Toolkit for Urban Biodiversity Conservation

About

The idea addresses the problem of the status of biodiversity in urban and rural areas and provides an effective framework for its conservation and management. The toolkit is about the collaboration of different inter-related ideologies and concepts which are brought into a complete framework and when applied together can provide significant output to the conservation of biodiversity in urban areas. It will act as a single-window entity where all the stakeholders including volunteers, NGOs, government institutions, and local government could work together at their respective planning and administrative levels and help to enhance the quality of the biodiversity as well as its conservation by mainstreaming different processes and methods. CBI section helps to formulate and analyze data of all the cities indicator-wise under the sections: status of natural resources, ecosystem services, and governance where scoring is given. The data collected from different departments would be imported to GIS and subsequently, maps would be prepared and displayed under each indicator section. Local government bodies can alter or add the data at any time and keep the data updated. Currently, there is no such provision to view city’s environmental or biodiversity status and how it is measured by the government. This attempt would promote awareness among the citizens and also strengthen local governance and BMCs. A similar toolkit or framework could also be adopted for villages. PBR section would be used for making the survey process easier by making it all digital. It would have options of geo-tagging the photos as well, which would be helpful in creating a better database. Presently, the survey is noted in a written format and then transferred or typed onto digital representations. This app would reduce the survey initiation time and would automatically generate a centralized database. Data authentication issues can be addressed through multiple interactive app-based platforms to be used by different sections of society. The first data set would be sourced from the state or regional level surveys of different species (which includes already done PBRs also). Those data set would provide us with the list where a particular set of species could exist. To replicate or rectify the data at a local level and create a database for the same, the next platform would be community-based survey. For this, a list or icons of each species would be prompted on the screens of the user and the user would have the option to enter whether he/she has seen it or not in their particular area of residence. (For example: after getting the list of species in Delhi, prompting the same list in an interactive way on the user’s screen, and the user could feed in whether he/she has seen that species at ITO or not). The users could be incentivized for the same through various options. The third level would comprise of the experts/ research institutes/ groups, who could base the source of data and can authenticate it based on pilot surveys or self-acquired knowledge. LBSAP section would be used for display existing action plans and also provide options to add as well as formulate action plans. It would be having a section where one can upload the land use plan. Following which it would be analyzed in the back end of the application and habitat map would be generated from it. From habitat mapping, biodiversity value mapping could be generated and priority habitat classification can be selected, for which detailed proposal could be formulated. This process of formulation of plan is unique and less time consuming than its traditional counterpart and would help in mainstreaming the conservation activities throughout. This would increase the production of such action plans and allow monitoring and data updating after its implementation. One of the output of LBSAP would be a green linkage mapping of the city, after which the user can actually look whether his/her property lies in the green corridor or not. In such a case where the property lies within green corridor, then certain activities like planting regional species (which would be enlisted) would be proposed and incentives like additional FAR or tax reduction could be provided. Contribute/Volunteer section will provide an opportunity to the user to become a contributor in various capacities such as Individual, Corporates, Schools, RWAs. In order to fulfill the objectives of action plans as well as CBI, there is need of human resource which can be obtained from the contribute section of the application. In this section, one would select their interest for volunteering according to their profession or their suitability. The application would ask for the location of the user, and accordingly it would show the nearby NGOS working for environment along with their scope of work. This would enable the user to select the NGO according to his/her self-interest and apply for it. It would send the notification to the concerned NGO and the latter would be further notified about dates of volunteering activities. This whole process would be certified, if one wants to get the certificate he/she can apply for it at a minimal rate of (RS.60-100) which is subject to change. When he/she have actively volunteered for a NGO, it would be notified back to the app management authority, and a government approved certificate would be developed. The importance of this certificate can be extended up to national level in terms of compulsory requirement for applying into colleges, schools and work opportunities. Also, other incentives can be thought of relatively. To conclude, the toolkit is about collaboration of different inter-related ideologies and concepts which are brought into a complete framework and when applied together can provide significant output to conservation of biodiversity in both urban and rural areas.