Biodiversity conservation threats

and governement response.

By

Dr Soumana Datta

Dept of Botany

UOR, Jaipur

soumanadatta@gmail.com

ICED, Jaipur 2015

What is biodiversity??

• Biodiversity is the term given to the variety

of life on earth and the natural patterns it

forms.

• It is often confused with other concepts like

organic agriculture, environmental

protection, diversity of human races, climate

change or environmentally-friendly products

and technologies.

• The (CBD)Convention was opened for signature on 5 June 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio "Earth Summit"). It remained open for signature until 4 June 1993, by which time it had received 168 signatures. The Convention entered into force on 29 December 1993, which was 90 days after the 30th ratification. The first session of the Conference of the Parties was scheduled

for 28 November – 9 December 1994 in the Bahamas.

CBD MANDATE—196 COUNTRIES

RATIFIED TO DATE

• The Convention seeks to address all threats to

biodiversity and ecosystem services, including

threats from climate change, through scientific

assessments, the development of tools,

incentives and processes, the transfer of

technologies and good practices and the full and

active involvement of relevant stakeholders

including indigenous peoples and local

communities, youth, NGOs, women and the

business community.

National Biodiversity Strategies and

Action Plans (NBSAPs)

• Article 6 of the Convention on General Measures for Conservation and Sustainable Use states that each Contracting Party shall, in accordance with its particular conditions and capabilities:

– Develop national strategies, plans or programmes for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity or adapt for this purpose existing strategies, plans or programmes which shall reflect, inter alia, the measures set out in this Convention relevant to the Contracting Party concerned

– Integrate, as far as possible and as appropriate, the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity into relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programmes and policies.

CBD resolutions--Responsibility of

each countryNEPAL

NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY STRATEGY

AND ACTION PLAN

2014-2020

PREPARED BY

GOVERNMENT OF NEPAL

MINISTRY OF FORESTS AND SOIL CONSERVATION

SINGHADURBAR, KATHMANDU, NEPAL

(JULY 2014)

INDIA HAS FORMED NBA, SBBs and VFM/BMC

Why study BIODIVERSITY—a roadmap for OUR COMMON FUTURE

GLOBAL PROTECTED AREAS PROGRAM

• The IUCN World Parks Congress is a

landmark global forum on protected areas

held every ten years. As the world’s most

influential gathering of people involved in

protected area management, it sets the

global agenda for the following decade.

• The next IUCN World Parks Congress took

place on 12 - 19 November 2014 in Sydney,

Australia.

• LOCAL EFFORTS AT CONSERVATION

ENCOURAGED

ORANS --KRAPAVIS, ALWAR

WHAT ARE ORANS?

• 100 kms beyond Alwar in Rajasthan in the Oran, or sacred grove, of Jugrawar Roondh, covering an area of 165 hectares.

• In arid Rajasthan,even at 50°C, Orans provide shade, fuel wood, fodder and even food and livelihood for humans and animals.

• They are controlled by local communities in a complex management system.

• Excellent system of how local communities protected their common resource base and provided food and water for animals in harsh and arid conditions.

2011--Int. year of the forests• Why? To focus the world’s attention on the need to

increase the protection of forests and make sure that

their high importance for biodiversity conservation,

climate stabilization and economic development is

not undervalued.

When forests (hotspots) are lost?

• These forests have all lost 90% or more of their original habitat and each harbor at least 1500 endemic plant species (species found nowhere else in the world). If these forests are lost, those endemic species are also lost forever.

• These forests potentially support the lives of close to one billion people who live in or around them, and directly or indirectly depend on the natural resources forest ecosystems provide.

What do we need to record forests

Biodiversity?• Forests overall cover only 30 percent of our

planet’s area and yet they are home to 80 percent of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. They also sustain the livelihoods for 1.6 billion people, who directly depend on healthy forests for income.

• The trees, flowers, animals and micro-organisms found in forests form a complex web of life.

• The interactions between the species and the ecosystems in them function as natural factories of some of our most basic needs, like clean air, healthy soils, medicines, crop pollination and fresh water.

Endangered hotspots

• Indo-Burma,

• New Caledonia,

• Sundaland,

• Philippines, Atlantic Forest,

• Mountains of Southwest China,

• California Floristic Province,

• Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa,

• Madagascar & Indian Ocean Islands and

• Eastern Afromontane.

CALIFORNIA FORESTS

• Several large mammal species once found here have gone extinct, including the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos), which appears on the flag of California and has been the state symbol for more than 150 years.

• Wilderness destruction caused by commercial farming is a major threat for the region, which generates half of all the agricultural products used by U.S. consumers.

