Biological diversityor biodi-versityis the term given tothe variety of life on Earthand the natural patterns itforms. The biodiversity we see todayis the fruit of billions of years of evo-lution, shaped by natural processesand, increasingly, by the influence ofhumans. It forms the web of life ofwhich we are an integral part andupon which we so fully depend.

Biological diversity is oftenunderstood at three levels:

species diversity refers to the varietyof different species (plants, animals,fungi and micro-organisms) such aspalm trees, elephants or bacteria;genetic diversity corresponds tothe variety of genes contained inplants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms. It occurs within aspecies as well as between species.For example, poodles, Germanshepherds and golden retrieversare all dogs, but they all look dif-ferent;ecosystem diversity refers to all the

different habitatsor placesthatexist, like tropical or temperateforests, hot and cold deserts, wet-lands, rivers, mountains, coralreefs, etc. Each ecosystem corres-ponds to a series of complex rela-tionships between biotic (living)components such as plants andanimals and abiotic (non-living)components which include sun-light, air, water, minerals and nutrients.

Biodiversity at each of these lev-els of complexity is characterised by:Variety, the number of different types;Quantity, the number or total biomassof any type; and Distribution, theextent and nature of geographicspread of different types.

Biodiversity is not only the sumof all ecosystems, species and geneticmaterials; it represents the variabilitywithin and among them. It can be dis-tinguished from the expression bio-logical resources, which refer to thetangible components of ecosystems.Biological resources are real entities

(a particular species of bird, a wheatvariety growing in a field, oak wood,etc.), while biological diversity israther an attribute of life (the varietyof bird species, the genetic variabilityof wheat around the world, foresttypes, etc.).

Where is Biodiversity?

Biodiversity is essentiallyeverywhere, ubiquitous onEarths surface and in everydrop of its bodies of water.This diversity of the planet is oftenunderstood in terms of Taxonomicdiversity, the wide variety of plants, ani-mals and microorganisms, and is thebest known dimension of biodiversity.

Biodiversity essentially exists inthe biosphere. The biosphere is thatpart of planet earths outer shell with-in which life occurs, and in whichbiotic processes in turn alter or trans-form. From the broadest geophysio-logical point of view, the biosphere isthe global ecological system integrat-

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Preserving BiodiversityPreserving

BiodiversityT h e W e b o f L i f e

"We can marvel at the colours of a butterfly, the grace of a giraffe, the power of an elephant, thedelicate structure of a diatom. Every time a species goes extinct,

we are irreversibly impoverished" ----Norman Myers, (1986).

ing all living beings and their rela-tionships, including their interactionwith the elements of the lithosphere(rocks), hydrosphere (water), andatmosphere (air). Biosphere is a verythin surface layer, which goes downto 11000 meters of depth, to rising upto 15000 meters of altitude, althoughthe majority of life lives in the zonelocated between -100 meters and+100 meters. Biosphere and biodiver-sity are inseparable characteristics ofthe Earth. The sphere is the container,whereas diversity is the contents.

Current trends inbiodiversity loss

The rich biodiversity that hasalways characterized the nat-ural world is today declining.The extinctions or threatened

extinctions of many species are themost visible and well-known mani-festation of biodiversity loss. Declinesin the numbers of such charismaticanimals as pandas, tigers, elephants,whales, and various species of birds,have drawn world attention to theproblem of species at risk.

While the loss of individualspecies catches our attention, it is thefragmentation, degradation and out-right loss of forests, wetlands, coralreefs, and other ecosystems that pos-es the gravest threat to biologicaldiversity. Here it should be recalledthat biodiversity loss is not justextinction, such as that faced bymany threatened and endangeredspecies; declines in genetic, ecosys-tem and landscape diversity are alsoconsidered bio-diversity loss.

The rich tapestry of life on our

planet is the outcome of over 3.5 bil-lion years of evolutionary history.Several times in the past (approxi-mately five) extinctions occurred onvast scales, with the majority of lifeforms dying out. These extinctionevents seem to have been the result offorces, such as shifts of the continen-tal plates, to the impact of meteoritesand volcanic activity, and ice ages, tointeraction among species.

