India, April 27 -- The Environment Ministry and the National Biodiversity Authority have launched a five-year project in Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya to strengthen grassroots biodiversity governance, officials said on Sunday.

This will be done by empowering local communities and institutions through the greening of Gram Panchayat Development Plans and innovative financing.

"A key objective of the project is mainstreaming biodiversity in local development plans to strengthen Panchayati Raj Institutions and Biodiversity Management Committees," an official said.

The project aims to build landscape-level multi-stakeholder platforms that bring together forest departments, revenue authorities, elected representatives and civil society to produce...