GRIZZLY BEAR

Giant panda---south west China

COFFEE PLANTATIONS—ATLANTIC FORESTS

Where to start? What to do?

• Training

• Capacity building

• Refresher courses

• Conferences, seminars, field visits,

workshops

Recording biodiversity- WHERE

TO START?

• Deciding on the study team and locality

Study team and study sites

• 1. Listing of activities linked to natural resources

( done through group discussions)

• Activities of local people

• Activities of outsiders

Who is the user group?

• Delineation and documentation of user

groups: local and external

• (group discussions)

• Local user groups

• External user groups

• Drivers and impact of (Local / External)

user groups

• Recording movement of nomadic groups

Looking for the GYANI

• Identification of knowledgeable individuals

(group discussions)

• Knowledgeable individuals- local

• Knowledgeable individuals- external

CBD--Nagoya protocol

• The Nagoya Protocol aims at sharing the

benefits arising from the utilization of

genetic resources in a fair and equitable

way, including by appropriate access to

genetic resources and by appropriate

transfer of relevant technologies.

• It entered into force on 12 October 2014

and to date has been ratified by 62

Parties.

LOCATION RECORDING

• Listing of landscape/ waterscape element

types and sub-types, participatory

mapping and recording of code numbers

of significant elements indicated on the

map

(group discussions)

• WETLANDS-- types and subtypes

• Participatory map

MAKING INVENTORIESListing of functional species groups (e.g. fuel-wood, edible fish) selected for further documentation.

(group discussions)

Functional species- groups• Inventory of locally available life forms known to

local community members, and listing of

focal taxa selected for further documentation

(group discussions)

Locally known life-forms

Withania somnifera (Solanaceae)

Diversity in crop plants

Focus of PBR in each area• Documentation of issues that local

community members would like to serve

as the focus of the PBR exercise, and the

associated taxa, functional species groups

and landscape/ waterscape elements

(group discussions)

Key concerns

Conserving water resources

Management status

• Documentation of status, dynamics, and management issues relating to various landscape/ waterscape element types/ sub-types considered as a whole

(group discussions)

• Landscape status

• Landscape management

• Waterscape status and dynamics

• Waterscape management

Flora and fauna survey

• Documentation of status of various focal

taxa and species groups in focal

landscape/ waterscape elements

(field observations)

• Focal taxa abundance, field survey

What are ecosystem services?

• Goods/ bads and services/ disservices are defined with respect to their use-values to an individual, a group of individuals or a community.

• In almost every case, many of the ecosystem goods and services of an area are used by people living outside. They may access these---

• through the market (e.g. a marketed NTFP such as Garcinia fruit),

• by virtue of locational advantages (e.g.

watershed benefits in downstream areas) or

• by physically accessing the ecosystem (e.g. collecting firewood or enjoying scenic beauties).

Ecosystem benefits for large communities

Forests, for example, provide carbon

sequestration benefits to the global

community at large with impacts potentially

reaching a small island nation or a low lying

delta facing threats of submergence

thousands of miles away.

These benefits will typically have no significance

for the local people.

Threats to biodiversity

• The one process ongoing in the 1980s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly that our descendents are least likely to forgive us.

------ E.O. Wilson, 1985

THREATS TO BD —BIG 6

• OVERHUNTING/OVEREXPLOITATON

• HABITAT LOSS

• DEGRADATION/ FRAGMENTATION

• INVASION OF NON NATIVE SPECIES

• POLLUTION

• CLIMATE CHANGE

NILE PERCH ---introduced for

sport eating other fishes in lake

Victoria

INVASIVE PLANTS

• VILAYTI BABOOL IN Rajasthan

• Lantana camara in India

• Parthenium weed in India.

How to remove Parthenium---

Use Zygogramma (mexican

beetle)

OVEREXPLOITATION

• Rauvolfia (sarpagandha)

• Withania (ashwagandha)

• Whales in Japan

• Tiger products

• Great Indian Bustard

• Hilsa fish in Ganges river

• Calvaria major trees becoming extinct due

to Dodo extinction…..how??

Pollution and species loss

• Sulfur emissions of one specific iron smelting

plant in Wawa, Ontario, caused the destruction

of large tracts of native boreal forest (spruce,

cedar, larch and pine), in a belt stretching some

30 km from the smelter.