Now, scientists believe that, weare in midst of the sixth great wavethe sixth mass extinction to affect lifeon Earth. And we, humans, seem tobe causing it. We were not here forany of the previous mass extinctions,but this time, the rapid growth ofhuman population, has emerged asthe most obvious reason why there isless room for any other species. Asresult of human activity, ecosystems

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WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT BIODIVERSITY? While governments should play a leadership role, other sectors of society need to be

actively involved. After all, it is the choices and actions of billions of individuals that willdetermine whether or not biodiversity is conserved.

One of the most important things that we can do to conserve biodiversity is to getinvolvedin our roles as parents, community members, educators, landowners, voters,employees, employers, politicians, and business leaders.

Local communities play a key role since they are the true managers of the ecosys-tems in which they live and, thus, have a major impact on them. Many projects have beensuccessfully developed in recent years involving the participation of local communities inthe sustainable management of biodiversity, often with the valuable assistance of NGOsand intergovernmental organizations.

Finally, the ultimate decision-maker for biodiversity is the individual citizen. The smallchoices that individuals make add up to a large impact because it is personal consump-tion that drives development, which in turn uses and pollutes nature. By carefully choos-ing the products you buy, you begin to steer the world towards sustainable development.

Obeying the laws already in existence are a good way to start. By developing strongpersonal ethics you avoid the use of articles made of animal products like fur, skins,horns, nails, hair, shell, ivory, scents like musk and civet, etc.

Learn about your place in your communitywhere your water comes from, how yourfood gets to your table, where and how your clothing is made. Is our wood from sustain-able forestry and our newspaper recycled? Do we use chemicals in our home or gardenwhich are toxic to wildlife? Do we design parts of our gardens for the benefit of wildlife?Does your pattern of expenditure reflect the seriousness of your commitment to caring forthe living world. By understanding how your daily actions and lifestyle choices can affectglobal biodiversity, you can take the first steps toward conserving it.

The most important task is to spread awareness of conservation and conservationefforts. Be aware of the various groups and organizations involved in the conservation ofwildlife. Support their efforts and if possible volunteer your services, by writing letters toelected officials, lobbying on biodiversity issues, raising money for environmental andsocial organizations, educating fellow employees, conducting workshops on consumerissues, and forming community stewardship councils.

are being fragmented or eliminated,and innumerable species are indecline or already extinct. We are cre-ating the greatest extinction crisissince the natural disaster that wipedout the dinosaurs 65 million yearsago. These extinctions are irreversibleand, given our dependence on foodcrops, medicines and other biologicalresources, pose a threat to our ownwell-being.

What has previously beencaused by plate tectonics, volcanoes,meteors, and other forces of nature isnow being caused by the depletion ofresources and rapid destruction ofhabitats. One-third to one-half of theworlds terrestrial surface, wherewildlife live, has now been substan-tially altered by human activity, suchas urbanization. Our settlement pat-terns are changing our relationshipwith the environment. Nearly half theworlds people live in towns andcities. For many people, nature seemsremote from their everyday lives.More and more people associate foodwith stores, rather than with theirnatural source.

From the dawn of agriculture,some 10,000 years ago, through theIndustrial Revolution of the pastthree centuries, we have reshaped

our landscapes on an ever-larger andlasting scale. We have moved fromhacking down trees with stone toolsto literally moving mountains tomine the Earths resources. Old waysof harvesting are being replaced bymore intensive technologies, oftenwithout controls to prevent over-har-vesting. For example, fisheries thathave fed communities for centurieshave been depleted in a few years byhuge, sonar-guided ships using netsbig enough to swallow a dozen jum-bo jets at a time. The worlds fishstocks have been reduced by anastonishing 90 per cent since the startof industrial fishing. By consumingever more of natures resources, wehave gained more abundant food andbetter shelter, sanitation, and healthcare, but these gains are often accom-panied by increasing environmentaldegradation, that may be followed bydeclines in local economies and thesocieties they supported.

