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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.
In this Isuue, Dr. Gururaja K. V., discusses Amphibians of Western Ghats.
Amphibians respond to the minute disturbances in their habitat or in the environment.
Their relatively wide distribution, bimodal life style (aquatic tadpole and
terrestrial adults), ectothermic conditions with stable environmental temperature
of 20-30°C and moist permeable skin have made them highly sensitive and susceptible
to the external changes. Hence amphibians are regarded as the best ecological
indicators among the vertebrates.