 Next module is on biodiversity, yeah already we studied what is environment, ecology, biotic or biotic factor and biodiversity, variety of life on earth and this is a product of evolution of 4 billion years and we are rapidly destroying it, right. How it is measured? Spaces diversity, genetic diversity and variety of ecosystem, what is species diversity? It can be human being, tiger, elephant, so if you do this kind of pictorial representation, they will understand easily. What is genetic diversity? These are does not look like this, I do not look like I should arrive, why? Because we have got different genes, yeah. Ecosystem diversity we already studied, yeah varieties of ecosystem in particular habitat. Area, domesticated diversity, so it is more to do with agro-biiodiversity which are like crops which we are already using, livestock diversity and crop diversity, ok. India had 50,000 varieties of rice and Navadanya, yesterday Vandana Shiva's Institute which we were talking about, they have identified 150 species rice in western garden now. Initially we had many varieties, only in western garden, tribal people in like Warli tribes in Maharashtra, they have knowledge and of which species can be grown in which climatic condition. So, they grow different varieties of rice in different seasons, ok. India's 8 breed of buffaloes represent the entire genetic diversity of the world and anybody has visited that bio-diocity train by CE, it came to all cities, who? Great. Which city you are? Krichi, what about you? You also visited? No. Miras. Miras, good. So, it had come to Coimbatore also, it went, it was very nicely they had displayed bio-diocity of entire India of different bio-geographical zone. I do not know whether it will come again or not, but in case if it comes, please visit, ok. There are different indices like spaces richness talks about only number, how many number of spaces are there and Simpson, like Shannon and Simpson, there are different majors to measure this diversity indices. Simpson index takes care of number as well as evenness, how evenly it is distributed. Total number of spaces is still not known, ok. Some scientists say it is 10 million, some say 30 million, so it is around 10 to 30 million. The number of described spaces, described means those who are identified and written are 1.8 million, majority of them are microbes and insects. It has taken 4 billion years to develop this bio-diocity, to evolve through evolution and there were 5 mass extinctions, but all they were natural. See extinction and evolution is a natural process. We have studied this right in 7, 8 standard, but how evolution takes place, extinction, landmarks theory, different theories we have studied, ok. So, it is a natural process, but now what is happening? It is becoming man-made, 1000 times rate has increased. So, sixth mass extinction will be man-made because of our activities, ok. India why it is rich country, not only because of GDP, but it has got 80% of world's bio-diocity in just 2% of earth's surface. Diverse ecosystem and climatic condition we have from North to South if you see or East to West. We have got 16 major types, forest types, 21% of the area is under forest. We are one of the 17 mega diverse countries in the world. We have two bio-diocity hotspots, one is in Northeast and another is West Bengal. They are origin of 30,000 cultivated plants, our country and we have got high endemicity. What is endemicity? Confined to a particular area, means if suppose if tiger is endemic to, I am not telling this endemic to India. Suppose endemic to India means it is found only in that region, ok. If Nilgiri thar is endemic to western Ghat means it is found only in western Ghats and when it is endemic to that particular area what happens? It becomes vulnerable because if something happens to that area it is gone and gone means gone forever, ok. This is about agrobiodiversity. We had 50,000 varieties of fries, 1000 mangoes, sorghum and pepper. All the world's buffalo breed are found in India, ok and that red jungle fall picture you saw in today's movie, that is a wild variety of all poultry breeds, ok. So, this is some figures about India's biodiversity. You can tell students that we have got 91,000 plus species of animals, highest is insect and more than 45,000 species of plants, yeah. We have got endemism rich area that is northeast, northwest and eastern Himalayas as well as western Ghats, ok. We have got 11,000 plants which are endemic to India, 55 birds, 214 reptiles. What does this mean? These 55 birds are found only in India. They are not found in any other region. Out of total fishes or amphibians found in India, this percentage is endemic to India. I mean suppose a certain number out of that 47 percent of the reptiles are found only in India. Medicinal plants, we have got 8,000 medicinal plants and we are using them in 50,000 herbal formula, yeah. It is a major source of livelihood for many people because they go and collect these, either they go and collect from forest or it is also artificially cultivated. I already told two biodiversity hotspots that is northeast India and western Ghats and there are certain criteria for like to give the status to that area as a biodiversity hotspots. They have to have more than, they must support 1500 endemic species. This should support species also that region should be having threat. So, that need of conservation should be there. We have got 25 hotspots all over the world, yeah western Ghats. See here I have given more information about western Ghats because we, where I teach, we are nearby western Ghats. Our university comes under that area. So, it is always good to talk to students so that they can relate in a better way. When they are in from that area they can go see that. Also I told you about that exercise, you know newspaper cutting. We tell them that what is happening around you that is more important than just studying India as this many