BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION

“If we pollute the air, water, and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.” As said by David Suzuki, an environmental activist is holding its practical meaning today when we are on the verge of losing our biological diversity at the fastest rate ever since human civilization. From economy to environment, water to weather, soil to shelter, fire to food, and even for most of our medicines we are still dependent on our nature and its biodiversity but even after being so much reliant on nature we humans are still living in the dreams and we are just exploiting our nature more than its limit and inviting destruction both for us and the future generations. The increasing deforestation, industrialization, urbanization, eutrophication, and biomagnifications are directly or indirectly decreasing our biological diversity and their habitat which result in the decreasing carrying capacity of our nature, extinction of some species and making many species endangered, and a great disturbance in our ecosystem which will cost us both in terms of life as well as capital. We are losing species at a rate 1,000 times greater than at any other time in recorded human history, but we can not afford to be dumb and deaf when our mother nature is crying for help and we must remember that we as Homo Sapiens are also part of nature and if we can degrade it for our need and greed than we also have the power to heal it because nature has all the solutions of our problems and we are a part of it.  

If we talk about the solution we have to save our biodiversity then a bottom-up approach would be the best through which we can build a solid system that will protect our biodiversity both from anthropogenic as well as natural damage like we have seen in the forest fire in the amazon rainforest, Australia and even in Uttarakhand also make some rare species extinct even before their entry into the taxonomic classifications. Apart from making a solid framework the acknowledgment of contributions by our biodiversity is also important so that everyone from United Nations to a common man has a feeling to conserve this diversity and we have seen that we have a large number of sacred groves in India, China, Indonesia where a large no. of flora and fauna species still exist due to the religious faith as well as traditional teachings from our ancestor, a few examples of sacred groves include sacred bamboo reserve in Manipur and gumpa forest in Sikkim which show that if we start from the local level and then move towards international effort would be the best way to conserve, protect as well as promote our biodiversity because being a part of nature it is our responsibility to do so.

However “Great responsibilities comes with great challenges” is also true in the above context, as the demands for more land and resources are increasing and developing countries like India and China are at their fastest growth rate and increasing population need more resources, this issue of biodiversity conservation is unable to move from documents to practice. So as we talk a lot about biodiversity conservation but in our minds, we all know that growth and industrialization are also becoming a necessary evil for developing as well as underdeveloped countries the practical solutions need to be followed and a strong belief that our biodiversity is the prime source of all our happiness and wellness is need to be remembered again and again to maintain the pace of our effort.

If I talk about numerical data, Since the year 2013, more than 90 rhinos were killed by poachers for their horns and as per the records of 2016, 9 Indian Rhinos have been killed in Kaziranga national park of Assam. This number might seem low but for an endangered species this can prove to be a disastrous thing and we may lose this species of animal within a few decades if we continue to neglect these reports. The importance of plant species for various medicinal uses has been known for ages. According to reports, more than 70% of the anti-cancer drugs are derived from plants in the tropical rainforests. If we talk about agriculture then our future of sustainable and profitable agriculture largely depends on biotic and abiotic resistance varieties of cereals and pulses and the primary step in initiating a breeding program or a crop improvement program is to have a collection of plant genetic resources which are a source of desirable genes and losing our biodiversity may prove very disastrous in achieving our breeding objectives. 

Further, we have a lot of ways to conserve our biodiversity both by in-situ as well ex-situ conservation. Globally we have 4000 national parks, 36 biodiversity hotspots and in India, we have 566 wildlife sanctuaries and 42 Ramsar sites which contribute towards biodiversity conservation. There are various gene banks and gene sanctuaries which focus on crop-specific germplasm collection and are maintaining a vast genetic diversity, example – At the international level we have Biodiversity international (earlier International Bureau of Plant Genetic Resource ) and in India, we have the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resource at New Delhi, Botanical Survey of India at Kolkata and Forest Research Institute, Dehradun which deals with plant genetic resource conservation.

We have made a lot of efforts in our journey of biodiversity conservation and achieved several objectives but if we look towards the question that “ is it enough?” then No will be a simple answer because the pace of biodiversity loss now tends to overtake the speed of biodiversity conservation and in this unending race we need to consistently monitor and modify our strategies to conserve our biodiversity because this is the gift of our nature and we cannot take it for granted otherwise the coming generation and the coming time both will question us that why we have overexploited our nature and why we put our self in a position where we have nothing on the name of diversity, nothing on the name of nature, nothing on the name of wildlife and nothing on the name of human values and at that point of time no fact, no argument and nothing can justify our actions. To avoid these kinds of problems we just need to remind ourselves that “If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.” And as humans, we are part of our nature and it is our prime responsibility to save our mother nature.