Climate and biodiversity policies often focus on forests protected, carbon stored and species conserved. But an increasing body of research points to another factor that can influence these outcomes: who lives in, manages and makes decisions about ecologically important landscapes.

There are an estimated 476 million Indigenous Peoples across 90 countries, representing about 6.2% of the global population. Their territories overlap with many of the world’s remaining ecologically important landscapes, making their role increasingly relevant to climate and biodiversity policy.

The evidence does not support the blanket claim that Indigenous Peoples are inherently better conservationists. It does, however, show that land rights, ecological knowledge and meaningful participation in environmental governance can be important to conservation outcomes.

Indigenous Lands Overlap With Important Ecosystems

A 2018 study published in Nature Sustainability mapped Indigenous lands across 87 countries and politically distinct areas. It estimated that Indigenous Peoples manage or have tenure rights over at least 38 million sq km, more than one-quarter of the world’s terrestrial surface.

Their territories intersect approximately 40% of terrestrial protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes, including boreal and tropical primary forests, savannas and marshes.

The finding does not mean all Indigenous territories are pristine or formally protected. It demonstrates the substantial geographical overlap between Indigenous lands and landscapes that remain important for conservation.

That overlap matters for climate policy as well. Forests, wetlands and other intact ecosystems store carbon while supporting biodiversity and regulating water and other ecological processes.

One-third of Irrecoverable Carbon

The climate significance becomes clearer when carbon is considered.

A 2022 study in Nature Sustainability identified 139.1 gigatonnes of irrecoverable carbon remaining in Earth’s ecosystems, with considerable uncertainty around the estimate. The researchers found that 33.6% of this carbon—46.7 gigatonnes—is within lands managed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, compared with 23% within protected areas.

“Irrecoverable” carbon refers to ecosystem carbon that, if released, could not be restored by mid-century—the timeframe considered critical for reaching net-zero emissions.

The figure does not mean Indigenous management itself creates these carbon stocks. It shows that a substantial share of carbon that climate policy has strong reason to protect is located within Indigenous and local-community lands.

Knowledge Accumulated Through Generations

Indigenous knowledge adds another dimension. Indigenous and local communities have developed detailed knowledge of species, habitats, seasonal cycles and natural resources through long-term relationships with particular landscapes. Such knowledge can complement scientific monitoring, particularly when environmental changes are observed over long periods.

The important question, however, is not simply whether conservation projects can use this knowledge. It is whether the people who hold it have a meaningful role in decisions affecting their territories.

A 2024 review in One Earth examined this question across conservation research. The researchers reviewed 648 empirical studies and analysed ecological outcomes in a subset of 170 studies. They found that more equitable governance arrangements—where Indigenous Peoples and local communities had equal partnership or primary control—were associated with significantly more positive ecological outcomes.

The study identifies an association, not proof that Indigenous governance automatically produces better results in every ecosystem. Conservation outcomes also depend on local institutions, ecological conditions, economic pressures and enforcement. But the finding challenges a model in which communities are merely consulted after conservation decisions have already been made.

The 30% Target Makes Governance Important

This issue is becoming more relevant as countries work towards the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30-by-30 target: conserving and effectively managing at least 30% of terrestrial, inland-water, coastal and marine areas by 2030.

The target itself calls for conservation areas to be equitably governed and recognises the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities where applicable. That means expanding protected areas cannot be measured only in hectares. How those areas are governed—and who has authority within them—also matters.

Climate Action Can Create New Pressures

The relationship between Indigenous territories and climate policy is not limited to forest conservation. The transition away from fossil fuels requires minerals used in batteries, electricity infrastructure and other technologies. Research published in Nature Sustainability found that more than half of the world’s energy-transition mineral resource base is located on or near the lands of Indigenous and peasant peoples.

This creates a potential contradiction: technologies intended to reduce emissions can generate new pressures on land and communities through mineral extraction.

A credible climate transition therefore has to consider not only the emissions avoided by new technologies, but also where their materials come from and whose territories are affected.

India: Where Forest Rights Meet Conservation

The global evidence has a clear relevance to India, although India’s legal framework generally uses the terms Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers rather than the broader international category of Indigenous Peoples. India’s 2011 Census recorded about 104 million Scheduled Tribe people, representing 8.6% of the country’s population.

