Following the theme of this year's World Biodiversity Day – forests – Kerala, which has more forest cover than the average Indian State, ought to focus on participatory environmental management.

Last Sunday (May 22) was the International Day for Biological Diversity, or World Biodiversity Day, established by the United Nations to increase understanding and awareness of issues related to biodiversity, the variety of all forms of life, from genes to species, through to the broad scale of ecosystems.

Referring as it does to the variety and differences among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part, biodiversity just cannot be ignored nor left to the whims and fancies of environmentalists or “greens.”

Forest biodiversity

This year's theme for World Biodiversity Day, as decided by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is forest biodiversity. The United Nations General Assembly has also declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests.

All these recurrent themes are especially for a State like Kerala, which is particularly rich in forest biodiversity, given its large tract of forest area within the Western Ghats, considered among the biodiversity “hotspots” of the world, home to a dazzling diversity of flora and fauna.

State's forest cover

According to the Kerala State Planning Board, the State's forest cover in 2009 was 17,324 sq.km., with 1,443 sq.km of very dense forest, 9,410 sq.km of moderate dense forest and 6,471 sq.km of open forest. This constitutes 44.58 per cent of the total geographical area of the State. Over the past few years, there has been a slight increase in Kerala's forest cover, mainly due to the change in the area of the trees outside forest areas.

The forest area in Kerala is almost 30 per cent of the geographical area of the State, which is around 10 per cent higher than the national average.

Kerala has a forest policy, formulated during 2007, that stresses technology improvement, biodiversity conservation, and partnership with forest-dependent communities and fringe forest dwellers. The policy also places special focus on the protection of particular species of plants and animals.

Environment-related issues

Given the recent environment-related issues that have plagued Kerala — like the use of the pesticide, endosulfan; the attempts to revive the environmentally suspect Athirappilly hydroelectric project; campaigns against genetically modified (GM) crops; the denudation of mangrove forests for coastal development projects; violation of coastal zoning laws; depletion of fish stocks due to pollution, overfishing and climate change, to name a few — the renewed concentration on biodiversity is welcome.

As UN Secretary-General Mr Ban Ki-moon said on World Biodiversity Day, “Forests contain a vast – and barely catalogued – store of biodiversity. Despite our growing understanding and appreciation of just how much we reap from forests, they are still disappearing at an alarming rate.”

“The benefits of forests are far-reaching. Forests catch and store water, stabilize soils, harbour biodiversity and make an important contribution to regulating climate and the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change,” added the Secretary-General.

Nagoya Protocol

Last October, the 193 Parties to the CBD adopted the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from Their Utilisation, a landmark treaty that links conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity with development.

The protocol envisages the setting up of an international regime on access and benefit sharing of genetic resources, which will lay down the basic ground rules on how nations co-operate in obtaining genetic resources.

It outlines how benefits — for example, from when a plant's genetics are turned into a commercial product, such as a drug — will be shared with countries and communities which conserved and managed that resource, in some cases for millennia.

Should Kerala hope to preserve its forests and conserve its rich biological diversity, the State's authorities need to stress the importance of participatory environmental management, involving communities, marginal dwellers and users of forest resources, and non-governmental and civil society organisations.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “He who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal man.”

(The writer can be contacted at >kgkumar@gmail.com )

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