This view has been reinforced bythe UN Millennium EcosystemAssessment (MA), the most compre-hensive audit to date, of the health ofour planet. Entitled Ecosystems andHuman Well-being: Biodiversity Syn-thesis Report, its key finding is thatin the last 50 years, human actions

have changed the diversity of life onthe planet more than at any othertime in history. Our activities havelifted many people out of poverty, butat the price of a loss of biodiversity. Ifwe continue down this road, we willreduce biological diversity, with life-threatening consequences, for all,including human beings.

The worlds most comprehensiveinventory of the conservation status ofplant and animal species, IUCN RedList of Threatened Species for 2004,maintained by the International Unionfor Conservation of Nature and Natur-al Resources reveals that, a total of15,589 species face extinctionsome 12per cent of birds, 23 per cent of mam-mals, 25 per cent of conifers and 32 percent of amphibians are threatened withextinction.

While the status of vertebrates isrelatively well documented, we knowlittle about non-terrestrial systems(freshwater and marine), or manyspecies-rich habitats (such as tropicalforest or the ocean depths), orspecies-rich groups such as inverte-brates, plants and fungi (whichtogether compose the overwhelmingmajority of species). Ninety per centof species, maybe more, have noteven been catalogued by science yet.

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Goods and Services provided by eco-systems include:

Provision of food, fuel and fibre.Provision of shelter and building mate-

rials.Purification of air and water.Detoxification and decomposition of

wastes.Stabilization and moderation of the

Earths climate.Moderation of floods, droughts, tem-

perature extremes and the forces ofwind.

Generation and renewal of soil fertility,including nutrient cycling.

Pollination of plants, including manycrops.

Control of pests and diseases.Maintenance of genetic resources as

key inputs to crop varieties and livestockbreeds, medicines, and other products.

Cultural and aesthetic benefits.Ability to adapt to change.

So far, about 1.7-2 million specieshave been identified, but scientistsreckon that there are actually about13 million species, though estimatesrange from 3 to 100 million. It isimpossible to know how manyspecies of invertebrates and micro-organisms have been already lost orare being lost.

Forests are home to much of theknown terrestrial biodiversity, butabout 45 per cent of the Earths origi-nal forests are gone, cleared mostlyduring the past century. Despite some

re-growth, the worlds total forestsare still shrinking rapidly, particular-ly in the tropics. Up to 10 per cent ofcoral reefsamong the richestecosystemshave been destroyed,and one-third of the remainder facecollapse over the next 10 to 20 years.Coastal mangroves, a vital nurseryhabitat for countless species, are alsovulnerable, with half already gone.Some ecosystems, such as tall-grassprairies and tropical dry forests, havealmost entirely disappeared.

Even the loss of a single speciesis a tragedy, because each form of lifeis a storehouse of irreplaceable genet-ic resources. Extinction is an irre-versible process and when a speciesbecomes extinct it sets off a cascade ofextinctions.

From the dawn of time, extinc-tion has usually progressed at whatscientists call a natural or backgroundrate. While biodiversity loss has beena natural part of the history of Earth,it has always been countered by orig-ination and, except for rare events,has occurred at extremely slow rates.Currently, however, loss far exceedsorigination, and rates are orders ofmagnitude higher than average ratesin the past, and the pace of extinctionhas accelerated dramatically. Accord-ing to the MA report, organisms aredisappearing at something like 100 to1,000 times the background levelsseen in the fossil record.

Another difference, between ear-lier extinctions and the one many sci-entists say were facing today, is thatthe potential for species and ecosys-tems to recover from this episode ofextinction is probably far lower thanwith past episodes. Research of longterm trends in the fossil record sug-

gests that natural speed limits con-strain how quickly biodiversity canrebound after waves of extinction.Hence, the rapid extinction ratesmean that it could take a long time fornature to recover.

And when you look to thefuture, to various projections and scenarios, we expect those changes tocontinue and in some circumstancesto accelerate. Future models are veryuncertain, but all of them tell us thatas we move into the next 100 years,well be seeing extinction rates thatare a thousand to 10,000 times thosein the fossil record.

