Chapter 5 — ଜୈବ ସମ୍ବଳ

In the first unit resources were classified by origin into abiotic and biotic. Biotic resources are those obtained from the biosphere, the zone of life that includes the lower atmosphere, the surface of the land and the waters of the earth. They are the living things, plants, animals and micro-organisms, and the products derived from them. Forests, grasslands, crops, livestock, wildlife, fish, and the countless bacteria, fungi and insects that keep soils fertile and pollinate plants are biotic resources. Human beings are themselves a biotic resource. Fossil fuels, coal and petroleum, are usually placed among biotic resources by origin because they were formed from ancient life, although they are used like minerals.

The special character of biotic resources is that they are living and self-renewing. A forest regrows, a fish population breeds, a crop is harvested every season. Used within the limit of their renewal, they can serve mankind forever; used beyond it, they collapse and may disappear altogether, because a species once extinct cannot be recovered by any technology. Biotic resources are therefore renewable but exhaustible, and their management is a question of harvesting no more than nature replaces.

The variety of living things is called biodiversity, short for biological diversity. It has three levels. Species diversity is the number and variety of species in a region: India has about 47,000 species of plants and about 90,000 species of animals. Genetic diversity is the variety within a species: the thousands of traditional rice varieties of Odisha, each adapted to a depth of water, a soil or a season, are genetic diversity within one species. Ecosystem diversity is the variety of habitats: forest, grassland, wetland, mangrove, coral reef, desert, river and sea.

Biodiversity matters for practical reasons. Every crop and domestic animal was bred from wild ancestors, and the wild relatives still supply the genes for resistance to pests and drought. A large share of medicines comes from plants and micro-organisms. Diverse ecosystems are more stable and more productive than uniform ones. And the whole of human life rests on the services that living things provide: oxygen from plants, soil from decomposers, pollination by insects, clean water from forested catchments.

India is one of the twelve mega-diverse countries of the world, holding about 8 per cent of the world's species on about 2.4 per cent of its land. Odisha, at the meeting point of the Eastern Ghats, the Chota Nagpur plateau, the coastal plain and the Bay of Bengal, holds a large share of that wealth, and the study of biotic resources in this course is, in the end, the study of how to keep it.

Living things do not exist alone. Every plant and animal lives in a community with other species and with the non-living environment of soil, water, air and sunlight, exchanging matter and energy with them. Such a unit of living organisms and their physical environment, functioning together, is called an ecosystem. A pond, a forest, a grassland, a mangrove swamp, a coral reef or a paddy field is an ecosystem; the whole earth is the largest one, the biosphere.

Every ecosystem has two parts. The abiotic components are sunlight, temperature, water, air, soil and minerals. The biotic components are of three kinds. Producers are green plants and algae that make food from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide by photosynthesis; they are the base of every ecosystem. Consumers are animals that eat plants or other animals: herbivores such as deer and cattle are primary consumers, carnivores such as leopards and snakes that eat herbivores are secondary consumers, and top carnivores such as the tiger are tertiary consumers. Decomposers are the bacteria and fungi that break down dead plants and animals into simple substances which return to the soil and are used by plants again.

The path along which food energy passes from producer to consumer is a food chain: grass is eaten by a deer, which is eaten by a tiger, whose body is finally decomposed by bacteria. In nature the chains cross, because most animals eat several kinds of food and are eaten by several predators, so they form a food web. Energy flows one way through the web, from the sun through plants to animals, and much is lost as heat at each step, so a large area of plants supports fewer herbivores and far fewer carnivores. This is why tigers need large forests and why they are the first to vanish when a forest shrinks.

Matter, unlike energy, circulates. The nutrient cycles of carbon, nitrogen, water and minerals pass elements from air and soil to plants, to animals, to decomposers, and back. Forests store carbon and release oxygen; decomposers return nitrogen to the soil; roots and litter hold water and release it slowly to streams. These cycles are the ecological services on which farming and human life depend.

The principle that follows is interdependence. Because species are linked through food webs and cycles, the loss of one affects many others. Kill the vultures and carcasses rot and spread disease; remove the predators and deer multiply and strip the forest; poison the bees and crops fail to set fruit. Human beings, at the top of many food chains, depend on the whole web. The conservation of biotic resources is therefore not the protection of a few beautiful species but the maintenance of the ecosystems that sustain everything, including us.

India is one of the world's richest countries in terms of its vast array of biological diversity, and has nearly 8 per cent of the total number of species in the world, estimated to be 1.6 million. This is possibly twice or thrice the number yet to be discovered. The recorded wealth includes about 47,000 plant species, of which about 15,000 flowering plants, giving India the tenth place in the world and the fourth in Asia in plant diversity, and about 90,000 animal species, including about 2,500 species of fish, some 1,300 species of birds, more than 400 species of mammals and a vast number of insects, reptiles and amphibians. India has about 6 per cent of the world's flowering plants, 12 per cent of its birds and 7 per cent of its mammals.

