In Situ vs Ex Situ Conservation of Biodiversity (With Examples)

In situ and ex situ conservation are the two main ways of saving biodiversity. In situ conservation protects plants and animals in their natural home, such as a national park. Ex situ conservation protects them outside that home, in zoos, botanical gardens, seed banks or laboratories.

Both methods belong to the wider subject of biodiversity: its meaning, levels and threats. This page compares them with Indian examples.

What is the difference between in situ and ex situ conservation?

What is in situ conservation?

NCERT’s Class 12 Biology chapter “Biodiversity and Conservation” explains the idea in one line: we save the entire forest to save the tiger. Protecting the whole ecosystem guards biodiversity at every level, from genes to species to habitats. This is in situ (on site) conservation.

NCERT also describes biodiversity hotspots under in situ conservation. These are regions with very high species richness and high endemism, meaning many species found nowhere else. According to NCERT’s Class 12 book (Reprint 2026-27), the world has 34 hotspots, covering less than 2 per cent of Earth’s land area. Strict protection of them could cut ongoing mass extinctions by almost 30 per cent, the book adds. A PIB release of 9 October 2025 gives a newer global total of 36. India’s four are covered in our guide to biodiversity hotspots in India.

Examples of in situ conservation in India

• National parks: strictly protected areas where grazing and most human use are not allowed.
• Wildlife sanctuaries: protected areas that allow some regulated human activity.
• Biosphere reserves: large landscapes recognised within UNESCO’s Man and Biosphere (MAB) Programme, as NCERT’s geography book India: Physical Environment explains.
• Sacred groves: forest patches protected by communities for religious or cultural reasons.

How these three types of protected land differ is explained in our comparison of national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and biosphere reserves.

How many protected areas does India have?

Counts change as new areas are notified, so always quote the source and its date. NCERT’s Class 11 book India: Physical Environment (Reprint 2026-27) gives 107 national parks and 573 wildlife sanctuaries. Its table lists 18 biosphere reserves, citing the Environment Ministry’s Annual Report 2024-25.

A wider official figure comes from PIB’s year-end review of the Environment Ministry, dated 27 December 2024. It says India’s protected areas rose from 745 in 2014 to 1,022. These cover 5.43% of the country’s geographical area. The same review reports that community reserves grew from 43 in 2014 to 220. PIB’s total is larger than parks plus sanctuaries because the legal definition, as the ISFR 2023 glossary gives it, also includes conservation reserves and community reserves.

Sacred groves: in situ conservation by communities

Long before modern laws, many Indian communities set aside tracts of forest. All the trees and wildlife inside were venerated and given total protection. NCERT lists sacred groves in these places:

1. The Khasi and Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya
2. The Aravalli Hills of Rajasthan
3. The Western Ghat regions of Karnataka and Maharashtra
4. The Sarguja, Chanda and Bastar areas, which NCERT places in Madhya Pradesh

In Meghalaya, NCERT notes, these groves are the last refuges for a large number of rare and threatened plants.

What is ex situ conservation?

In ex situ (off site) conservation, threatened animals and plants are removed from their natural habitat. They are placed in a special setting where they get protection and care. NCERT names zoological parks, botanical gardens and wildlife safari parks as places that serve this purpose. It also notes that many animals now extinct in the wild survive in zoos.

Modern ex situ methods

NCERT says ex situ work has moved beyond keeping threatened species in enclosures. The newer tools are:

• Cryopreservation: gametes (sperm and eggs) of threatened species are stored at very low temperatures, staying viable and fertile for long periods.
• In vitro fertilisation: eggs are fertilised outside the body, in the laboratory.
• Tissue culture: new plants are grown from small pieces of plant tissue on a nutrient medium.
• Seed banks: seeds of different genetic strains of commercially important plants are kept for long periods.

Examples of ex situ conservation in India

Gene banks store seeds and other plant material on a large scale. A PIB release of 28 March 2025 describes the National Gene Bank at ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), New Delhi. It held 4,71,561 accessions (stored samples) of 2,157 species. PIB calls it the second largest gene bank in the world. The same release says a second National Gene Bank, able to hold 10 lakh germplasm samples, was announced in the Union Budget 2025-26.

Captive breeding is another ex situ tool. A Rajya Sabha reply reported by PIB on 5 December 2024 says the Environment Ministry and the Central Zoo Authority set up vulture breeding centres with state governments. Examples include the Pinjore Vulture Breeding Centre in Haryana and the Rajabhatkhawa centre in West Bengal. Birds are raised in captivity there and later released into natural habitats.

What are the advantages and limitations of each method?

In situ conservation

Advantages

• Saves the whole web of life, including pollinators, soil organisms and predators that a single species needs.
• Lets species keep adapting to natural changes in their habitat.
• Can involve local people, as sacred groves and community reserves show.

Limitations

• Needs large areas of land, which often conflict with farms, roads and towns.
• Poaching, fire, invasive plants and disease can still strike inside a reserve.
• Does not help a species whose habitat is already destroyed or whose numbers are too low to recover alone.

Ex situ conservation

Advantages

• Gives urgent protection to species facing a very high risk of extinction.
• Keeps a back-up of genes, seeds and gametes that can be used for future breeding or crop research.
• Captive-bred animals can be returned to the wild.

Limitations

• Protects only a few chosen species or varieties, not whole ecosystems.
• Captive animals may lose wild skills, such as finding food or avoiding predators.
• Small captive groups hold limited genetic variety.
• Seed banks and cold stores need steady power, skilled staff and long-term funding.

How do in situ and ex situ conservation work together?

The two approaches are partners. Ex situ methods buy time for a species in trouble. In situ protection makes sure there is a safe home to return to. The vulture programme shows the link clearly: birds bred in captivity are meant to go back to protected natural habitats.

Seed banks hold crop varieties that may vanish from fields. Plants in particular benefit from both routes, as our page on plant diversity and how it is conserved explains.

Both methods sit inside a larger toolkit of laws, community action and education. NCERT’s geography book calls the Wildlife Act of 1972 the main legal framework for wildlife protection, including legal support for national parks and sanctuaries. For the full set of tools, read biodiversity conservation: methods, importance and examples. To see what India is protecting, explore the biodiversity of India.