species and world as that many species but what is happening in your local area. And it is not bad to know about what is happening globally also. So, they get current news from newspaper. So, please make this habit that they read newspaper, they cut articles and they make presentation. So, somebody was telling that what this EVS we are learning from third standard, fifth standard like that students say, right. So, when you give them this exercise believe me that you will also learn a lot from that because you do not get time to read newspaper on daily basis and you cannot read all the newspaper. Even from internet they can get some news. So, tell them that 2-3 months you please read newspaper get all the cuttings and wonderful news they will cut. Tell them to not only cut because they will just cut and paste and give you. Tell them to read and make presentation. And whenever you get time like 5-10 minutes presentation if they make you will not believe me but your knowledge bank also will be enhanced like anything. You will understand so many issues what is happening around you. And that is how I think one should learn EVS. It should not be just based on some textbooks. So, here I have given some data about Western Ghats. You can find out your own region. Western Ghats also is significant because it is one of the biodiversity hot spots in India. We have got 15,000 Asian elephants. We have got diverse ecosystem. I showed few of the ecosystem pictures. We also saw one film. This is again Endimism in Western Ghats. Yesterday Dr. Patha spoke about this Madhav Gadgil got some prize and all that you know. Unfortunately that is what I was telling though we have got wonderful laws. Previous government had appointed Madhav Gadgil committee and he came out with the excellent report on Western Ghats Conservation Plan. But politicians with vested interest not only politicians people those who wanted to you know have resorts in Nilgiri's in wildlife corridor near Utti. There are many wildlife corridors. And they wanted to do plantations and tea business that business. They opposed that report and they are spreading such a false news you know that report says that people should go for eco-friendly buildings. They should not extract too much natural resources and they should go for green buildings. So, how they are interpreting that you know that this report is very bad. We do not have even freedom to paint like whatever color we want. We have to paint our buildings with green color. So, that kind of false propaganda is done. And finally government was forced to dilute that report by he had declared certain areas as eco-sensitive area where certain activities you cannot do. But it was not against development at all. Certain activities were permitted. But as you know they do lots of false propaganda and say that this is anti-development and this is like anti-poor and anti-farmers and anti-something. It is anti some vested interests of like corporates like resorts and some huge land owners who wants to do coffee plantation and in the reserve forest or protected forest. So, usually people do not understand they do not are not worried about long term benefit of an amendment. They are just worried about whether my land is going or not what is happening and there was a strong opposition in several states. And then they diluted that report and that was published by there was another committee Kasturirangan and very very very interestingly still that committee report also is not implemented. Again there is opposition for that report also. So, you were asking me solutions what solution I can tell you I also do not know. So, this is what is happening. But then still we have to be positive we have to generate awareness. This is all happening because of lack of awareness. This is a state animal of Tamil Nadu and danger we saw today in film this Nilgiri Thaad. This western Thaad you can tell your students to do diversity. Of course, you need expert. This publication we did of our campus diversity involving students. I will talk about that later. This is again Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. This is the first biosphere reserve in India. We are again part of that. So, I am giving more emphasis on that. You can identify Nilgiri Thaad and Lionel Mekha both their endangered means endangered means about to go for extinction and unless they are protected and also they are endemic to the area. So, they are so important. So, we have to conserve their habitat. Yeah, this is we have already studied biodiversity provides us food security, water, climate regulation. Every species has its own role to play in the ecosystem. Every single species is an integral part of the vast chain of life. Many species are used as food, fiber, medicine, resources. Already we studied. Here I want to stress on 25% of all our drugs come from plants. Many that like vinka is treated for vinka rosea, you know that sadapuli we call in Marathi. Sarpagandha is many, many, many plants are used in medicine even in allopathy. Yeah, many, many plants name it or most of the plants has got some or other medicinal property. Commercially also they have been used. Sarpagandha in that blood pressure medicine that reservoir and all they are using plus vinka is used in cancer. Why should we conserve biodiversity? Because economic value it gives us food, fiber, medicine, all the ecosystem services what we studied, all the resources, agriculture, many wild crops are also coming from the wild variety. Second why should we conserve? I told that this is not my earth alone. When I was small my grandfather used to sing one Marathi song. There are how many Marathis are there? He used to tell me that pal manthe maje ghar, vinsu manthe maje ghar, e ghar kona chhe. It is like dog also says it is my house, Manimau is cat also says it is my house, lizard is telling it is my house, scorpion is telling it is my house, rat is also telling it is my house and pinkie