Biodiversity and foodchain

The building blocks of plants,animals and humans areidentical, and are made up ofthe four elements: carbon,oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen.These elements are available in theenvironment in the air, water andsoil. However, only green plants canabsorb nitrogen from the soil throughtheir roots, and use sunlight andwater, by a process called photosyn-thesis, to produce energy. They areknown as producers. Animals andhumans get their food only by con-suming plants or other animals.Therefore, they are known as con-sumers. The chain that links con-sumers to producers is called thefood chain. Every living creature is tobe found on a food chain. There areseveral food chains and dependingon the environment it can be complexor simple. Consider a very short andsimple food chain in water. Greenalgae are eaten by water fleas, which

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Saving the Tiger

The case of tiger has grabbedheadlines in the media, The tigersdomain ranges over most of the Indi-an subcontinent. The tiger is at homein a variety of environmental situationfrom the high altitude, cold, conifer-ous Himalayan forests to the steam-ing mangroves of Sundarbans delta,swampy reedlands of the terai, thelush wet evergreen forests of north-east and the south and the scrub-thorn arid forests of Rajasthan. TheTIger is the best indicator species ofan ecosystem. It is the ultimate con-sumer in the complex food web inmany of the forest ecosystems ofIndia. Among the terminal carnivo-rous animals of an ecosystem, thetiger stands at the head. Conserva-tion of tiger in its natural environmentcan be achieved only by total conser-vation of the wilderness based on anecosystem approach. That is the rea-son why it is stated that the status oftiger in India is the index of success,as a whole, in the conservation ofwildlife.

INDIA: A LAND OF DIVERSITY ... AND DESTRUCTIONEcosystems Range Native to India Destroyed/Under ThreatForests 200 types, scrub to rainforest Approximate 50 per cent wiped out over last

century

Wetlands 8 types, seasonal flood One-third drained out, 70 per cent pollutedplains to lakes

Coasts Several types of beach, 40 per cent of mangroves wiped out;mangroves, coral reef systems major portion of coral reefs bleached or silted

Source: Folio, The Hindu, May 20, 2001

are in turn eaten by hydras. An exam-ple of a slightly longer chain is,plankton-krill-small fish-predatorfish-seal-man.

All food chains are fragile. If alink in the chain is broken, it sets off aseries of reactions. If snakes aredestroyed, the population of rats andmoles would increase dramaticallyand they would devour crops andgrains at an alarming rate. If thepredator animals are hunted down,the grazing animals multiply in largenumbers, and will eat up all the greengrass, leaving the land barren andunproductive.

Thus the importance of each andevery creature in the web of life is evi-dent. Tampering with the food chainonly produces negative results, lead-ing to the destruction of species. Thisshows why biodiversity and all itscomponents are essential to maintain

the balance of nature. Man is only astrand in the delicate web of relation-ship in the global ecosystem. Everytime a species becomes extinct, thestrand is broken and man himselfmoves closer to his doom.

Biodiversityconservation

Up until fairly recently, pro-tection of biodiversityfocused almost exclusivelyon the species itself. Habi-tat protection originally had little todo with species protection. Trying tosave species individually is not veryeffective or very efficient. Protectingthe habitat of these species makesmuch more sense, as there is littlechance of them going extinct in theirnatural environment.

In 1972, the United Nations Con-

ference on the Human Environment(Stockholm) resolved to establish theUnited Nations Environment Pro-gramme (UNEP). Governmentssigned many agreements to tacklespecific issues, such as protectingwetlands and regulating the interna-tional trade in endangered species.Later, some efforts were made to pre-serve key ecosystems through theadoption of protective measures, andthe survival of many endangeredspecies was ensured in zoos andbotanical gardens. However, theseare stopgap actions. The long-termviability of species and ecosystemsdepends on their being free to evolvein natural conditions. This means thathumans have to learn how to use biological resources in a way thatminimizes their depletion.

The challenge is to find econom-ic policies that motivate conservation

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Challenges Some of the major challenges to

implementing the Convention on Biologi-cal Diversity and promoting sustainabledevelopment are:

Meeting the increasing demand for bio-logical resources caused by populationgrowth and increased consumption, whileconsidering the long-term consequencesof our actions.

Increasing our capacity to documentand understand biodiversity, its value,and threats to it.

