Wildlife in India: Challenges in the New Millennium

Abstract

India is a high bio-diversity country blessed with a vast array of wild species of flora and fauna. This large bio-diversity has survived for long, the pressures of time so far but new challenges have merged in the new millennium. The greatest challenge is the explosion of human and cattle population exerting, an unacceptable pressure on natural resources, principally fuelwood and fodder, which is poised to undermine all the natural systems and therefore wildlife also. The population explosion places an equally large and growing demand on water resources as well as arable land. Specific threats to conservation of wildlife come from habitat destruction, man-animal conflict and organised trade in products of wild species. Amelioration strategies which have worked so far, need a substantial change in strategy. The solution finally lies in the political will and a translation of that into new institutional mechanisms. It is not yet too late for that to happen but each passing day of inaction compounds the problem.