The reason for this richness lies in the variety of the country's physical environment. India stretches from the snows of the Himalaya to the equatorial rain of the Andamans, from the deserts of Rajasthan to the wettest place on earth at Mawsynram, and from mountain to plateau, plain, coast, island, river and sea. Every combination of temperature and rainfall is present, and each supports its own vegetation and animals. The sub-continent also lies at the meeting point of three biogeographic realms, the Palaearctic of the north, the Indo-Malayan of the south-east and the Afro-tropical of the west, so that it has species from all three.

These plants and animals are so well integrated into our daily life that we take them for granted. Most of us are aware that they are important, but few realise how much. The plants provide us with food, timber, fuel, fibre, medicine and shade; the animals provide labour, milk, meat, wool, leather, honey and silk and control pests and pollinate crops; and the whole living cover holds the soil, stores the water and regulates the climate. India's culture is also bound up with its living things: the sacred groves of every region, the peepal and tulsi, the elephant and the peacock, the tiger in the tale and the temple.

Natural vegetation is the plant cover that has grown without human aid and has been left undisturbed for a long time; it is called virgin vegetation. The purely Indian species are called endemic or indigenous species, while those that have come from outside are called exotic plants. India's natural vegetation is grouped into tropical evergreen, tropical deciduous, tropical thorn, montane and mangrove forests, which the next lesson describes.

This great wealth is under threat. About 10 per cent of India's wild flora and 20 per cent of its mammals are on the threatened list, and many of these are now categorised as critical, that is, on the verge of extinction: the cheetah is already gone from the wild, and the pink-headed duck, the mountain quail, the forest spotted owlet and plants like the madhuca insignis, a wild variety of mahua, and hubbardia heptaneuron, a species of grass, are lost or nearly so. The classification of species by their danger is the subject of the next section.

Not all species are equally safe. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) maintains a Red List that classifies species by the danger of extinction, and Indian geography uses a simplified version of it with six classes.

Normal species are those whose population levels are considered normal for their survival, such as cattle, sal, pine and rodents. They are abundant and in no danger.

Endangered species are those in danger of extinction. Their survival is difficult if the negative factors that have led to a decline in their population continue to operate. Examples are the black buck, the crocodile, the Indian wild ass, the Indian rhino, the lion-tailed macaque, the sangai or brow-antlered deer of Manipur, and, among Odisha's animals, the tiger and the olive ridley turtle.

Vulnerable species are those whose population has declined to levels from where they are likely to move into the endangered category in the near future if the negative factors continue to operate. Examples are the blue sheep, the Asiatic elephant, the Gangetic dolphin and the sloth bear.

Rare species are those with small populations that may move into the endangered or vulnerable category if the negative factors affecting them continue to operate. Examples are the Himalayan brown bear, the wild Asiatic buffalo, the desert fox and the hornbill.

Endemic species are those found only in particular areas, usually isolated by natural or geographical barriers, and not naturally found anywhere else. Examples are the Andaman teal, the Nicobar pigeon, the Andaman wild pig and the Mithun of Arunachal Pradesh. Endemic species are especially at risk because a single disaster in their small range can wipe them out.

Extinct species are those not found after searches of known or likely areas where they may occur. A species may be extinct from a local area, region, country, continent or the entire earth. Examples are the Asiatic cheetah, extinct in India since the 1950s, and the pink-headed duck.

The classes form a ladder of danger. A normal species that is hunted or loses its habitat becomes rare, then vulnerable, then endangered, and finally extinct, and the aim of conservation is to stop and reverse this descent. The IUCN's own list uses the terms least concern, near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild and extinct; the student should know that the three middle classes together are called threatened.

Odisha's species illustrate every rung: the spotted deer and wild boar are normal; the elephant and sloth bear vulnerable; the tiger, the salt-water crocodile of Bhitarkanika, the olive ridley turtle and the Irrawaddy dolphin of Chilika endangered or threatened; the black buck of Ganjam, once endangered, recovering; and the cheetah, which roamed the state's dry forests a century ago, extinct.

The importance of biotic resources can be grouped under three heads: productive, protective and cultural.

