Bio-diversity Day

Plant diversities were our national assets--2000 best rice varieties have been lost.When we learnt about high-yielding rice varieties from foreign countries,we switched over to new varieties. And our old rice varieties were lost forever.By not keeping our old varieties alive, we are further loosing.The future incomes or the future cost(cost of revival) is an economic loss. The old varieties were more suitable to our soil and did not need supplementary fertilizer, and they were disease-resistant and pest-resistant.Many native rice species were congenial to diabetics.Genetic diversity would give bigger profits, so keeping our old varieties alive is very important. We do not have bio-diversity policy yet.With increased deforestation, many herbs have been lost forever.Same ecological conditions cannot be created now, only new ecological environments can be evolved.

Protection of native species of fauna is urgent too.Our national symbol is the Bengal Tiger(Panthers tigris-life span-18 years)There were 40000 tigers in the year1947, 1411 in the year 2008 and 1706 in the year 2011. It is an endangered species an in the verge of extinction.National Parks in which they live in do not have boundaries and many times they overlap with human settlements;many villagers had complained about tiger attacks.To protect the humans and provide a natural habitat for the tiger are the twin challenges that we are faced with constantly. Poaching and killing of the tiger by criminals has to be stopped.We have to protect the tigers in captivity for now; and at some future time, we must re-introduce them in the wild jungles of India.We cannot allow our national symbol become extinct.

Many species of birds have vanished. Increased deforestation, climatic changes and presence of chemicals in the environment are the chief causes. The loss of bird species means no natural pest control for the farmers as the birds eat away the locusts and beetles which destroyed the crops.Because of the reduction of birds, farmers are using more and more pesticides which leech into the water table.And with the water table contaminated with toxins, we have poisoned our own lands.So bird species are very very important.Yesterday,22 nd May, was World Bio-Diversity day.Bio-diversity day was observed by very few persons, as there is no awareness of its importance. Everyone here is worried about survival of the self and do not have time to think about the survival of neither fauna nor flora of India.But our survival is determined by these disease-resistant,pest-resistant plant varieties(which do not need pesticides)We must encourage the farmer to save some old varieties and give them to the seed bank or repository, so that we can further prevent future loss.Herbs occurring in rich bio-diversity zones must to saved by stricter deforestation measures.