AI FOR NATURE AND SUSTAINABILITY

AI FOR NATURE AND SUSTAINABILITY

Dr Swayamprabha Das

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evolved exponentially over the years to impact social, economic, ecological and cultural fabric across the world.

As India hosts the “first-ever global AI summit to be hosted in the Global South”, with the people, planet, progress as the Sutra, the seven Chakra (thematic areas), including Science, Resilience, Innovation and Efficiency, Economic Development & Social Good, resounds with biodiversity conservation and protection of natural resources management.

According to the Government of India “For India, AI functions as a strategic national tool to drive the democratisation of technology, ensuring access, inclusion, and equity at scale. This technological revolution has opened vast opportunities for advancements across every domain of human endeavour. India’s role in global technology and governance forums continues to expand, reflecting its growing engagement in shaping international policy discourse on emerging technologies.” (PIB, 08 Feb 2026)

Technology, and specifically AI has been in use globally by Governments and leading organizations like WWF, IUCN, UNEP, Conservation International, to name a few, for climate modelling and impact studies, conservation and biodiversity monitoring.

AI is becoming a powerful tool for tackling climate change through mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk resilience, whereby it optimizes renewable energy grids, supports precision agriculture, and reduces emissions in transport; strengthens resilience by predicting floods, droughts, and heatwaves, managing water resources, and guiding coastal ecosystem restoration; and AI processes satellite data to track deforestation, glacier retreat, and air quality, while enhancing climate models for more accurate projections.

For biodiversity conservation, AI has been used for species observation (camera traps) and habitat mapping; ecosystems monitoring (monitor forests and marine ecosystems) and conservation planning.  By integrating satellite imagery with local data, AI enables anti-poaching surveillance, pollution tracking, and ecosystem health.

Together, applications, insights and predictive analytics enable scientists, governments, and communities to reduce emissions, prepare for climate impacts, conserve species and habitats and make informed, real-time policy decisions.

Building AI protocol across BRICS

As India hosts the AI Summit, India also chairs the BRICS summit in 2026, with a focus on “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”. Under this theme, India has prioritized the Global South, digital public infrastructure, and sustainable development. Thus, providing the ‘springboard’ to advance “Artificial Intelligence for conservation, protection and restoration of natural resources and sustainability” to the forefront.

The BRICS+ countries are rich in biodiversity and nurture forests, oceans, water and species diversity as part of their natural heritage, and are also facing unprecedented climate events.

These countries have been deploying AI for multitude of conservation efforts ranging from setting up AI sensors to monitor the health of rivers (India, Egypt), for groundwater modelling/ monitoring (Brazil, India, China), mangroves and coral reefs monitoring (India, Indonesia), or soil analytics, precision farming/ regenerative farming (India, China, Ethiopia), controlling desertification (India, Saudi Arabia), climate models for Arctic and Himalayan ecosystems (Russia, India), air quality monitoring, disaster prediction (India, UAE).

Additionally, AI is used widely for forecasting like solar/wind output; smart microgrids (India, China, Saudi Arabia); monitoring floods, droughts, cyclones, heatwaves (India, Indonesia, UAE); AI traffic flow, EV charging optimization (South Africa, UAE – urban areas), among others.

AI in conservation is not about replacing rangers with technology, or displace farmers and fishers, but to enhance and augment human stewardship though technology enabled systems, secure biodiversity while contributing to collective ecological resilience.

Shared Commitment, Common Future

Recognizing the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI), BRICS+ countries could jointly commit to harnessing technology as a force for ecological resilience, community empowerment, and climate adaptation.

Potential areas for shared commitments are

(i) Conservation & Protection: Deploy AI-powered monitoring systems to combat illegal logging, poaching, and unsustainable exploitation. Strengthen enforcement through predictive analytics and real-time ecological dashboards.

(ii) Restoration: Use AI to guide reforestation, wetland revival, mangrove regeneration, and land restoration. Share best practices across BRICS+ countries to accelerate degraded ecosystem recovery.

(iii) Natural Resource Management: Apply AI to optimize water use, soil health, and renewable energy systems. Promote sustainable agriculture through AI-enabled crop and irrigation models.

(iv) Climate Adaptation: Develop AI-driven early warning systems for floods, droughts, heatwaves, and storms. Strengthen resilience planning for vulnerable communities across diverse ecosystems.

(v) Community Empowerment: Launch citizen science platforms in local languages to engage communities in biodiversity monitoring. Integrate indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge into AI datasets.

To actualise this, it will be important to launch a “BRICS+ AI-for-Nature Innovation Hub” that brings together all the learnings and knowledge across the BRICS+ countries, facilitates knowledge exchange through experiential learning; and establish a ‘AI protocol for Nature and Sustainability’.

A South-South technology transfer highway for Nature could also be considered to scale AI innovations across BRICS+ countries. To support this, a blended funding mechanism, with seed funds/ contributions from BRICS+ can be channeled through New Development Bank (NDB), and additional funding could be raised from Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), and/or Green Bonds & Climate Finance/International Climate Funds (GCF, GEF).

All of these align well with the existing BRICS-led frameworks on Land Restoration Partnership (2025): priorities of Environment Working Group (EWG) and the Contact Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development (CGCCSD); Agriculture, and South-South Cooperation. In effect, India as Chair BRICS+, with its biodiversity richness and socio-cultural diversity, is suitably poised to pioneer a “Techno-Ecological Civilization” with AI accelerating environmental stewardship!

Dr Swayamprabha Das , Associate Vice President and Lead, Policy Research and Engagement Development Alternatives

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