Changing Outlook on Harnessing Biodiversity Values – A Special Focus on Indian Himalaya

Abstract

The Himalaya, as provider of goods and range of ecosystem services, is vital for sustaining life of millions of people in uplands and billions in lowlands. Indian National Action Plan on Climate Change has recognized the region vital for ecological security of the country. However, growing demand for bio-resources, combined with inadequate appreciation for values of goods and services provided by Himalayan biodiversity, has led to the unsustainable use of these resources, leading to environmental degradation in the region. The paper also looks into the scenario as to how recent pandemic of COVID 19 has brought increased focus of people on bio-resources of the region. More importantly it has suggested conservation and sustainable utilization of biodiversity to ensure for sustaining the continuous flow of ecosystem services and goods. Biodiversity in the region provides several opportunities, however, under changing scenario, we need to think afresh and differently on possibilities of finding better and optimal livelihood options, and the issues of conservation in the region. In this context, larger focus on conservation education has been stressed as a way forward. This paper attempts to build a case for the biodiversity in Indian Himalayan Region through a SWOT assessment. Certain cases have been elaborated wherein the outlook has changed to harness the values.

Threat status of three important medicinal Himalayan plant species and conservation implications

“…For the conservation of various facets of biodiversity, a number of measures from constitutional, policy and administrative side including Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, Indian Forest Act, 1927and Forest (conservation) Act, 1980, Biological Diversity Act, 2002, The National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 are in place (Rao, 2019). India is also party to different international programmes and conventions like CITES, Man and Biosphere (MAB) of UNESCO, CBD and a global goal of Bonn challenge (Rawal et al, 2021). Being aware of the importance of Himalaya for ecological security of the country, the Government of India places great focus on the Himalayan ecosystems, which are unique but exceedingly fragile.…”

“…However, in recent times, the natural richness of medicinal flora in the Indian Himalayan region has been facing severe threats from several anthropogenic factors, high dependency of local communities and enhanced climate change (Ganie et al, 2019;Sharma & Sharma, 2019;Rawal et al, 2021). This has triggered extinction of various species and brought a huge figure of medicinal plant species with small natural populations under the threatened category (Tali et al, 2015;Ganie et al, 2019).…”

Review and synthesis of climate change studies in the Himalayan region

“…Many glaciers are retreating under the influence of rising temperatures has serious implications for downstream water in the Himalayan region (Drenkhan et al, 2019;IPCC, 2019). Water stress can affect 1.9 billion people living in or directly downstream of mountain regions (Immerzeel et al, 2019;Zemp et al, 2019) Among the world's mountain's, Asia has the largest, highest and most populated mountain systems-the Himalaya (Rawal et al, 2013(Rawal et al, , 2021Sharma, 2017). The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region is about 2.9% of the global land area and approximately 18% of the global mountain area (Singh et al, 2011).…”