Examine the role of inter-state cooperation and CAMPA funding in species recovery programmes in India.

Species recovery programmes under the Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats target critically endangered species whose ranges and threats cut across state boundaries. Their progress rests on two enablers — coordinated action between states and assured, multi-year finance through CAMPA.

Inter-state cooperation as an operational necessity

• Shared ranges demand joint action: the Great Indian Bustard (GIB) survives across Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra, so no single state can secure a viable population.
• Jumpstart Approach (2026): an incubated fertile egg was moved 770 km from Sam (Rajasthan) to Naliya, Kutch, along a halt-free corridor and hatched by a wild foster female — India's first inter-state jumpstart initiative, coordinated by MoEFCC, both state forest departments and the Wildlife Institute of India [1].
• Genetic pooling: sharing founder stock sustains diversity; the captive tally reached 70 birds in the programme's fourth year, with chicks from both natural mating and artificial insemination [2].
• Project Cheetah shows the same logic scaled up — translocation from Namibia and Botswana to Kuno (MP) [3], with grassland sites in other states being prepared for expansion.

CAMPA funding as the financial backbone

• Channels compensatory afforestation levies from forest diversion into biodiversity outcomes, giving recovery projects predictable multi-year outlays.
• 2016: Rs 33.85 crore for "Habitat Improvement and Conservation Breeding of the GIB", enabling breeding centres at Sam and Ramdeora, Jaisalmer [4].
• 2024: Rs 77.05 crore over five years for the GIB–Lesser Florican Conservation Action Plan, covering surveys, artificial insemination, habitat improvement, predator protection, telemetry and community participation [4].

Persisting gaps

• Cooperation remains event-driven rather than institutionalised through a standing inter-state mechanism.
• CAMPA is compensatory, not a dedicated conservation budget, and utilisation lags.
• Emphasis on ex-situ breeding outpaces in-situ fixes — power-line mitigation and grassland restoration, since grasslands are still administratively treated as wastelands.

Cooperative federalism and CAMPA finance have together converted the GIB from near-certain extinction into a recovering population. Institutionalising a permanent inter-state bustard authority, ring-fencing CAMPA allocations for in-situ grassland restoration, and mainstreaming community stewardship would consolidate these gains, advancing Article 48A and SDG 15 on life on land.