Among the many things one expects to find in a BRICS declaration — trade, finance, technology, geopolitics, big cats are probably not high on the list.
Yet there they are in the New Delhi Declaration. BRICS countries note their vulnerability, take note of India’s International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA), and encourage cooperation on their conservation. India’s initiative also draws on its own conservation experience, particularly the recovery of its tiger population and the network of reserves and corridors developed around it.
It may seem an unusual detail in a geopolitical document. But there is an economic argument here too.
The expanded BRICS accounts for nearly half the world’s population and more than a quarter of global economic output. Its members are also trying to manage several difficult challenges simultaneously: continued growth and urbanisation, large infrastructure and energy requirements, and growing exposure to floods, droughts, extreme heat, and water stress.
Climate vulnerability is inevitably also an economic vulnerability. And part of that story is nature. Forests regulate water and store carbon. Ecosystems support agriculture, fisheries and livelihoods. Their degradation eventually shows up in productivity, supply chains and the ability of communities and economies to withstand climate shocks.
The World Bank has estimated that a partial collapse of just three ecosystem services, wild pollination, food from marine fisheries and timber from native forests, could leave global real GDP $2.7 trillion lower in 2030 than under its baseline scenario. The New Delhi Declaration makes some of these connections itself, recognising ecosystems as carbon sinks, providers of ecosystem services and contributors to climate resilience.
So where do big cats come in?
{{/usCountry}}So where do big cats come in?
{{/usCountry}}Big cats need large, functioning landscapes. Tigers, leopards, snow leopards, lions, jaguars and pumas cannot be conserved only within the boundaries of individual protected areas. They need prey, water, and habitat, but also routes that keep populations connected. Their presence tells us something about the health and connectivity of the wider landscape.
The climate crisis is making this harder. As temperature, rainfall and vegetation patterns change, suitable habitat can shift too. A 2025 study in Scientific Reports modelled this for snow leopards in China’s Xinjiang region. Under the highest-emissions scenario, about 17% of currently suitable habitat could be lost by the 2070s, even as new suitable areas emerge elsewhere. The study also found that nearly 85% of current suitable habitat lies outside protected areas.
The point is not the percentages themselves. It is that conservation cannot only be about protecting where species are today. It also has to think about where they may need to move.
The India-Nepal Terai Arc shows what connectivity looks like in practice. It includes a network of protected areas and corridors across the border. The Khata corridor connects Nepal’s Bardia landscape towards India’s Katarniaghat, while the wider Chitwan-Valmiki landscape connects habitats further east. Tiger movement between Chitwan and Valmiki has been documented. These corridors matter because neither wildlife nor ecosystems stop at a national boundary.
For BRICS, this has wider relevance. Its economies will continue to build roads, railways, power networks, cities and renewable-energy infrastructure. Much of this investment is necessary for development and the climate transition. But where and how it is built can strengthen or weaken the resilience of the landscapes around it.
A renewable-energy project can reduce emissions while associated infrastructure fragments habitat. A road can improve access to markets while cutting across an ecological corridor. The point is not to argue against building, but to bring ecological information into planning early enough to make better choices about where and how we build.
That is also where business enters the conversation. Companies and financial institutions build, finance and depend on these same landscapes through infrastructure, water, agriculture, minerals and supply chains. Biodiversity loss can become operational and supply-chain risk, just as decisions about location, design and financing can affect biodiversity.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework reflects this connection, asking large companies and financial institutions to assess their dependencies and impacts on biodiversity. For business, the question is therefore not only how much it supports conservation, but whether it considers nature in investment and operating decisions in the first place.
There is useful scope for BRICS cooperation here. Countries have different experiences of corridors, habitat monitoring, human-wildlife conflict and infrastructure planning. IBCA provides another platform to share those experiences, particularly where big-cat landscapes cross borders or face similar climate pressures.
Seen this way, the big cats in the New Delhi Declaration are not an aside from the economic agenda. They are one way into a much larger question about the natural systems on which economic resilience partly depends.
As BRICS countries build for growth and adapt to a changing climate, protecting biodiversity will increasingly be about more than protecting individual species or fixed areas on a map. It will also be about keeping landscapes connected and resilient enough for nature and the economies that depend on it to adapt.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Suryaprabha Sadasivan, managing principal, Chase Advisors.