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, commonly known as the Forest Rights Act, recognises rights of forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers over forest resources. It also provides for community forest-resource rights, including the right to protect, regenerate, conserve and manage community forest resources. Government data show the continuing scale of implementation.

As of December 31, 2025, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs reported 44,33,940 forest-rights claims had been settled, meaning a decision had been taken. These comprised 42,56,845 individual claims and 1,77,095 community claims. The data cover implementation in 20 states and one Union Territory.

The difference between individual and community claims is significant because community forest rights concern collective relationships with forests and their management. For India, therefore, the conservation question is not simply how much forest can be protected. It is also how communities with established relationships with forests participate in managing them and how their legally recognised rights are implemented.

What the Evidence Tells Us

The research does not justify portraying Indigenous Peoples as universally or inherently sustainable. Their communities, institutions and environmental practices differ widely. The evidence supports a more precise conclusion.

Indigenous Peoples manage or have tenure rights over at least 38 million sq km in the countries covered by the major global mapping study. Their territories intersect about 40% of terrestrial protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes. Indigenous Peoples and local communities manage lands containing 33.6% of the world’s mapped irrecoverable carbon. And a review of 648 conservation studies found that more equitable governance was associated with more positive ecological outcomes.

Together, these findings suggest that Indigenous Peoples should not be viewed simply as beneficiaries of conservation programmes or sources of traditional knowledge. They are already part of the governance of many ecologically important landscapes.

For climate and biodiversity policy, the implication is straightforward: protecting ecosystems can also require protecting the rights, knowledge and decision-making roles of the people who live with them. While that does not replace scientific research or environmental regulation. It expands the evidence and the institutions available to protect nature.

The Netherlands built its global reputation by keeping water out. Now, longer dry spells and intensifying heatwaves are forcing the country to confront a very different problem: how to keep enough fresh water in the landscape. From greenhouse agriculture to homes built on wooden foundation piles, the Netherlands drought challenge is exposing the limits of infrastructure designed primarily for flood protection.

When people think of the Netherlands, the images that come to mind are windmills, tulip fields and the great sea walls that have kept the ocean at bay for centuries. The Dutch built their reputation, and much of their nation, on mastering water — pumping it away, holding it back, and reclaiming land from the sea to build a prosperous country on ground that, by rights, shouldn’t exist. Yet beneath that carefully engineered landscape, the Netherlands is now facing an unfamiliar problem: it is running out of fresh water.

As repeated summer heatwaves sweep across Western Europe, Dutch water authorities say they have reached the limit of what engineering can do. In several regions, officials have exhausted every standard measure available to them and are left with what amounts to a last resort — waiting, and hoping, for rain.

Netherlands Drought Challenge: From Floods to Water Scarcity

To understand how a country famous for its rainfall and rivers has arrived at this point, it helps to look at how the land itself was designed. For generations, the Dutch water system had one job: get excess water out to sea as fast as possible, to prevent flooding. That same efficiency has become a liability as weather patterns shift towards longer dry spells and more intense heat. The pressure peaks in late summer, when temperatures regularly cross 35°C and water evaporates faster than rainfall can replace it.

The consequences of shrinking water reserves go well beyond the daily weather report. They are already reaching into the economy, and into the foundations — quite literally — of Dutch homes.

Thousands of historic Dutch houses stand on wooden foundation piles. When groundwater levels drop, those piles are exposed to air and begin to rot. On clay and peat soils, the ground shrinks unevenly, pulling foundations down and cracking brick walls

Economic Strain and Sinking Homes

In Westland, the heart of Dutch greenhouse horticulture, the Delfland water authority has banned growers from drawing irrigation water from local ditches and canals — the first such ban in its history. According to the growers’ umbrella body Glastuinbouw Nederland, the ban affects around 150 commercial growers, with potential damages running as high as €150 million.

At the same time, a quieter crisis is unfolding beneath people’s homes. Thousands of historic Dutch houses stand on wooden foundation piles. When groundwater levels drop, those piles are exposed to air and begin to rot. On clay and peat soils, the ground shrinks unevenly, pulling foundations down and cracking brick walls. The Council for the Living Environment and Infrastructure estimates that close to half a million buildings across the country could show foundation damage by 2035, with repair costs reaching as much as €54 billion.