• Heavy traffic pollution

• Lichens are considered to be most sensitive to

sulfur dioxide. During the period of high levels of

sulfur pollution, large parts of Europe lost many

species of lichen and became known as “lichen

deserts”

Ecosystem v/s Industrial goods and

services

• Ecosystem Goods --Locally available medicinal

herb (Relatively little transformation, no

welldefined market, labour-intensive

collection process)

• Industrial goods--Commercially produced drug

capsule (High degree of transformation, well

defined market, capital-intensive

production process)

Bads and disservices

• Ecosystem bads services- Pests, disease

vectors, pathogens

• Industrial services--Persistent organic pollutants

such as DDT.

• Ecosystem Disservices --Landslides, floods,

tsunamis

• Industrial disservices--Destruction of

atmospheric ozone layer as a result of emission

of CFCs from refrigeration processes

Ecosystem services• Evergreen forests are origin of streams

• Evergreen forests are repository of honeybees

• Evergreen forests are aesthetically and often, culturally important (for example, when

certain spots are associated with sacred beliefs).

• Grasslands provide for grazing of livestock

• Flowering of rubber plantations increases availability of honey

• Plantations check soil erosion due to contour formations

• Water streams provide water for irrigation and domestic uses

Honey collection

FORESTS SUPPLY WATER

• Forests have been increasingly important in the provision of fresh water on a global scale.

• Over three quarters of the world’s accessible fresh water comes from forested watersheds and two thirds of all major cities in developing countries depend on surrounding forests for their supply of clean water.

A watershed is a land area that catches water from

precipitation and snowmelt. Water then drains to a

common waterway such as stream/lake/aquifer/wetland

Forest and climate change

• The role of forests in stabilizing the climate must

also be increasingly recognized, as emissions

resulting from deforestation represent

approximately 15% of total greenhouse gas

emissions, and they are superior stores of

carbon.

• The World’s 10 Most Threatened Forest Hotspots store over 25 gigatons of carbon,

helping to clean air and cope with the already

inevitable effects of climate change.

People should save their resources

Forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate to give room to

• pastures,

• agricultural land,

• mineral exploitation and

• sprawling urban areas,

By doing so we are destroying our own capacity to survive.

WHICH SERVICE TO RECORD IN

PBR?• Recording of the status and trends in goods and

services, as well as bads and disservices through field observations, and through interviews would be an important component of PBR activities

• It would be important to record who benefits and who loses from the various goods and services, and bads and disservices.

• Wild pigs may be a bad for members of the user group whose livelihood depends crucially on cultivation, but for the user group comprising landless laborers, the pigs may represent a valued food resource.

Measures for Protection of Habitat

of Medicinal Plants:

• § Not to disturb the existing landscape.

• § Protect the medicinal plants occurring now in the

agricultural lands.

• § Reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and manure.

• § Encourage biological control measures.

Conserve---Do it now

How and why governments

are responding to

conserving biodiversity??

India ---signatory to several major international conventions relating to conservation and management

of wildlife.

Convention on Biological Diversity,

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES),

Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of

Wild Animals etc.

Financial and Technical assistance is provided to

State/Union Territory Governments for protection and

Management of Protected Areas as well as other forests .

National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Eco-System

Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rules 2010

Centrally sponsored scheme--

Recovery of endangered species

16 species have been identified for recovery

viz. Snow Leopard, Bustard (including

Floricans), Dolphin, Hangul, Nilgiri Tahr,

Marine Turtles, Dugong, Edible Nest

Swiftlet, Asian Wild Buffalo, Nicobar

Megapode, Manipur Brow-antlered Deer,

Vultures, Malabar Civet, Indian Rhinoceros,

Asiatic Lion, Swamp Deer and Jerdon’s

Courser.

Report findings show--

• 87% of respondents believe it is important to personally

contribute to biodiversity conservation.

• Interest is especially high (over 95%) in Latin America

and India, and is growing in other countries.

• Young consumers that learn about biodiversity at school

show the most awareness. The majority of youth (88%)

personally want to contribute to biodiversity

conservation, with one out of two believing it essential.

How to build awareness?

• Television, radio programs, newspapers,

magazines and schools are quoted as being the

main sources of biodiversity awareness.

• • 83% of respondents expect companies to

respect biodiversity, and want to be better

informed on how biodiversity is conserved in

their supply chains.

• Only 42% are confident that companies pay

serious attention to biodiversity in their supply

chains.

Corporate social responsibility

• Encourage companies to sponsor or ---

• Building BD Gardens in schools/colleges

• Recycling waste water

• Water harvesting projects

• Recycling plastic

• Forest goods processing sustainably

• Education for conservation

• Adopting animals and plants and ensuring

their survival.

Role of villagers/youth in protecting

BD

• Try to acquire some knowledge of the medicinal plants available in their locality, and try to protect them, prevent smuggling, cutting, and destroying the medicinal plants.

