18-01-2021 | 14:54 PM
NCAVES India Forum-2021
Context
Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of the Ecosystem Services (NCAVES) India Forum-2021 is being virtually organised by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has taken up several initiatives under the project “Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (NCAVES)” which aims to advance the theory and practice of ecosystem accounting in India.
About NCAVES
The project has been launched by the United Nations Statistics Division, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The project is funded by the European Union (EU) and will have a duration until the end of 2021.
India is one of the five countries taking part in this project - the other countries are Brazil, China, South Africa and Mexico.
In India, the NCAVES project is being implemented by the MoSPI in close collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC).
The objectives of the National Forum would be:
To present India’s achievements in the domain of Natural Capital Accounting (NCA).
To prioritize the emerging opportunities for NCA in India.
To familiarize stakeholders with the work undertaken by the different international agencies in the area of NCA.
To provide a platform to selected Research Institutions to present their research conducted in the valuation of ecosystem services.
Significance
The participation in the project has helped MoSPI commence the compilation of the Environment Accounts as per the UN-SEEA framework and release environmental accounts in its publication “EnviStats India” on an annual basis from 2018.
Several of these accounts are closely related to the social and economic attributes, making them a useful tool for the Policy.
Another tool under the NCAVES project is the development of the India-EVL Tool which is essentially a look-up tool giving the values of various ecosystem services in the different States of the country.
Ecosystem accounting can produce information on the extent of ecosystems, their condition based on selected indicators, and the flow of ecosystem services.