From Water Battle to Water Sponge

This reality is forcing a fundamental shift in how the Netherlands manages its resources. For centuries, Dutch policy was simple: fight the water, and push it away. Today, water authorities are engaged in a delicate balancing act, trying to save every drop using canal locks and storage basins. But holding onto existing water can only do so much once the rain stops altogether.

Long-term resilience will require redesigning the landscape itself. Rather than treating rainwater as a threat to be flushed out to sea, experts increasingly argue that the Netherlands needs to function more like a giant sponge — capturing heavy winter rain and storing it safely to survive the dry summer months that are becoming the norm.

A Lesson Beyond Borders

What is unfolding in the Netherlands carries a lesson well beyond it. If a nation this experienced in water engineering is struggling to keep pace with a changing climate, it says something about how quickly conditions can outrun even the most sophisticated infrastructure. As riverbeds stay low and the dry spells drag on, the Dutch find themselves in an unfamiliar position for a country built on water: waiting for the skies to open.

Planting trees and organising awareness campaigns are valuable, but they cannot replace environmental literacy. As climate change increasingly shapes everyday life, India’s schools must teach students how environmental systems, public policy and sustainability are interconnected.

Every year, schools across India mark World Environment Day with the same rituals. Children plant saplings, make posters, join cleanliness drives, and pledge to “save the environment.” A photograph is taken, a few speeches are made, and the saplings are watered for a week or two before the event winds down and environmental education slips back to the margins of the curriculum. There is nothing wrong with planting trees. The concern is what happens when tree-planting, poster-making and occasional awareness drives become the whole of environmental education: children end up with a dangerously thin understanding of the environmental forces that already govern their lives.

India’s environmental problems are no longer confined to the classroom or the textbook. Heatwaves have thrown school timetables out of kilter. Air pollution affects children’s health and their ability to concentrate. Floods and cyclones disrupt attendance and damage school infrastructure. Water shortages are a recurring reality in many parts of the country, and waste management, plastic pollution, groundwater depletion and biodiversity loss are becoming questions of everyday survival rather than abstract concerns. Yet much of environmental education still treats the environment as something outside the classroom, and environmental protection as an occasional act of cleaning or conservation. The problem isn’t that Indian children don’t know about trees. It’s that they are rarely taught why environmental crises happen, who pays the price for them, and what other choices communities could make.

Why Environmental Literacy Matters

India has a long history of institutional efforts on environmental education. Supreme Court rulings in the 1990s pushed environmental education into schools, and the National Curriculum Framework, along with subsequent policy measures, tried to weave environmental topics into the curriculum. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 places considerable emphasis on environmental awareness, sustainable development and responsible citizenship. On paper, the direction looks promising. In the classroom, that intent rarely survives translation.

A student may be told to conserve electricity, but is anyone explaining where India’s electricity comes from, why coal still dominates the grid, how renewable energy is expanding, and what trade-offs come with each alternative?

A child might learn that forests matter for ecological balance, but is anyone teaching them why the trees are being cut, who owns the forest land, what happens to the communities living in or around forests, how infrastructure projects reshape ecosystems, or how climate change itself is accelerating deforestation? A student may be told to conserve electricity, but is anyone explaining where India’s electricity comes from, why coal still dominates the grid, how renewable energy is expanding, and what trade-offs come with each alternative? A pupil may be advised not to waste water, but do they understand groundwater depletion, unequal access to water, the weaknesses in urban infrastructure, or the politics of sharing rivers between states?

These are fundamentally different levels of learning. The first produces awareness. The second produces environmental literacy. India needs far more of the latter.

The Environment Is Not Only a Question of Individual Behaviour

One of the deepest weaknesses of conventional environmental education is its tendency to place almost the entire burden on the individual: turn off the lights, carry a cloth bag, don’t litter, plant a tree, use less water. These are worthwhile habits. But taken alone, they carry a quiet suggestion — that environmental destruction is essentially a matter of personal carelessness. Climate change, pollution and ecological collapse are not happening because people forget to switch off a fan or reuse a plastic bag.

