BIO DIVERSITY

Loss as well as conservation of biodiversity is an issue of great social concern, Conservation of biodiversity is essential for the existence of human society. Biodiversity conservation is a part of the culture, tradition, and ethics of society. Biodiversity has very great intrinsic value in a socio, cultural system. However, the ultimate relationship between society and biodiversity has not yet been fully realized by many people. Biodiversity conservation upholds social, cultural and traditional values of a society. It reflects human values. Biodiversity conservation is essential to maintain our culture and tradition. But the modern man ignores his social values for attaining economic values.

Biodiversity should be conserved every where not in the protected areas. So the effort for conservation should start from the home stead. The traditional practice of using homesteads for their own needs should be encouraged so that people will be able to meet their basic food requirement without much expense. Traditional People used to grow different types of plants in their homestead which helps them to satisfy their basic needs of food, medicine and fuel. In this way each family is involved in protecting ecosystem. As a part of some religious belief also people used to plant certain trees in their homestead so here we can see the social value, religious value cultural value and economic value also resulted in conservation. But the modern man lost all his social, cultural and religious value except economic value for homestead cultivation is not having much economic value. The opportunity cost of homestead farming is much more. So naturally homestead farming has declined drastically and green trees have almost disappeared from homestead. The farmer used to depend on homestead farming for timber for house construction has disappeared from farm due to non explanation of it. Many of the food item which easily available in homesteads also started disappearing from our homestead, foe g Jackfruit in Kerala which was plenty in our area and the main food item in the daily menu, Even its timber is considered as best wood for furniture and house construction .Every house used to have at least one tree. As the standard of living of the people increased it became and inferior good so naturally its consumption has reduced and slowly it started disappearing from the homestead. But now people realized its importance as food of rich nutritional value and they started to purchase it from market which is paradoxical. This is a typical example of how future generation is going to affect from such species loss.

Traditional farming is another method by which society can contribute to biodiversity conservation. Traditional farming practices helps to conserve genetic diversity as well as biodiversity by limiting the use of fertilizers and pesticides. With agricultural modernization and environmental degradation crop genetic diversity is decreasing in present agricultural system. Traditional farming is best way of attaining sustainable development. Modernization of farming may yields short term benefits but at the cost of future. Maintenance of traditional farming at the same time conserve local resource and here will be sustainable development Efforts should be made to popularize the traditional farming u Kudumbasree units. So that employment and income can be generated at the same time conservation will be taken place. In that way women’s participation can be assured.

People’s biodiversity Register is another method of conservation through people’s participation Peoples biodiversity register seeks to document the knowledge of occurrence, practice of propagation, sustainable harvest and conservation as well as economic use of biodiversity resources that resides with India’s local communities. This is the best methods of conservation through people’s participation. Such practices should be sed through local governments so that we can ensure active participation through grass root level.