Environment ministry releases India's biodiversity report

India has not done well to conserve its rich biodiversity, which is considered most diverse in the world. The National Bio-Diversity Action Plan says 41 per cent of India's forest cover is at different levels of degradation and the country is making limited use of is vast gene pool in agriculture and livestock, thereby creating a risk of food security. The Environment ministry released a comprehensive document this week detailing the major areas of concern for India's biodiversity and the proposed action plan to check further degradation and conserving biodiversity. India's huge gene resources for food and agriculture has got limited to about 12 varieties of food, which provide 80 per cent of food energy, because of changing lifestyles and taste and nutrition value of country's food basket. "A large number of over 300,000 samples of these cultivars, kept under long term storage in the National Gene Bank, have gone out of cultivation," the action plan said................................................. full news report at : http://www.hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?id=3eb173e5-fd2b-4e05-bc5f-9bd40a140347&&Headline=India's+biodiversity+report+released