Biodiversity and Protected Areas: A Need for Paradigm Shift in Biodiversity Conservation Strategy in India

Biodiversity is avital indicator ofa healthy planet and society. Biodiversity richnessis a crucial factor to maintaining variety, variability of life, and associated ecological processes. India is highly diverse in biological terms and shares 8% of the world’s biodiversity and 2.4% of the world’s geographical area. Major centres of biodiversity are.theProtectedreas and natural reserve forests.Biodiversity in the country is threatened by habitat loss, fragmentation, and forming isolated landscapes. These fragmented/isolated patches are also good repositories of regional biodiversity. There are several constraints in bringing the entire range of biodiversity under network of protected areas and challenges to managing them. A paradigm shift is envisaged for speciesconservation beyond the protected areas and recording the biodiversity of selected faunal groups on large landscapes. There are several categories of landscapes under the control of government and non-organizations, academic and defence institutions, etc. where biodiversity exists in a good amount that requires attention for their conservation.A framework for the concept of institutional reserve needs to be developed and promoted to sustain the biodiversity profile of India. Some case studies are presented to support this hypothesis and suggestions are given to enforce biodiversity conservation measures and strategy on non-protected landscapes and modified habitats.