They are the product of energy systems, industrial production, urban design, transport networks, agricultural practices, consumption patterns and public policy choices. When environmental education stops at individual behaviour, students may grow into conscientious consumers while remaining unaware of the institutional and political processes that actually shape environmental outcomes. They should also be taught to ask who is responsible for emissions, and why a project is sited where it is. That shift — from moral instruction to civic awareness — is the one Indian environmental education still largely has not made.

Climate Change Is Already in the Classroom

The strongest argument for rethinking environmental education is that climate change is no longer a distant subject for Indian schoolchildren — it is already shaping their school experience. Extreme heat makes classrooms uncomfortable and undermines concentration. Floods and cyclones damage school infrastructure and disrupt attendance. Air pollution curtails outdoor activity. Water scarcity affects sanitation facilities, with a disproportionate impact on adolescent girls.

These effects are not distributed evenly. A private school with air conditioning, backup power and a reliable water supply absorbs climate stress very differently from an under-resourced government school. Climate change, in other words, is not only an environmental issue — it is also a question of educational inequality. A child sitting through a heatwave in a poorly ventilated classroom experiences climate change in fundamentally different terms from a child in a climate-controlled one, yet few environmental education programmes address that disparity directly. They should. Climate literacy needs to teach children that environmental issues are inseparable from class, geography, gender, occupation and access to infrastructure.

From ‘Save the Planet’ to Environmental Justice

Another limitation lies in how environmental issues are framed. Students are told they must “save the planet.” But the planet will endure regardless. The more urgent question is what kind of civilisation humanity will be able to inhabit as environmental pressures mount — and that is where environmental justice comes in.

India’s renewable energy transition makes this complexity visible. Solar and wind power are essential to reducing dependence on fossil fuels, but large-scale projects can also mean land acquisition, damage to agricultural livelihoods, and conflict with local communities. Protecting biodiversity matters, but so do the rights of people living around protected areas. Electric vehicles cut tailpipe emissions, but their batteries depend on mineral mining with its own environmental and social costs. Recycling eases pressure on landfills, but informal waste collectors often work in hazardous, unregulated conditions.

None of this is an argument against environmental action. It is an argument for teaching students how environmental systems actually work, contradictions included. A mature curriculum should embrace that complexity rather than flatten it.

Teachers Need Support, Not Just Demands

None of this is possible if teachers are left to carry the burden alone. Environmental education, where it exists, is often exam-driven, squeezed for time, and layered on top of an already heavy workload. Many teachers have no specialised training in climate science or environmental policy. Improving environmental education is, in large part, a question of improving teacher preparation and giving teachers the tools to connect environmental issues to subjects they already teach: geography can examine groundwater depletion, economics can study the cost of pollution, civics can look at environmental regulation, mathematics can work with climate data, history can trace industrialisation and land-use change, and language classes can practise environmental journalism and writing. Environmental education does not need a separate subject. It needs a different way of teaching the subjects that already exist.

The Classroom as a Site of Inquiry

Some of the most valuable environmental learning may not come from lectures at all. Schools can double as sites of inquiry. Students can take temperature readings in their own classrooms and study local heat patterns, check air quality where they live, map household water use, conduct waste audits, track the loss of local biodiversity, or examine power consumption and the potential for renewables. They can trace where their school’s waste actually goes. These exercises build evidence-based reasoning in a way no poster campaign can, developing skills in observation, questioning and analysis that are essential to understanding environmental issues.

Beyond Symbolic Environmentalism

Finally, what is needed is a cultural shift, not another annual ritual. Environmental education should be more than a photograph of children clutching saplings. A planted tree is visible; the systems that actually determine environmental outcomes — urban design, energy generation, water governance, waste management, industrial regulation, the distribution of climate risk — are not, and children need to understand them regardless.

India is raising a generation that will have to navigate hotter cities, strained water systems, shifting coastlines and difficult development choices. Telling children to plant trees isn’t wrong. It simply isn’t enough. The goal of environmental education should not be young people who appreciate the value of a tree, but citizens who understand how societies shape the environment — and how the environment, in turn, shapes society. That is the real difference between symbolic awareness and meaningful education.