Productive or economic uses. All food comes from living things: cereals, pulses, vegetables, fruits, oilseeds, sugar, milk, meat, eggs and fish. All natural fibres, cotton, jute, silk, wool, coir and sabai grass, are biotic. Timber for houses, furniture and railway sleepers, bamboo for a hundred uses, fuelwood on which the majority of rural households still cook, fodder for cattle, paper from pulp, rubber, gums, resins, lac, honey, wax, tendu leaves for bidis, kendu, mahua, tamarind and sal seed collected by forest dwellers, and the raw materials of the match, plywood, tanning, dye and cosmetic industries are all biotic resources. Medicine draws heavily on plants: a large part of the traditional Ayurvedic and tribal pharmacopoeia and many modern drugs come from plants and micro-organisms, from quinine and morphine to the antibiotics produced by fungi and bacteria. Fisheries feed millions and earn foreign exchange; Odisha's marine and Chilika fisheries employ several lakh people. Tourism to forests, wetlands and wildlife reserves is a growing source of income.

Protective or ecological uses. These are the services that living things render without being priced. Forests and grasslands hold the soil, prevent erosion and floods, recharge groundwater and keep streams flowing in the dry season. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, regulate the local climate and moderate temperature and rainfall. Mangroves and coastal forests break storm waves and protect the coast, as Bhitarkanika did in 1999. Wetlands filter water and absorb floods. Decomposers make soil and recycle nutrients; insects and birds pollinate crops and control pests. These services are worth far more than the timber or fish taken from an ecosystem, and they are lost when the ecosystem is destroyed.

Cultural and scientific uses. Living things are woven into religion, art and daily life: sacred groves, the peepal and banyan, the elephant of Jagannath's festivals, the peacock and the tiger in folklore. Scientific study of species yields new crops, medicines and materials, and the genetic diversity of wild relatives is the insurance of agriculture against new pests and a changing climate. Forests and wildlife are also a source of recreation and beauty that improves the quality of human life.

The special position of forest-dependent communities should be noted. For the tribal population of Odisha, about a fifth of the state, the forest is not a resource but a home, supplying food, fuel, medicine, building material, income from minor forest produce and the setting of religion and custom. The conservation of biotic resources is, for them, a question of survival, and their knowledge of plants and animals is itself a resource for the whole society.

The great wealth of India's living resources is being lost, and the causes must be understood before they can be checked. Nearly all of them are human.

Habitat destruction. The greatest damage to Indian forests was caused during the colonial period by the expansion of the railways, agriculture, commercial and scientific forestry and mining. Since independence, agricultural expansion continues to be one of the major causes of depletion of forest resources: between 1951 and 1980, according to the Forest Survey of India, over 26,200 square kilometres of forest area was converted into agricultural land all over India. Substantial parts of the tribal belts, especially in the north-east and central India, have been deforested or degraded by shifting cultivation. Large-scale development projects have also contributed: since 1951 over 5,000 square kilometres of forest was cleared for river valley projects, and clearing continues, as for the Narmada Sagar project in Madhya Pradesh which would inundate 40,000 hectares of forest. Mining is another important factor; the Buxa tiger reserve in West Bengal is seriously threatened by dolomite mining, which has disturbed the natural habitat and blocked the migration route of elephants. In Odisha, mining in Keonjhar, Sundargarh and Koraput and reservoirs such as Hirakud and Rengali have taken thousands of square kilometres of forest.

Over-exploitation. Hunting and poaching for meat, hides, horns, ivory and the trade in wildlife products have reduced many species; the tiger, rhino and elephant are the best known victims. Over-grazing, excessive fuelwood collection and the over-harvesting of timber, fish and minor forest produce exhaust the resources faster than they regenerate. Grazing and fuelwood collection are often blamed for degradation, though studies show that they are less important than commercial exploitation.

Pollution. Industrial effluents, pesticides, mine waste, oil spills and solid waste poison rivers, lakes and coasts and the life in them. Chilika suffered from siltation and pollution; the Brahmani carries the waste of Rourkela, Talcher and Angul.

Invasive species. Exotic plants such as lantana, parthenium and water hyacinth and animals such as introduced fish spread through disturbed habitats and crowd out native species.

Forest fires, most of them set by people for grazing or collection of mahua and tendu, destroy regeneration and small animals every summer, as in Similipal in 2021.

Climate change alters rainfall and temperature faster than species can adapt, raises sea level over coastal habitats and bleaches coral reefs.

Behind these direct causes lie social ones. Environmental destruction has fallen most heavily on the poor: the loss of forests and grazing lands has pushed women to walk farther for fuel, fodder and water, and has caused poverty among forest-dependent communities. Unequal access to resources, the concentration of wealth, and the drive for profit without regard for the future are the roots of the depletion described here.

