UPVAN develops Nature-based Solutions, Ecosystem-based Adaptation, Ecosystem Resilience, and Protected Areas Management through community participation and politico-administrative commitment and support of district and state administrations. In particular, UPVAN is interested in rewilding severely degraded areas like abandoned mines, toxic sites (industrial and non-industrial), and rehabilitation and revival of landscapes like grasslands, ponds, riverfronts, among others.
The concept of rewilding is relatively new, and whilst it offers great potential for reinvigorating conservation, and it is currently defined and approached in several ways by different actors. The key application of rewilding is ecological conservation and functional natural restoration through community ownership and management.
Rewilding is emerging as an optimistic agenda in conservation biology that seeks to reverse the degradation of ecosystems and decline in biodiversity by restoring natural processes, typically through the removal of non-local exotics and reintroduction of native species.
Over the past two decades, UPVAN has undertaken several activities through capacity building, botanical surveys and plant prospecting, inventory management, nursery establishment, plantation, innovative solutions for protection and usufruct sharing, and sustainability strategies. UPVHA is happy to receive requests from local communities and district administration and so far has worked on over 20 projects in Uttar Pradesh.