Building adequate expertise and expe-rience in biodiversity planning.

Improving policies, legislation, guide-lines, and fiscal measures for regulatingthe use of biodiversity.

Adopting incentives to promote moresustainable forms of biodiversity use.

Promoting trade rules and practicesthat foster sustainable use of biodiversity.

Strengthening coordination within governments, and between governmentsand stakeholders.

Securing adequate financial resourcesfor conservation and sustainable use,from both national and internationalsources.

Making better use of technology.Building political support for the

changes necessary to ensure biodiversityconservation and sustainable use.

Improving education and public aware-ness about the value of biodiversity.

and sustainable use by creating finan-cial incentives for those who wouldotherwise over-use or damage theresource. Some of the worlds richestareas in terms of biodiversity lie indeveloping countries, which mustbalance protection of their naturalresources with the need to clothe andfeed their populations. Efforts toachieve sustainability must addressnot only the conservation of biodiver-sity and other natural resources, butalso issues of economic security andsocial equity.

To address the issue of conserva-tion and sustainable use, the UNWorld Commission on Environmentand Development (WCED), in a land-mark publication entitled Our Com-mon Future, released in 1987, saidthat: Humanity has the ability tomake development sustainabletoensure that it meets needs of the pre-sent without compromising the abili-ty of future generations to meet theirown needs. It also pointed out thatfor sustainable development to beachieved there is a need to integrateenvironmental considerations intoeconomic programmes. The WCEDbrought to the public domain the critical issues of biodiversity loss andconservation, which had for a longtime been confined almost exclusive-ly to scientific and technical discussions.

The first and a landmark globalagreement on the conservation andsustainable use of biological diversi-ty, the Convention on Biological

Diversity (CBD), was adopted in1992, at the Earth Summit, at UnitedNations Conference on Environmentand Development in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil.

The Convention recognizes, forthe first time, that the conservation ofbiological diversity is a commonconcern of humankind and is anintegral part of the developmentprocess. The agreement covers allecosystems, species, and geneticresources. Conserving the ecosystemis to conserve each and every compo-nent in it and conserving a speciesrequires the conservation of its habi-tat or the ecosystem it is used to.

The Convention reminds deci-sion-makers that natural resourcesare not infinite and sets out a newphilosophy for the 21st century, thatof sustainable use. While past conser-vation efforts were aimed at protect-ing particular species and habitats,the Convention recognizes thatecosystems, species and genes mustbe used for the benefit of humans.However, this should be done in away and at a rate that does not lead tothe long-term decline of biologicaldiversity.

The Convention also offers decision-makers guidance based onthe precautionary principle thatwhere there is a threat of significantreduction or loss of biological diversi-ty, lack of full scientific certaintyshould not be used as a reason forpostponing measures to avoid orminimize such a threat.

The treaty commitments include:Developing national biodiversitystrategies and action plans, and tointegrate these into broader nationalplans for environment and develop-ment. This is particularly importantfor such sectors as forestry, agricul-ture, fisheries, energy, transportationand urban planning.

Key issues andapproaches

Halting the process ofdegradation and speciesloss requires specializedsolutions and an under-standing of ecological processes. Pro-tecting biodiversity does not merelyinvolve setting aside chunks of areaas reserves. Instead, all the ecologicalprocesses that have maintained theareas biodiversity, such as predation,pollination, parasitism, seed disper-sal and herbivory, involving complexinteractions between several speciesof plants and animal, needs to beensured. This, however, is possibleonly if reserves are large enough tomaintain these processes and some ofthe other crucial links in the web oflife.

As of now, there are still majorlacunae in information resources per-taining to forests, biodiversityfloraand fauna, causative factors for theirdegradation, and major threats. Theavailable data is alarmingly inade-quate to provide a lucid picture of thecurrent status and ongoing

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losses/gains. Attempts to tackle biodiversity

loss politically are unlikely to succeedunless they fully take into account thedirect and indirect causes of the crisis,viz. the growth of the human popula-tion; patterns of consumption; globaltrade; economic systems and policiesthat fail to value the environment;pollution, over exploitation, globalclimate change and inequity in own-ership; and the flow of benefits fromthe use and conservation of biologicalresources.

