Hello, this is our very first update on Grove and we look forward to engaging with the Grove community!
About us
Biodiversity Collaborative is a network of institutions engaged in biodiversity science, conservation and restoration, that have come together to demonstrate, advocate, and highlight the linkages between conservation, sustainable use of biodiversity, and human well-being. We aim to articulate and pilot sustainable, participatory, and inclusive models of economic and human development based on bio-resources and ecosystem services.
Our work is focused on 3 key areas:
- Create knowledge, understanding, and engagement with the Indian people about all aspects of biodiversity and its importance to our collective well-being.
- Leverage digital technologies, knowledge commons, and societal platforms to promote the sustainable and regenerative use of biodiversity as a public benefit.
- Engage with policy makers to develop policies which are supportive of sustainable development and conservation which in turn enhances the well-being of people across various sections of Indian society.
Our vision on Knowledge Commons:
In a vast and diverse country like India, we must strive for economic and resource self-sufficiency within a bio-region. This approach will reduce our carbon footprint, minimize supply-chain infrastructure needs, and empower local economies by leveraging traditional knowledge and local skills, practices, and technologies. Currently, various entities are working in silos to address different aspects of bio-regional localism, preventing collaboration and scale. Information asymmetry and limited access to data on India’s biodiversity exacerbate this challenge.
Our vision is to create and sustain an open-access knowledge commons, providing a comprehensive catalogue of India’s biodiversity, its distribution, and related socio-economic-cultural-ecological data. This repository will help address conservation and sustainable development challenges, supporting policy decisions at the macro level and tackling local sustainability and governance issues related to biodiversity, climate change, ecological restoration, ecosystem services, and regenerative agriculture.
Project Objectives:
The key objectives behind our effort are:
- Build an open-access, validated, thematic, and spatio-temporal knowledge commons for the restoration, conservation, and sustainable use of biodiversity in India. Strengthen partnerships with local communities to create site-specific knowledge commons focused on biodiversity and ecosystem services, enhancing restoration, incomes from biodiversity-based enterprises, nutrition, health, and mitigating climate-induced disasters.
- Create partnerships among biodiversity organizations to digitize, curate, and share data in a federated system where data from different warehouses is catalogued and accessible through standardized APIs and FAIR data principles.
- Work closely with end-user groups, including farmers, practitioners of ecological restoration, traditional health practitioners, collectors and traders of biodiversity-based materials, local government officials, and policymakers to mainstream biodiversity science and sustainability principles, ensuring access, ease of use, and crowdsourced data curation.
Our vision is for a “knowledge commons,” a shared resource for a thriving future.
Join us!
Whether you’re a farmer, scientist, policymaker, or nature enthusiast, the Biodiversity Collaborative has a place for you. Let’s build a brighter future for India, where nature flourishes and people prosper.