🌿 Environment & EcologyMAINS · GS3.14

Expert panel set up on invasive alien species

The National Biodiversity Authority has constituted a two-year expert committee to build India's first consolidated national list of invasive alien species and to recommend how to contain them.

What happened

The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has constituted an Expert Committee on Invasive Alien Species (IAS) to address the ecological and socio-economic risks these species pose across India.
The committee was set up in pursuance of directions of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which had taken up a suo motu proceeding — O.A. No. 162/2023 — flagging threats to native biodiversity, ecosystems, agriculture, food security, and human and wildlife health.
The move was reinforced by an advisory from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to set up a dedicated expert body.
The NBA acted in exercise of its powers under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 (as amended in 2023).
The committee is chaired by Shri Dhananjai Mohan, IFS (Retd.), former PCCF and Head of Forest Force, Uttarakhand, with Prof. (Dr.) A. Biju Kumar, Vice Chancellor, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies, as Co-Chair.
It will function for a period of two years.

Background & context

An invasive alien species is a non-native plant, animal, or micro-organism that, once introduced into a new region — deliberately or accidentally — establishes itself, spreads, and causes harm to the local environment, economy, or human health. The qualifier matters: a species is "alien" only relative to a place, and "invasive" only when it does damage. Most introduced species never become invasive; the dangerous minority that do are among the largest drivers of biodiversity loss worldwide, alongside habitat destruction, over-exploitation, pollution, and climate change. The 2023 global assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) brought the scale of the problem into sharp relief, estimating that invasive species contribute to a large share of recorded species extinctions and impose heavy annual economic costs globally.

India carries a long roster of well-known invaders. Lantana camara, an ornamental shrub from the Americas, now chokes forest understoreys across the country and suppresses the regeneration of native plants in tiger and elephant habitats. Prosopis juliflora (vilayati kikar / mesquite) has spread aggressively across arid and semi-arid zones. The water hyacinth (Eichhornia / Pontederia crassipes), often called the "Bengal terror," blankets wetlands and clogs waterways. The Parthenium weed (congress grass) triggers allergies and crop loss, while the African catfish, tilapia, and the spotted snakehead's invasive relatives disrupt freshwater fisheries. The fall armyworm and certain mealybugs have caused major agricultural damage. Until now, however, India lacked a single, authoritative, consolidated national list of such species — different States, scientific bodies, and forest departments maintained their own scattered records. The new committee is meant to close that gap.

The institutional anchor is the National Biodiversity Authority, the statutory body created under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and operational since 2003, with its headquarters at Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The NBA sits at the apex of a three-tier architecture: the NBA at the national level, State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) at the State level, and Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) at the local body level. This three-tier design is why a "State-wise inputs" approach to building the national list is natural — the data flows up the same structure that the Act already created.

For Prelims

Who set it up: National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), on NGT direction (O.A. No. 162/2023) and MoEFCC advisory.
Statutory power: Biological Diversity Act, 2002 (amended 2023) — the same Act that created the NBA.
Mandate: prepare a consolidated national list of invasive alien species from State-wise inputs; identify and prioritise high-risk species; recommend science-based management, ecological restoration, and national guidelines for prevention, control, and eradication; document best practices; flag knowledge gaps; propose research and data programmes.
Chair: Shri Dhananjai Mohan, IFS (Retd.). Co-Chair: Prof. (Dr.) A. Biju Kumar.
Members: Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Botanical Survey of India (BSI), ICAR research bureaus on plant, fish and insect genetic resources, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Forest Survey of India (FSI), State Forest Departments of Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Maharashtra and Assam, and international/academic experts including the IUCN.
Tenure: two years.
NBA basics: statutory body under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002; HQ at Chennai; apex of the NBA → State Biodiversity Boards → Biodiversity Management Committees three-tier system.
The Act's scope: regulates access to India's biological resources and associated traditional knowledge, ensures fair and equitable benefit-sharing, and gives effect to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), 1992, to which India is a party.

