of food, agricultural products and 
other value-added products from biodiversity so as to ensure the rights 
of the consumers and to prevent the misuse of biodiversity. 

(viii) In order to prevent the rapid erosion of genetic diversity, 
strengthen on-farm conservation initiatives of indigenous biodiversity 
with proper recognition of and incentives for farmers and pastoralists 
involved. 

(ix) Strengthen synergies between climate mitigation strategies and 
development policies in areas such as energy efficiency, fuel substitution, 
renewables, afforestation, and land and waste management. 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [168] 

(x) Increased communication between scientists and policy makers 
through programs like capacity building seminars for policy makers, 
people’s representatives, and bureaucrats. 

(xi) Sustainable livelihood programmes must also focus on skill 
development for biodiversity conservation. Reskilling and upskilling of 
professionals are also needed to maintain the biodiversity outside the 
forests. 

(xii) The nation should have sovereign rights on the biological resources 
which fall under its jurisdiction and the benefits arising from the 
commercial utilization of biological resources must be shared with the 
local community. 

(xiii) Ecosystem services should be incorporated in national accounting 
in order to prioritize the value of conservation and in the backdrop of 
climate change, an action plan should be prepared for biodiversity 
conservation of the Himalayan mountain ecosystem.  

 


