Opportunities that have been flagged are:
1. Integrative and transformative, nurtured through collaborations and partnerships
2. Digital tools, AI, Environmental DNA, DNA Barcoding
3. Linked with policies for enhancing biodiversity and meeting societal needs
4. Communication, citizen science, education
The mission would include and involve all stakeholders. The speakers tried to impress the audience about the importance of such a mission by taking the help of recent buzzwords like “COVID-19” as well as the PM’s call for “Atmanirbhar Bharat”. Although it was not necessary to highlight the importance of biodiversity in our interdependence world, especially the food chain that we all share. Notwithstanding these facts, I am impressed by the name of this mission as National Initiative for Sustained Assessment of Resource Governance, in short NISARG-Bharat.
This mission proposes to encompass all facets starting from grass root level biodiversity assessment with bare-foot scientists to Artificial Intelligence to policy coherence across conservation laws. Obviously I presume that often there will be conflict among the lobbyists of these components since our vision is not 360°. It reminds me of the story behind the creation of Damodar Valley Corporation’s Power project in the Nehru age. It was first conceived as only a flood control project to erect barrage so that excess water flow could be stored, soon after some engineers suggested that when we are spending money for making barricades, let us make it a hydro project for generating power from the water of the dam. Subsequently, some other people suggested why not to take advantage of stored water for irrigation. Like this the scope went on expending and ultimately it has become the misery of the nation. When farmers don’t need water (rainy season), water will be released to protect the dam, causing flood; when they need water (summer months) no water will be released to maintain the water level for power generation; Farmers’ crops will suffer. I wish that this proposed mission should take care of possibilities of such eventualities in the planning stage.
I have seen many Mission mode projects in India starting from Oil-seed Mission. And to be frank, I am not very happy with the outcome of these missions. Obviously money spent was not proportionate to the achievements in terms of delivery of output. I may be labelled “wrong” by a section of the people who were in the helm of affairs. Because for them “money spent” is the achievement as mostly considered in developmental projects. Parameters for achievements in science projects should be different from developmental projects since predictability of the result in science projects is low. It should be assessed in terms of how much positive changes in terms of knowledge gained in the project has brought in, so far life is concerned.
I have seen closely, Oilseed mission, NATP and NAIP projects of the World Bank as a partner for project implementation at the institutes. What I find over the years are:
1. that accountability and strict monitoring are slowly eroding from the national canvas of science. All are engaged in a number game; Research managers want more technology good or bad to impress their boss as a result research workers dump uncooked substandard technology.
2. that there is no third party assessment of technology. As a consequence, we have several technologies, crop varieties, germplasms, animal wealth, farm implements, etc., but these are not available in ground level. Tall claims often persist for a few years then vanish. Workers get their rewards irrespective of the usefulness of the outcome.
3. that uncompromising attitude towards the dishonesty in science (manipulation of data; manipulation of authorships; etc) must be dealt with firm hands to set an example to reverse the spin of the wheel.
4. Base-line statistics are mostly guesstimates. A castle cannot be built on loose soil. Collection of statistical data should be of un-comprisable standard.
Missionplanners should be careful and move forward to prepare the road map after pluggingthese Loop-holes, if success of the mission is to be seen in reality. I wish tosee the following in the Mission activity:
Forest harbours the biodiversity, therefore, the mission should start with an assurance from the political masters that the present area under forest should remain unchanged, if not more and shall not be compromised in future under any apparently compelling circumstances.
2. Tree species are most vulnerable hence modern tools like GPS enabled tagging can be thought of for enumeration of important tree species so that the tractability can be ensured at any given point of time.
3. Agri-biodiversity should be planned with sound statistical data backing giving paramount importance to the tractability component. No fake or exaggerated data should be in circulation.
4. Human Population /developments are inversely proportional to biodiversity. How the mission plans to stabilize the population and so-called developmental activities to ultimately stabilize biodiversity?
5. Biodiversity conservation should not be dealt in isolation. Conservation and utilization should go hand in hand to maintain the balance. As on today there are two groups of lobbyists raise their voices for these activities independently and often as north and south poles without looking eye to eye.
6. Biodiversity assessment at ground level would require good taxonomists which are at present a rare species among the scientific community. How to go about this massive task must be planned step by step without any uncertainty or compromise.
7. There may be many more such grass-root level issues that need attention and can be discussed once the master plan is in public domain.
