Chapter 2 Solutions — Forest and Wildlife Resources

Biodiversity or Biological Diversity is immensely rich in wildlife and cultivated species, diverse in form and function but closely integrated in a system through a multiple network of interdependencies.

It is important because we humans, along with all living organisms, form a complex web of ecological system on which we depend for our existence. Plants, animals and micro-organisms re-create the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink and the soil that produces our food, without which we cannot survive.

Diverse flora and fauna have come under great stress mainly due to human insensitivity to our environment, causing a rapid decline in wildlife population and forestry.

The impact is clear from the tiger, a key wildlife species: its population dwindled from an estimated 55,000 at the turn of the century to 1,827 by 1973. The major human-caused threats include poaching for trade, shrinking habitat, depletion of prey base species and a growing human population. The trade of tiger skins and the use of their bones in traditional medicines pushed the species to the verge of extinction, showing how human activities deplete flora and fauna.