In 1994-95, CIS conducted and monitored an eco-development  project in deltaic islands of the Sundarban. The work generated a mass awareness of the significance of the Sundarban ecosystem among the forest-fringe villagers. The field research and sustainability campaign of CIS received a new vigor after its founder, Dr.Debal Deb left service in late 1996. From 1997 onwards, CIS has pioneered  in on-farm conservation of indigenous crop diversity in east India, where the extent of folk crop genetic erosion has assumed  enormous proportions. In 1998, CIS, as a partner of Research Foundation for Science, Technology & Ecology (RFSTE), New Delhi, established Vrihi, a folk rice gene bank – the first, and the largest, in eastern India. Vrihi (meaning "rice" in Sanskrit) distributes folk crop variety seeds among farmers to promote in situ conservation of rare crop varieties. In its dryland ecological farm Basudha (meaning "Earth Mother"), more than 570 varieties of Indian rice and over 30 different crop species are grown, using zero input of any synthetic agrochemicals. 

Basudha is the research station of CIS, where ecological farming techniques and methods of ecological architecture, rainwater harvesting, soil conservation,  and conservation of local bio-resources are demonstrated.  Basudha serves to create a tiny model of local resource-based community development, in which  villagers are  voluntary participants.

CIS documents, and seeks to resuscitate, the evanescent  tenets of  local culture that are known to have  been conducive to biodiversity conservation. CIS  has especially contributed to  inventorying the region's traditional sacred groves and sacred ponds that house a wealth of rare and endangered biota.

CIS periodically conducts farmers' workshops in different parts of the country, and gives training to farmers and NGOs in crop genetic diversity conservation, ecological agricultural techniques, and participatoey documentation of local biodiversity.