Biodiversity, Challenges and Opportunities: A Way Forward

Biodiversity can be defined as the variability among the living organism from all sources, including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and ecological complexes of which they are part, this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystem. The growing awareness that biodiversity is a precious global asset to present and future generation and that species survival and the integrity of habitats and ecosystems are at serious risk, has increased significantly the importance of biodiversity related research. The loss of biodiversity is a global crisis, there is hardly an region on the earth that is not facing ecological catastrophes. Of the 1.7 million species known to inhabit the earth (Human is just one of them), one third to one fourthvof the species is likely to extinct within the next few decades. Therefore, onus of safeguarding biodiversity is not just on government or indigenous communities, but on all of us as this is our common heritage.