Specified Plants: The Only Plants the Wildlife Act Protects

In one line

A plant is protected by the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972 only if somebody has put it in Schedule III, and almost nothing is there.

In exam wording: section 2(27) of the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972 defines a specified plant as any plant specified in Schedule III, and Chapter IIIA of the Act, comprising sections 17A to 17H, applies to nothing else; section 61 empowers the Central Government, by notification, to amend any Schedule, add or delete any entry, or transfer an entry from one Part of a Schedule to another or from one Schedule to another; section 2(15) includes within habitat land, water or vegetation which is the natural home of any wild animal or specified plant; and section 8(b) makes it a duty of the State Board for Wild Life to advise the State Government in the formulation of the policy for protection and conservation of the wild life and specified plants.

The definition and its consequence

Section 2(27). Specified plant means any plant specified in Schedule III.

That is the whole of it. No botanical criterion, no reference to rarity, no reference to medicinal value. A plant is protected because it is listed and for no other reason.

The contrast to draw. Section 9 prohibits the hunting of any wild animal specified in Schedule I or Schedule II, and by section 2(16) hunting includes killing, poisoning, snaring, trapping, driving and capturing, and the injuring or destroying of any wild animal, and the damaging or destroying of the eggs or nests of birds or reptiles. That is a wide prohibition over two Schedules of animals. There is nothing comparable for plants.

Where the schedules stand after 2022

The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act 2022 restructured the Schedules. Schedule I and Schedule II hold animals, Schedule I attracting the stricter regime; Schedule III holds specified plants; and Schedule IV holds specimens of species included in the Appendices to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which Chapter VB regulates.

A student answering from an older textbook will name Schedules that no longer exist. The old Act had six.

Note on the source. The India Code print of the Act used for this book carries the sections and not the Schedules. This book therefore states that the list of specified plants is very short and does not reproduce it. A candidate should name Schedule III and say that the list is short, rather than reciting entries from memory.

The three ways a wild plant can be protected

One: it is in Schedule III. Chapter IIIA then applies, and the next chapter works it in full.

Two: it is in a protected area. Section 29 for a sanctuary and section 35(6) for a National Park forbid the destruction, exploitation or removal of wild life including forest produce, and the damaging or diverting of the habitat of any wild animal by any act whatsoever. The plant is protected because of where it is, not because of what it is. Section 2(37) defines wild life as including any animal, aquatic or land vegetation which forms part of any habitat.