On the edge of Vadodara's Chhani Lake, a quiet transformation is underway. What was once a patch of underutilised land is now a thriving urban forest - its saplings taking root, birds returning, dragonflies skimming small pools of water. This 900 square metre urban forest has over 3,000 species of trees - the success of which has led the city government to scale this up across several sites in Vadodara. Urban forests, dense and layered, are cooling microclimates, hosting pollinators, and offering residents spaces to reconnect with something quieter, older, and essential.
This is not an isolated project in India, nor is it a beautification effort. It is part of something bigger: a shift in how we think about development, about cities, its biodiversity and about our place in nature.
Udaipur, for instance, has been granted the prestigious status of "Wetland Cities" under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, joining an elite list of 31 Wetland Cities worldwide. The city is not only preserving its lakes and historic charm, but thriving in its bird population, providing valuable lessons in urban wildlife conservation. A research study on "Characteristics of Bird Niches in a Small Indian City: Effect of Migratory Status, Season, and Environmental Variables" recorded an impressive 208 bird species within Udaipur. Our intervention - developing an urban forest at Mohta Park to achieve lower greenhouse gas emissions and increase resilience - has made Udaipur city replicate it in 4 locations. The larger vision is to create 100 patches of Miyawaki Forest
Biodiversity considerations are being built into urban infrastructure plans. One of the most successful examples of this is the development of seven biodiversity parks in Delhi. Funded by Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and managed by Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems, University of Delhi, these parks are live success models of re-establishment of the natural ecosystems (Yamuna flood plains and Aravalli Mountain Range), through ecological restoration.
Like Vadodara, Udaipur and Delhi, cities in India are experimenting with afforestation drives, nature-based solutions, and green infrastructure. From creating their City Biodiversity Index (CBI), putting in Local Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (LBSAP) - a framework to guide and implement biodiversity conservation and action within city areas in place, to the state of Goa, developing People's Biodiversity Registers (PBRs), which document the biodiversity as well as traditional ecological knowledge, in 73 local governments, cities are convinced that as urban heat rises, air pollution worsens, and water tables fall, biodiversity is emerging as a buffer-and in many cases, a lifeline.
India also updated its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), at the 16th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in November 2024. Kirti Vardhan Singh, Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and External Affairs, highlighted that India adopted a 'Whole of Government' and 'Whole of Society' approach.
In May 2025, at the 20th session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF20), India reported a consistent increase in forest and tree cover, encompassing 25.17% of its geographical area as per the latest India State of Forest Report, as a result of key national initiatives like the restoration of land under the Aravalli Green Wall, a 7.86% increase in mangrove cover over the past decade, afforestation of over 1.55 lakh hectares under the Green India Mission, and plantation of 1.4 billion seedlings under the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam (Plant4Mother) campaign. While critics rightly caution that not all green cover is ecologically rich or diverse, this momentum, particularly in cities, cannot be ignored.
What is significant is that the updated NBSAP by India acknowledged environmental challenges and outlined strategies to address them through ecosystem restoration, species recovery programmes, and community-driven conservation efforts
'Target 12' of the 23 global targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted at COP15 in 2022, puts huge emphasis on the role of cities to achieve a nature-positive world by 2050. It stresses on the need for improving urban planning by expanding and connecting green and blue spaces in cities, ensuring healthier, biodiverse, and more resilient urban environments for human well-being.
In India, where urban local bodies directly manage some of the green and blue infrastructure-parks, wetlands, rivers, and institutional green spaces, and indirectly impact biodiversity through functions like waste management, water supply, and building regulations, this means mainstreaming biodiversity into city budgets and policies is imperative. Cities need to look at innovative mechanisms for financing biodiversity conservation. This will need a look into regulations, incentives, and the political will to turn ecological restoration into a cornerstone of sustainable cities as growth centres.
Global city networks like ours along with national and international agencies are working together to push for such transformations, but it is time that there is a concentrated holistic effort to put one's money where the mouth is.
As the world marks International Day for Biological Diversity on May 22, the United Nations theme this year - 'Harmony with Nature and Sustainable Development' - feels especially urgent. It is a reminder that the future we are racing towards cannot come at the cost of the ecosystems that sustain us.
(Dr Monalisa Sen is an Associate Director, ICLEI South Asia and leads the Biodiversity work in the South Asia region. Views expressed are personal)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