The traditional approach hasbeen preservationsetting asidelarge tracts as preserves and parks,and reserves to protect and rehabili-tate wildlife. This approach, though,is costly and displaces indigenouspeoples who have lived on the landfor centuries. A long-term solution,many conservationists believe, is toprotect wildlife and ecosystems inways that benefits the inhabitants.

One of the major challenges toconservation is to set priorities. Thereare limited resources available,human and financial, so conserva-tionists are attempting to establisheffective strategies for targeting inter-national efforts. One approach, origi-nally suggested by biologist NormanMyers, is to focus efforts on protect-ing the worlds hot spots, or species-rich areas that are most in danger.

Indias rich biodiversity

Biodiversity is not evenly dis-tributed among the worldscountries. A very small num-ber of countries, lying wholly

or partly within then tropics, containa high percentage of the worldsspecies. Species richness or diversityis high in the tropics and the colddepths of the oceans, as both theseregions are somewhat protected fromdisturbances due to inaccessibility.

India accounts for 7-8 per cent ofthe earths total biodiversity. India isalso one of the 18 mega diverse coun-tries, which together possess 60-70per cent of the worlds biodiversity.The 18 mega diverse countries are:Brazil, China, India, Zaire, Indonesia,Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Kenya,Peru, Congo and the Madagascar.

India owes its richness in biodi-versity to its position in the tropicaland subtropical latitudes. India has agreat diversity of natural ecosystemsfrom the cold and high Himalayanranges to the seacoasts, from the wetnortheastern green forests to the drynorthwestern arid deserts, differenttypes of forests, wetlands, islands,estuaries and oceans. Every ecosys-tem has its own unique representa-tion of species. India also possessesislands like the Andaman and Nico-bar and Lakshadweep, with theirown endemic species, and mountainranges like the Himalayas and theWestern and Eastern Ghats.

Some salient features of Indiasbiodiversity have been mentionedbelow:

India has two major realmscalled the Palaearctic and the Indo-Malayan, and three biomass, namelythe tropical humid forests, the tropi-cal dry/deciduous forests, and thewarm desert/semi-deserts.

India has ten biogeographic

regions, including the Trans-Himalayan, the Himalayan, the Indi-an desert, the semi-arid zone(s), theWestern Ghats, the Deccan Peninsula,the Gangetic Plain, North-East India,and the islands and coasts.

The endemism of Indian biodi-versity is high. About 33% of thecountrys recorded flora are endemicto the country and are concentratedmainly in the North-East, WesternGhats, North-West Himalaya and theAndaman and Nicobar islands.About 62% of the known amphibianspecies are endemic with the majorityoccurring in the Western Ghats. Near-ly 50% of the lizards of India areendemic with a high degree ofendemicity in the Western Ghats.India is a centre of crop diversitythe homeland of 167 cultivatedspecies and 320 wild relatives of cropplants.

According to the Red List ofThreatened species (IUCN. 2000), 44plant species are critically endan-gered, 113 endangered and 87 vulner-able. Amongst animals, 18 are criti-cally endangered, 54 endangered and143 are vulnerable. Ten species areLower Risk conservation dependent,while 99 are Lower Risk near threat-ened. India ranks second in terms ofthe number of threatened mammals,while India is sixth in terms of coun-tries with the most threatened birds(IUCN, 2000). Some species underthreat in India include: Hornbill, Pariah kite and White-backed vul-ture, The Lesser Florican, HoolockGibbonthe only ape of IndiaTiger, Asian or Indian Elephant, Asiatic Lion.

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Biodiversityconservation in India

India has a rich tradition of biodi-versity conservation. Traditionalhuman relationships like beliefs,faith, taboos, customs and prefer-ences played an important role inconservation of habitats and individ-ual species. The sacred groves, andsacred lakes established by localcommunities in several parts of Indiapredate the modern concepts. Thecultural ethos of the Indian people isamply demonstrated by such conser-vation efforts. In a majority of Indianvillages, trees have been planted anddedicated to different Gods/God-desses or have been declared asabode of spirits, making them sacred.