What it is NOT: This is an expert committee constituted by the NBA, not a new statutory authority or a new law — it advises, it does not regulate or legislate. The NBA itself is a statutory body, not a constitutional one, and it is distinct from the National Green Tribunal (a statutory adjudicatory body under the NGT Act, 2010) that merely directed the study. Do not confuse the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 (access, benefit-sharing, the NBA) with the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 (which lists protected species in its Schedules and created bodies like the National Board for Wildlife) or with the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. Also note an "invasive alien species" is not simply any foreign or any rare species — it must be both non-native and causing harm; many alien species (such as several food crops) are not invasive at all.

The wider set worth carrying: the bodies operating under the MoEFCC/biodiversity umbrella that aspirants are tested on together — the National Biodiversity Authority (statutory, Biological Diversity Act 2002), the National Board for Wildlife (Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972), the Central Zoo Authority, the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, and the Central Pollution Control Board. Among India's premier scientific organisations on this committee, ZSI (founded 1916, Kolkata) handles fauna, BSI (founded 1890, Kolkata) handles flora, the Wildlife Institute of India is at Dehradun, and the Forest Survey of India (Dehradun) produces the biennial India State of Forest Report.

For UPSC: The new Invasive Alien Species committee was constituted by the NBA (the statutory body under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, HQ Chennai) on an NGT direction, and its headline task is India's first consolidated national IAS list from State inputs.

Why it matters

Invasive alien species are recognised globally as one of the top direct drivers of biodiversity decline, yet they are often under-managed because the harm is gradual and diffuse rather than dramatic. For a megadiverse country like India — home to four of the world's biodiversity hotspots and a vast network of protected areas — uncontrolled invaders quietly erode the very ecosystems that conservation spending is meant to protect. Lantana invading a tiger reserve, for instance, reduces the grass and browse that prey species depend on, indirectly thinning the prey base for big cats; water hyacinth choking a wetland starves fisheries and degrades the habitat of migratory birds.

The problem this committee addresses is fundamentally one of fragmented information and weak coordination. Without a single authoritative national list and a shared prioritisation of high-risk species, States and agencies cannot align their eradication efforts, budget for control, or set quarantine and biosecurity measures at ports and borders where most introductions begin. A consolidated list also matters for India's international commitments: the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted under the CBD includes a specific target on reducing the introduction and establishment of invasive alien species. By building the evidence base and recommending control strategies, the committee links domestic forest and fisheries management to these global biodiversity pledges, and gives the NBA's three-tier machinery a concrete, data-driven task it can drive from the national down to the local level.

For Mains

Anchor

A question on conservation of biodiversity or on environmental governance can be anchored on the NBA's Expert Committee on Invasive Alien Species as the institutional response to a recognised but neglected driver of biodiversity loss.

Data

Deploy the concrete specifics — committee constituted under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 on NGT direction (O.A. 162/2023), two-year tenure, mandate to build the first consolidated national IAS list from State inputs, members drawn from ZSI, BSI, ICFRE, WII, FSI and IUCN — as evidence of an institutionalised, science-led approach.

Exemplify

Use named Indian invaders — Lantana camara, Prosopis juliflora, water hyacinth, Parthenium, fall armyworm — to illustrate how alien species damage forests, wetlands, and agriculture in answers on ecology and food security.

Problematise

The release itself implies the gap: India had no single consolidated national list and scattered State-level records, exposing weak coordination and biosecurity — a problem statement for answers on environmental institutions.

Way-forward

Cite the committee's prescriptions — prioritising high-risk species, national prevention/control/eradication guidelines, restoration measures, and closing research and data gaps — as a structured way forward on invasive species management.

Position

Reflects the government's stance that invasive species management is a national biodiversity priority tied to India's CBD and Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework commitments.

Deploys into: conservation of biodiversity, threats to ecosystems and the drivers of biodiversity loss (GS3.14); also referable for environmental institutions and India's international biodiversity commitments.

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change · 2026-03-21 · PRID 2243236 · PIB source ↗