5 Current Status of Biodiversity in India

Dr Sunil Mittal

1.  Introduction 

2.  Biodiversity hotspots

3.  Animal Biodiversity

4.  Plant Biodiversity

5.  Marine Biodiversity

6.  Endemism Species

7.  Fish Biodiversity

8. Critically endangered Species in India in India

9.  Agricultural crops and domesticated animal biodiversity

10.  Biodiversity Conservation in India

11.  Wetlands in India

12.  GovernmentActs

13.  Other Initiatives

1. Introduction

Biodiversity constitutes the most important working component of a natural ecosystem. It helps to maintain ecological processes and deals with the degree of nature’s variety in the biosphere. The term biodiversity was first coined by Water & Rosen in 1985. Biodiversity refers to the variability among living organisms and constitute terrestrial, marine, aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes. It reflects the number, variety & variability of living organisms and includes diversity within species (genetic diversity), between species (species diversity) and between ecosystems (ecosystem diversity).

India is a mega diverse country having only 2.4% of the world’s land area but accommodates 7-8% species of flora and fauna. It includes more than 45,000 species of plants and 91,000 species of animals. It is situated at the tri-junction of the Afro-tropical, Indo-Malayan and Palearctic realms, all of these support rich biodiversity. India is a diverse nation, which has 10 biogeographic zones. A comparison of status of biodiversity between Indian and World scenario is depicted in Table 1.

Table 1: Comparison between the Number of Species in India & the World

Group	Number of Species in India	Number of Species in the World	(%) India
Mammals	350	4627	7.6
Birds	1224	9702	12.6
Reptiles	408	6550	6.2
Amphibians	197	4522	4.4
Fishes	2546	21,730	11.7
Flowering Plants	15,000	2,50,000	6

(Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science http://ces.iisc.ernet.in)

India is also a recognized center of crop diversity and produces hundreds of varieties of crop plants such as rice, maize, millets etc. The diverse physical features and climatic conditions of India are responsible for a variety of ecosystems such as forests, grasslands, wetlands, deserts, coastal and marine ecosystems.

2. Biodiversity hotspots

The idea of hotspots was first given by ecologist Norman Myers in 1988. Biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region that contains significant reservoir of biodiversity and is under threat & destruction. The main criteria for determining a hotspot are endemism (the presence of species found nowhere else on earth) and degree of threat. India has four hotspots out of 34 identified globally (Conservation International 2013), which are follows:

1. a) Himalaya: Comprises the entire Indian Himalayan region (and that falling in Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Myanmar)
2. b) Indo-Burma: Contains entire North-eastern India, except Assam and Andaman group of Islands (and Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and southern China)
3. c) Sundalands: Includes Nicobar group of Islands (and Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Philippines)
4. d) Western Ghats and Sri Lanka: Includes entire Western Ghats (and Sri Lanka)

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a leading international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It was established in 1948 and evolved as world’s largest environment network and plays a key role to save biodiversity at global level. IUCN includes over 1400 members of both governmental and non-governmental organizations. The IUCN publishes IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In 1969, India became a State Member of IUCN. The Office of IUCN India located in New Delhi was established in 2007.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, founded in 1964, is the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. As per the relative risk of extinction, the red data list contains 7 categories. There are categories given below along with some Indian species.

• Extinct (EX) – No known individuals remaining
• Extinct in the Wild (EW) – Known only to survive in captivity, or as a naturalized population outside its historic range
• Critically Endangered (CR) – Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild
• Endangered (EN) – High risk of extinction in the wild.
• Vulnerable (VU) – High risk of endangerment in the wild
• Near Threatened (NT) – Likely to become endangered in the near future
• Least Concern (LC) or Lowest risk – Does not qualify for a more at risk category.