The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : Waiting for a rare recognition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 15, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Kochi

Waiting for a rare recognition

Some regions of the Western Ghats, which covers at least five States, are being actively considered to be declared as UNESCO's World Heritage Biodiversity site.

Not many sites and protected areas in India have qualified for this. For a site to be declared as a world heritage biodiversity site, it should satisfy the natural heritage criterion of "containing the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science and conservation."

Presently, five sites - Kaziranga and Manas in Assam, Keoladeo Ghana in Rajastan, Sundarbans in West Bengal and Nanda Devi in Uttaranchal - have achieved this rare distinction.

Why is the declaration of a place or a protected area as world natural heritage considered a rare distinction? Conservationists have the answer. The World Heritage Biodiversity sites symbolise the humanity's struggle to conserve the Earth's precious biological heritage against its own onslaught of nature. Thus, naming a site itself becomes a resistance movement, an icon for the conservation of nature and its invaluable resources.

The Western Ghats is an area of extraordinarily rich biodiversity. "Although the total area is less than 3 per cent of the land area of India, Western Ghats contains more than 30 per cent of the plant, bird and mammal species found in India," says the report prepared by Ashoka Trust for Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore.

Spectacular assemblage

The region also has the spectacular assemblage of large mammals and is home to several nationally significant wildlife sanctuaries, tiger reserves and national parks. The area also contains numerous medicinal plants and important genetic resources such as the wild relatives of grains like rice and barley and fruits such as mangoes, garcinias, banana and jackfruit and spices such as black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom and nutmegs, says the report.

The presence of globally threatened species in the Western Ghats adds its relevance in the biodiversity map of the world.

Of the globally threatened species in the Ghats, says the ATREE report, 129 are vulnerable, 145 are endangered and 51 are critically endangered. The landscape species identified in the Western Ghats are the Asian Elephants, Asiatic Wild Dog, the greater spotted Eagle, the White-backed vulture and the long-billed vulture.

Kerala is poised for a big boost as far as conservation efforts related to the Western Ghats are concerned. The ATREE report had rated Periyar-Ranni-Konni sub cluster, along with Anamala and Agastyamala, as the three sub clusters in the potential WHB sites in the Ghats.

K.S. Sudhi

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala

News Update

Stories in this Section

Hollywood cameras pan to Kerala locales

Waiting for a rare recognition

Of Church factions and their feuds

City pays homage to PKV

Staging folk art dances to ward off famine

Novel way to create legal awareness

Gopala Pillai is FACT chief

CME programme on drug formulary

Trendy Government office