CBD COP-17: India Lists 1,134 Protected Areas at Yerevan

India placed its biodiversity record before the world on 27 October 2026. Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Shri Bhupender Yadav read out India's National Statement at the High-Level Segment of the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP-17), held at Yerevan in Armenia. He thanked the host government and renewed India's pledge to live in harmony with nature.

What India asked for

The minister argued that the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework can only be delivered if it respects each country's own priorities, circumstances and laws, and if developed countries supply finance that is both adequate and predictable, along with capacity building and technology. India backed the sharing of benefits from digital sequence information on genetic resources through the multilateral mechanism, the Cali Fund included. On synthetic biology and biosafety, it pressed for a method that is science-based, proportionate to risk and precautionary.

India's numbers

The updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan converts the global framework into 23 National Biodiversity Targets, tracked by 142 indicators. The minister set out the country's conservation network as follows.

Programmes named in the statement

• The International Big Cat Alliance, which carries forward cooperation for the seven big-cat species of the world and their habitats.
• Mission LiFE and Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam, offered as proof that conservation has become a social effort and not only a government one.
• MISHTI, the Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats and Tangible Incomes, for restoring mangroves, and Amrit Dharohar for wetlands.
• The Soil Health Card Scheme, for soil fertility and sustainable soil management.

Local sharing of benefits

India told the meeting that it has brought its own laws in line with the Convention and has set up committees at the village level so that access to biological resources and the benefits from their sustainable use are decided close to the ground. Shri Yadav closed by saying India would keep working with every Party in the spirit of One Earth, One Family, One Future.