After much active negotiation with countries of the North and South, India signed the Convention for Biological Diversity in 1992. The Convention required every member country to formulate its own National Biodiversity Strategy, and Action Plan. In 1999, the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) nominated Kalpavriksh, an NGO long engaged with conservation and environment issues, to coordinate the process. The author review the ways in which NGOs, state agencies and activists anticipated in the preparation of India