is also telling my house, pinkie is the smallest daughter of the, so it is whose house? So it is everyone's house. So that time he described about urban biodiversity which I am relating that to now. So this is everyone's house, right. So we cannot say it is my house and everyone has equal right to live on this planet as of my, that is ethical value. They tell man-animal conflict, they say that lepoid is coming to your house encroaching in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Elephants problem in Tamil Nadu, many places elephant trading. Yeah, Coimbatore it comes. Why it is coming? Why it is coming to, because we have destroyed their habitat they do not have enough prey that is why if you can encroach their home it is bound to happen, you know they will also come to your home. They are not coming to get any degrees at all, jokes apart. Because you are encroaching in their home they do not have enough food they do not know where to go. So they are coming. So who is culprit? We. Yeah, so this space is you see this is already extinct. How many spaces are extinct in India? Any one or two? Indian Chita is no more. Pink-headed duck is no more. So the space is once is gone is gone you cannot bring it back. I told you that we are not having though we think that we have got superior technology. We do not have any superior lab where we can produce one animal or okay it is extinct. Yes there is some technology but for that also you need to have that one cell we have to take from human being. We cannot have clone otherwise. So what we cannot create we do not have any right to destroy and once it is gone it is gone it is not going to come. We have already lost I have already described this slide you remember that natural rate of extinction is one space is per year and present rate is one space is per hour per year per hour. Okay somebody ask me what is this living planet index? Living planet index is a report by WWF world what is WWF? Fund for nature not that wrestling voila okay. So they have measured only vertebrates. I told you that in measuring invertebrate is very difficult insects. They have measured only vertebrate population from 1970 and they have found out that 52% decline is there. So living planet index is nothing but a report by WWF which is a biennial publication and which documents changing state of the biodiversity ecosystem and humans demand on natural resources. So that report says that there is a decline of 52%. See terrestrial space is 39, 76, freshwater and marine space is 39 already gone and reason we already studied agriculture, urban development, energy production, habitat loss, invasive species steepest decline is in tropics and southern Asia where we have lost marine turtles and sharks and migratory seabirds. See biodiversity is declining in both temperate and tropical region but more decline is in tropics. Again reasons I told already habitat loss and degradation due to exploitation for hunting and fishing and developmental activities and climate change. Why climate change is affecting this biodiversity? How it can affect? Agriculture will affect. I am talking about animal life. It is affecting plants, animals because animals are used to stay in certain climatic condition in certain temperature in certain habitats. These are the shrinking ranges of tiger. You can see that dark brown is historical range and current range is only that you know. Yeah already I told you cheetah is extinct, pink headed duck is extinct. There is one interesting deer called dancing deer in Manipal because Manipal lake there are many islands. Islands are made up of that fumidy some kind of plant and when that deer is on that island, since that island is floating it looks like a dancing, dancing deer that is why its name is dancing deer. No it is there but it is disappearing. It is endangered because its habitat is destroyed. Okay okay yeah but its natural habitat is Manipur I do not know Kanna whether it is okay okay thank you. So we have in India what is happening 10 percent of the plants 20 percent of mammal and 5 percent birds are already threatened means they are about to get extinct. So unless we save their habitat or take some measures they also we can lose them also. So 150 medicinal plants have already disappeared. This is the end danger Indian wildlife if we do not take care it can disappear. So you can see whitebacked vulture, lantel, macaques, sares, crane, Siberian crane there you can see lion, tiger yeah okay and reasons we all know or exploitation we also saw that in film yeah pre-forestation, mining, pollution, habitat fragmentation, wildlife corridor destruction because that is the only way that they can travel from one fragment to another patch. So conservation of wildlife corridor is very critical. This is about that one green corridor in okay biodiversity laws we already discussed about Lantana and Mycenaean yeah global warming now already 1700 plants and animals and insects spaces have moved towards poleward. Why they are moving towards poleward? Temperature rise very good. There is a mass death of coral because of temperature rise and pollution. Many people are thinking that global warming is truth or myth already we are sinking low Chara island in Sundarbansh, many islands are going down the water we are still thinking global warming is truth or myth yeah. Though we know that many of the areas are have already gone under the water this I have already discussed here during my first lecture that penguin population has shrunk because ice is melting in Antarctica 90% of the large fishes have disappeared many spaces like golden toad and other one more frog in Costa Rica is already disappeared in which is a directly due to global warming direct result of global warming. Man-animal conflict we just discussed Bharatpur case I will just tell you. Bharatpur is a artificial man-made wetland and many migratory birds they come visit that area periodically, periodically means