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India’s biodiversity-rich zones also ‘hotspots’ of human impacts
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- Human impacts on species occur across 84% of the earth’s surface, finds a study published in PLOS Biology, an international journal dedicated to biological science.
- Southeast Asian tropical forests including India’s biodiversity-rich Western Ghats, Himalaya and the north-east also fall in this category.
- India ranks 16th in such human impacts, with 35 species impacted on average.
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- How they found this:(1) they mapped the distribution of eight human activities such as hunting and conversion of natural habitats for agriculture in areas occupied by 5,457 threatened birds, mammals and amphibians worldwide.
- Road poses threat:(1) Using sources they found that 1,237 species are impacted by threats in more than 90% of their habitat;(2) 395 species are affected by threats across their entire range.(3) While the impact of roads is highest (affecting 72% of terrestrial areas),(4) Crop lands affect the highest number of threatened species: 3,834.
- Rankings:(1) Malaysia ranks first among the countries with the highest number of impacted species (125).(2) India ranks 16th (35 threatened species affected on average).(3) Southeast Asian tropical forests including Western Ghats, Himalaya are among the ‘hotspots’ of threatened species.(4) The average number of species impacted in the South Western Ghats montane rainforests is 60 and in the Himalayan subtropical broadleaf forests, 53.
- Concerns: Cool spots(1) cool-spots are the world’s last refuges where high numbers of threatened species persist.(2) Cool-spots could be the result of protection or because of intact habitat that has not been cleared yet.
- Way ahead:(1) India still has crucial refuges that need protecting.(2) Identifying such areas could aid conservation and development planning for countries.(33) However, these refugia do not necessarily have to be off-limits to human development, just free of the actions that directly threaten species there.(4) India has the world’s second largest road network, we really need to plan for development that keeps wildlife conservation as a primary goal in biodiversity-rich areas.