• RESEARCH, FIELD TRIPS, DOCUMENTATION,

• MAPPING RESOURCES

• REMOTE SENSING, EDUCATION , AWARENESS BUILDING.

ROLE OF FOREST DEPARTMENT

• Prevent smuggling, theft of some of the

trees like sandal, teak, neem etc.

• Establish nurseries, distribute seedlings

and plants at a low cost

• Encourage farmers to grow economically

valuable trees like sandal, teak, mango,

silver oak by giving protection to them.

• Farming Taxus spp----DRUG TAXOL

FORESTERS ROLE

• Joint Village Forestry Committee: A committee

involving both forest department, and village

members should be formed, and it should identify

empty lands near by village where nothing has been

grown, and in those lands try to cultivate medicinal

plants

Agriculture department

• Agricultural department: Establish research centers, nurseries, and medicinal plant gardens where information regarding cultivation of medicinal plants will be available, and medicinal plants will be supplied at nominal cost to the people.

• Establish a center where people can sell their products for a reasonable price.

Dept of Ayurveda

• Agencies preparing Ayurvedic medicines:

• Visit the locality on fixed days and purchase the medicinal plants.

• Encourage people who grow medicinal plants on an extensive scale by giving some incentives, such as loan, and subsidy.

Role of gram panchayat

• Gram Panchayat: Pass a resolution that

people should take permission and

clearance from Gram Panchayat when

collecting medicinal plants and also when

cutting trees like neem, mahua, Pongomia

etc.

State biodiversity boards

• Making biodiversity management

committees (BMC)

• Recording of local biodiversity

• Making management plans

• Access and benefit sharing

(Kerala-Kani tribes—arogyapaccha plant)

Audit of RSBB

• How many BMC formed to date?

• TRAINING OF BMC MEMBERS

• PBR DOCUMENTATION

• BD AWARENESS BUILDING??

• Creating livelihoods for communities

• Access and benefit sharing

THE AUDITOR’S ROLE

• CAMPA (COMPENSATORY

AFFORESTATION FUND MANAGEMENT

AND PLANNING AUHORITY)

• EEAT SCHEMES

• MINING POLICY AND PROCEDURES

• RURAL LIVLIHOODS

• WETLAND CONSERVATION

• NATL BD ACTION PLAN

• ANIMAL WELFARE SCHEMES

PROTECTING FORESTS -----

OUR DUTY

• “During this International Year of Forests, we strongly encourage countries to take a new look

at the long-term value of managing and protecting their natural forests, which are

globally important assets. Healthy forests are an important part of the natural capital and offer us the most cost-effective means of confronting the

many environmental challenges of climate change and increased demand for forest

products.”

----Olivier Langrand, Conservation international policy chief.

POLICIES/DECISIONS TAKEN

• Aichi Biodiversity Targets --In decision X/2, the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, held from 18 to 29 October 2010, in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, adopted a revised and updated Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, including the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, for the 2011-2020 period……

• At least halve and, where feasible, bring close to zero the rate of loss of natural habitats, including forests

• Establish a conservation target of 17% of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10% of marine and coastal areas

• Restore at least 15% of degraded areas through conservation and restoration activities

• Make special efforts to reduce the pressures faced by coral reefs

Pollinators are vanishing

Pollination—key ecosystem service

PLANT CONSERVATION

STRATEGIESIf ex situ conservation (botanic gardens,

arboreta, seed banks) is to play an effective

role in conserving wild plant diversity and

supporting habitat conservation, appropriate

levels of infrastructure and capacity need to

be established (Maunder et al. 2004a),

quantifiable goals need to be set, and

progress toward those goals needs to be

measured.

CAN PUBLIC FUNDED

GARDENS BE AUDITED?• Grow native trees not invasives

• Grow flowering trees and shrubs/Butterfly

gardens to attract pollinators

• Ecotourism projects should be sustainable

• Community gardens

• Organic farming to save microbial

biodiversity in soil.

• Public gardens should be used for

education.

Plant science research auditing

• Funding agencies for research—DBT, DST,

UGC, MoEF, SBB, etc.

• JOBS—BSI, CAZRI, AFRI, CSIR LABS

• LOCAL NGOs hiring to study ecosystems

• Organic farming—state govt projects

• Training –State medicinal plant board

• FOREST RESEARCH

• Dept of Ayush

CBD—INDIA CONTACT

Additional Secretary

Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change

Indira Paryavaran Bhawan

Jor Bagh Road, Aliganj

+91 11 24695130, +91 11 24695137

E-Mail: hempande@nic.in as-mef@nic.in sujata@nic.in

soumanadatta@gmail.com