during winter season but suddenly that water level had gone down in that park and this stopped coming. So instead of taking community into the confidence forest officers banned community going inside the reserve and they made some arrangement for water there and a community's access to that reserve was denied because of that what happened no there was a big riot and violence happened. So again I want to tell you and even Sariska's example he gave yesterday you remember Partha Dr. Partha gave Sariska's example that when people were not taken into consideration tigers they thought that if you isolate people from that area they can protect tiger but all tigers have already disappeared from that area. The major thing is other than habitat loss what is the reason any idea why these spaces are disappearing while life yeah. The reasons is the man and wildlife conflict is there second part is some officers are also involved at that time okay the case that they itself they killing some tigers and they selling them here into international market through mafia yeah so that one is also a reason. I agree with you that there are some good officers there are some bad officers few people are really doing good work few people for some small interest. What happened actually in Sariska this is a tiger reserve one of the tiger reserve and in this tiger reserve first department is claiming that they have 400 tigers in the tiger reserve but when a team from MOEF visited the tiger reserve they found that none of the tiger in the tiger reserve. All the tigers have been posed by a notorious poacher known as Sansar chan he's a notorious poacher in our country and now he have been arrested two years back I think and Sansar chan and later on the forest department have introduced tigers from the run thumb for tiger reserve from to explore them in the Sariska tiger reserve now. Okay fine so I was telling this story that I was working with WWF and they told that some poaching is happening and then we thought that we will do some sting operation Bhani Sagar our office was there so they told me that you have short hair and all so you become some Sri Lankan or some like no not Indian okay and we went and you don't know any other language you know only English and we went like that and surprisingly I found that they came and they showed us leopard skin and all this and they all used to talk English well dressed they are not from local community all college going boys yeah and they asked that if you need more we can show you more and then I asked how can you do this so they say they poison buffalo and they keep there and then the tiger or leopard come and eat that poisoned buffalo. So it is not that indigenous community is doing anything but it is like external factors also are responsible for that and I also know that many people like you know those who are staying inside the forest we really don't have to teach them to conserve biodiversity they know they are we are worshiping all these animals from long time they know importance they also if you properly guide them they help us they help you in protecting that area from poachers and even few poachers were converted back as a forest guards so it is always better to involve community while conserving forest say that when Virappan was there he was the only poacher yeah yeah now there are many poachers when Virappan was there only elephants male elephants had problem but forest is conserved very well because of his fear no other disturbance was there I am just informing I heard that people they are putting current in water source and animals then when they are coming to drink water they die due to current yeah yeah see that happens you know like no now farmers are very desperate okay now they have got agricultural land inside very reserve forest so near or nearby forest so what happens this animals come there and they do crop raiding you cannot completely blame farmers also so they do not put I don't know water but they do electric fencing but you are supposed to put very light current but they put very high voltage and sometimes animals can die okay but there is some good news in Nepal no tiger poaching is reported from last three years so I just wanted to tell you that traditionally we used to worship animals all you see Nag Devata and peacock is vahana of whom Kartika Kartikeya eagle rat is associated with Ganesha and cow used to worship this vatavruksha puja sacred grooves there are many sacred grooves Kerala people and not only Kerala everywhere everywhere even in Maharashtra we call Devrai yeah so they used to conserve that forest it used to act as a genetic pool okay it is a God's forest so you are not supposed to cut that forest Buddhism and Gandhism they talk about in your cell brotherhood and Vishnoi community we already discussed yesterday Kipco moment yeah this all dears they go very near to a people because they are so friendly with them they know that people are not going to harm them Ashoka had many animal hospitals again same thing I want to tell that no development is sustainable without taking care of nature there are international and national conventions and laws okay biodiversity convention where it is it it says that equitable sharing of benefit and conservation of biological resources there is a convention for conservation of wetlands ramsar convention yeah 25 sites have been designated as ramsar sites there are many other conventions we have got Indian forest act environmental protection act forest conservation act fisheries wildlife protection biodiversity act coastal zone regulation act that is a very important act you have to live certain distance but if you go and see in most of the coastal areas implementation is not happening if we have law and if it are not getting implemented what is the use of that law and then our responsibility lies with us suppose if somebody is doing publicly something illegal okay unless you and me question okay suppose if