A large number of forest preser-vation plots, several being more thanninety years old, established by theforest department in representativeforest types of India and covering85,000 ha, could play a major role inbiodiversity conservation and detec-tion of change.

Formal policies and programmesfor conservation and sustainable util-isation of biodiversity resources dateback to several decades. The conceptof environmental protection isenshrined in the Indian Constitutionin Articles 48a and 51a(g). Major Cen-tral Acts relevant to biodivesity are:Indian Forest Act, 1927; Wildlife (Pro-tection) Act, 1972; Forest (Conserva-tion) Act, 1980; Environment (Protec-tion) Act, 1986. The various CentralActs are supported by a number ofState laws and statutes concerningforests and other natural resources.

Approximately 4.3% (against10% internationally) of the total geo-graphical area of India has been ear-marked for extensive in situ conser-vation of habitats and ecosystems.Till 2002, a protected area network of89 National Parks and 496 WildlifeSanctuaries has been created.

Twelve biodiversity rich areas ofthe country have been designated asBiosphere Reserves, applying theUNESCO/MAB criteria. Thesereserves aim at conserving the biolog-ical diversity and genetic integrity of

plants, animals and microorganismsin their totality, as part of the naturalecosystems, so as to ensure their self-perpetuation and unhindered evolu-tion of the living resources.

Programmes have also beenlaunched for scientific managementand wise use of wetlands, man-groves, and coral reef ecosystems.Mangroves conservation has beenidentified as one of the thrust areasof the Ministry of Environment andForests.

India has launched programmeslike Project Tiger and Project Ele-phant, which, though focused on asingle species, have a wider impact asthey conserve habitats and a varietyof other species in those habitats. TheTura Range in Garo Hills of Megha-laya is a gene sanctuary for preserv-ing the rich native diversity of wildCitrus and Musa species. Sanctuariesfor rhododendrons and orchids havebeen established in Sikkim.

A number of gene banks, includ-ing the National Bureau of PlantGenetic Resources (NBPGR), theNational Bureau of Fish GeneticResources have been set up.

Among the signatories to theCBD, India is one of the first fewcountries to have enacted an appro-priate comprehensive legislation toachieve the objectives of the conven-tion.

Despite, some reservations,great strides have been made in bio-diversity conservation, but there isstill a need for further steps. Futureefforts for conservation and manage-ment of our natural resources mustderive from a set of clear objectives,mechanisms for action, and commit-ment from all stakeholders.

Financial resources pose a severeconstraint on efficient conservation offorests and biodiversity. The potentialof the private sector has also not beentapped effectively. Detailed policiesand strategies are required for fragileand important ecosystems such aswetlands, grasslands, seas andoceans, as well as corridor and bufferareas, since the emphasis is oftenoverly on forests.

More importantly, laws and poli-

cies governing natural resources arestill not sufficient enough to tacklethe scale of the problem, and theseinsufficiencies have not beenaddressed with a sense of urgency.

Implementation and enforce-ment of the legislation in existence isoften poor. The initial success of Pro-ject Tiger was eroded by an increaseddemand for some body parts of atiger, especially bones, leading to theinvolvement of illegal traffickers.Poaching continues to be a verymajor threat, even though a verydetailed action plan for combating itis already in place.

Biological Diversity and itsunderlying concepts can be difficultto communicate to politicians and tothe general public, it remains an issuethat few people understand. This alsoneeds to be addressed.

Biodiversity protection and sus-tainablity requires redefining theirpolicies on land use, agriculture,forestry, fisheries, tourism, energy,development, conservation, econom-ics, and trade. The challenge facinggovernments, businesses, and citi-zens is to forge transition strategiesleading to long-term sustainabledevelopment. It means negotiatingtrade-offs even as people are clamouring for more land and busi-nesses are pressing for concessions toexpand their harvests.

Finally, innovative mechanismsfor financing biodiversity conserva-tion need to be devised, includingtapping the potential of the privatesector and earmarking at least oneper cent of State and Central govern-ment resources for biodiversity. Suchinitiatives will reinforce the initia-tives taken by the governmenttowards conserving the rich andunique biodiversity of the country.

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