India releases guidelines to recognise conservation areas outside protected forests, aiming to add 3 per cent of its area

3 November 2026

Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav released India's new I-OECM Guidelines 2026 at a side event of CBD COP-17 in Yerevan, Armenia. Their full title is Guidelines for the Designation of India's Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures. An OECM is land or water outside legally protected areas and forests that nonetheless conserves biodiversity where it stands. Biodiversity parks, sacred groves, community-managed irrigation tanks, seagrass beds and fisheries seasonal ban areas can all qualify. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change drew them up with the National Biodiversity Authority. A site needs defined boundaries, must not already be legally protected, and must not overlap entries in the World Database on Protected Areas. Recognition leaves ownership and legal status untouched, and each site is reassessed at least once in five years. The work feeds Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the 30x30 goal. A project worth USD 60.79 million will test the guidelines in six demonstration landscapes and seascapes, among them the Lakshadweep Islands Marinescape.