somebody is building in crz area unless you question nobody is going to government is not going to see that oh this person has done something illegal here so it is our responsibility as public to keep watch in our area and if you cannot do at least there are some NGOs who file this public interest litigation help them at least give them information yeah yeah we already discussed about chip co moment silent valley moment who saved okay Rula Shastra site the perition yesterday he discussed now there is one more dam it is still under discussion Puyam Kottu hydroelectric project had come to Salimani centre for environmental impact assessment and the way they had written report these people did not like because it was going against them so they gave it to another agency environmental impact assessment report I told now already yeah so if it comes loss of area forest area will go under water will lose important breeding ground of elephants so we have got protected areas as I told you these protected areas has got different level of protection like national parks are having little higher level of protection and then wildlife sanctuaries community reserves tiger and elephant reserves are created to protect that that particular spaces but see it is not if you are protecting tiger or elephant it is not that you are protecting only that when you are protecting that the entire food chain and ecosystem is going to get protected Ramsar sites we have important bird areas biosphere reserve so these are all areas this is called as in situ conservation in situ miss as such in natural habitat you are conserving them as such but that itself is not enough because sometimes some animals are so endangered that you like for example vulture okay so they have some artificial breeding centres or juice or botanical gardens or gene pool areas or gene banks where all these plants and animals are conserved or breeding programs have been conducted in a enclosed area okay so xc2 conservation is not natural but that is also important so solutions again preserve natural capital restore damaged ecosystem by plantation programs and significantly expand protected area whatever are there also we are not yeah conserving but if possible produce better like reduce your waste reduce your resource utilization renewable production yeah these solutions are from WWF report consume more wisely reduce your ecological footprint value nature account for social and environmental cost support and reward conservation equitable resource yesterday he explained Dr. Partha what is equitable resource governance make fair and ecological informed choices because so what do you understand by make fair and ecologically informed choices right which are not damaging environment for example if you know certain products are eco-friendly go for that certain industries or businesses are ethically responsible or eco-friendly go for that this is somewhat like foreign concept people do business with the companies which are environmentally responsible so what will happen by doing that in a way you are supporting their responsible behavior suppose there are two companies okay and they are you know that this company is producing products in an environmentally and ethically responsible manner ethically means what no child labor no social listening and environmentally you know without damaging environment and second company is producing products by damaging environment suppose if you support a company what is going to happen in a way you are encouraging their responsible behavior but this is like this we are not worried about who is doing it which is low price we will see or some brand name advertisement play a bigger role right either we go for brand or low price major success beyond GDP or you already learned that we have to measure our performance based on ecology and environment many people have asked in feedback how to calculate happy planet index there is no need to calculate happy planet index I just wanted to give you idea that other than GDP there are indices calculated by different countries measured their happiness based on that indices it is Bhutan yeah many other countries so GDP and richness is not equal to happiness that's what I wanted to tell be vigilant avoid wildlife products what will happen if you avoid wildlife products demand will decrease suppose if you are not buying ivory what will they do they will stop going and hunting or killing animals okay this is report I was talking most importantly what all we talk at present what is there in our capacity motivating our students yeah so form a nature club conduct activities at least motivate them involve them I first day I told you that if you involve they will learn in a better way yeah so involve them in different activities so this was the report done by us involving students we could record 114 spaces of birds in our campus usually when I used to go I have I had not observed that many but when we went for survey we could see beautiful creatures just nearby our campus and which we had not noticed so all these visitors we have in our campus we are very blessed we conduct all this nature club and plantation programs we also conduct various competitions on poster making and photography competition nature photography and debates and this was what we had conducted I was telling that promoting cycle use of cycle we are very fortunate to have a very green and beautiful campus where actually I can take students I don't have to really go to some sanctuary I can take them around or in universities surrounded by hills we are located in western ghat we are very lucky to have chancellor management our inspiration who is motivating us about nature see what she says so usually you face problem you know if you want to do so many things but your management your top management your superiors are not supporting but we are very much motivated by Amma so we feel very lucky and blessed to be part of that university