Sahyadri e-news is CES-ENVIS's quarterly newsletter, covering the issues related to Western Ghats biodiversity. Western Ghats is rich in diversity of life. Due to unplanned developmental activities, its ecological resource base is under threat, with extensive destruction of natural habitats, widespread degradation of ecosystems and a growing burden of air and water pollution. Simultaneously, knowledge base of uses of biodiversity is also being eroded, with the present generation becoming increasingly alienated from the natural world.
We need to carefully plan on conserving, sustainably using and restoring the biological diversity of the Western Ghats. We also need to conserve and benefit from the knowledge of uses and the traditions of conservation of this biological diversity. Also, we must ensure that benefits flowing from our heritage of biodiversity and related folk knowledge percolate down to the people at the grass-roots.
The forests of the Western Ghats are critical for local, regional and global human well-being in a variety of ways. They provide timber, fuelwood, fodder, manure, medicines and a range of other products for subsistence and commercial use, as well as important soil and water conservation services to downstream communities. Forest loss and degradation continues at a significant rate in this region. The forms, mechanisms and ultimate causes of degradation are complex and context-dependent. In this issue, Dr. Sharad Lele argues the need for comprehensive understanding of economic and cultural factors (such as household resource endowments, and cultural preferences); institutional factors, (such as the distribution of rights and responsibilities between individuals, communities and the state agencies); and ecological conditions (such as vegetation type and terrain) combine through the villagers' adoption of particular resource extraction and protection regimes, to affect the ecological outcome (assessed in terms of the biomass productivity, canopy cover and biodiversity).
Back 