Conservation in India
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is the ministry responsible for implementation of environmental and forestry program in India, which include the management of national parks, conservation of flora and fauna of India, and pollution controls.
Yajnavalkya Smriti, a historic Indian text on statecraft and jurisprudence, suggested to have been written before the 5th century AD, prohibited the cutting of trees and prescribed punishment for such acts.
"Happiness in this world and the next is difficult to obtain without much love for the dhamma, much self-examination, much respect, much fear of evil, and much enthusiasm.
[...] Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi (Ashoka), speaks thus: Animals were declared to be protected – parrots, mainas, aruna, geese, wild ducks, nandimukhas, gelatas, bats, queen ants, terrapins, boneless fish, vedareyaka, gangapuputaka, sankiya fish, tortoises, porcupines, squirrels, deer, bulls, okapinda, wild asses, wild pigeons, domestic pigeons and all four-footed creatures that are neither useful nor edible.
Ex situ conservation is rearing or cultivating, including reintroducing, a plant or animal outside their natural habitat.
The reintroduction of the Indian rhinoceros at the Dudhwa National Park was a form of ex situ conservation; it was extinct in that area.
[citation needed] In the 1980s, space satellites were deployed for remote sensing of real forest cover.
India and the United States cooperated in 2001, using Landsat MSS with spatial resolution of 80 metres, to get accurate Indian forest distribution data.
The 2007 forest census data thus obtained and published by the Government of India suggests the five states with largest area under forest cover as the following:[7] India hosts significant biodiversity; it is home to 7.6% of all mammalian, 12.6% of avian, 6.2% of reptilian, and 6.0% of flowering plant species.
[8] In recent decades, human encroachment has posed a threat to India's wildlife; in response, a system of national parks and protected areas, first established in 1935, was substantially expanded.
A 2010 study by the Food and Agriculture Organisation ranks India amongst the 10 countries with the largest forest area coverage in the world (the other nine being Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, United States of America, China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Australia, Indonesia and Sudan).