Conservation of biotic resources is the wise use and protection of living things so that they survive and continue to serve. It preserves the ecological diversity and our life support systems, water, air and soil; it preserves the genetic diversity of plants and animals for better growth of species and breeding, as in agriculture where we still depend on traditional crop varieties; and it protects fisheries and forests on which livelihoods depend.

In the 1960s and 1970s conservationists demanded a national wildlife protection programme, and India's response was a set of laws and institutions that remain the framework today.

The Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972 provided the legal framework: it published an all-India list of protected species, banned hunting, gave legal protection to the habitats of wildlife, restricted trade in wildlife, and enabled the creation of national parks and sanctuaries. Central and state governments under it established national parks and wildlife sanctuaries; India now has over a hundred national parks and more than five hundred sanctuaries, covering about 5 per cent of the country. The Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 made the diversion of forest land to non-forest use subject to the approval of the Union government. The Environment (Protection) Act of 1986 gave general powers to protect the environment, and the Biological Diversity Act of 2002, passed after the Rio convention, created the National Biodiversity Authority, state boards and village biodiversity management committees and regulated access to India's genetic resources.

Species projects. The central government announced several projects for protecting specific animals that were gravely threatened. Project Tiger, launched in 1973, is the most famous: the tiger population had fallen from an estimated 55,000 at the turn of the century to 1,827 in 1973 because of poaching for trade, shrinking habitat, depletion of prey and growing human population; the project set up tiger reserves, of which there are now more than fifty including Similipal and Satkosia in Odisha, and the population has recovered to over three thousand. Project Elephant of 1992 created elephant reserves, including Mayurbhanj, Mahanadi and Sambalpur in Odisha. The Crocodile Conservation Project of 1975 began at Tikarpada on the Mahanadi and at Bhitarkanika and Dangamal in Odisha and restored the gharial, mugger and salt-water crocodile. Projects for the one-horned rhinoceros, the Kashmir stag, the great Indian bustard and the snow leopard, and the sea turtle programme at Gahirmatha, complete the list.

Protected areas. A national park is an area reserved for the protection of the whole ecosystem, in which no human activity such as grazing, cultivation or collection is allowed. A wildlife sanctuary protects particular species and permits some regulated human use. A biosphere reserve, under the UNESCO Man and Biosphere programme, is a large area with a strictly protected core, a buffer where research and limited use are allowed, and a transition zone where people live and work; India has eighteen, including Similipal in Odisha. Tiger reserves and elephant reserves are additional designations, and Ramsar sites are wetlands of international importance, of which Chilika, Bhitarkanika, Ansupa, Satkosia gorge, Tampara and Hirakud reservoir are Odisha's.

The protected area system is the backbone of conservation, but it covers only a twentieth of the country, and the rest of the living wealth must be conserved outside it, by the methods described next.

Laws and reserves alone cannot protect the living resources of a crowded country. Conservation strategies are now beginning to widen: they no longer focus on a few big animals but on biodiversity as a whole, and they recognise that the people who live with forests and wildlife are their best guardians.

Community forest protection. In many areas local communities are struggling to conserve habitats along with government officials, recognising that only this will secure their own long-term livelihood. Odisha is the leading example in India. From the 1970s villages in Nayagarh, Dhenkanal, Mayurbhanj, Sambalpur and elsewhere began protecting their degraded forests on their own, with thengapali, the practice of guarding by rotation with a stick passed from house to house. The Binjhagiri hill forest of Kesharpur in Nayagarh, protected since the 1970s by the villagers under the Brikshya O Jeevar Bandhu Parishad, regrew from bare hill to dense forest and became a model for the state. The Joint Forest Management programme, which Odisha was the first state to adopt by a resolution of 1988, followed by the national programme of 1990, gives village forest protection committees a share in the produce of the forest they guard. Today more than ten thousand village committees in Odisha protect several thousand square kilometres of forest.

Sacred groves. Nature worship is an age-old tribal belief based on the premise that all creations of nature have to be protected. Sacred groves, patches of forest dedicated to a deity and left untouched, survive in almost every part of the country; the Mundas and Santhals of the Chota Nagpur region worship the mahua and kadamba trees, and the tribes of Odisha and Bihar worship the tamarind and mango during weddings. Many of us hold the peepal and banyan sacred. Sacred groves are refuges of rare plants and animals and are now recognised in the Biological Diversity Act.

Community protection of species. The Bishnois of Rajasthan have protected the black buck, chinkara, nilgai and peacock for centuries. In Odisha the villagers of Bhetnoi and neighbouring villages in Ganjam protect the black buck as sacred and its population has multiplied; the fishermen of Mangalajodi on Chilika, once bird hunters, became bird guides and guards; and coastal villages join the protection of turtle nesting beaches.

Movements. The Chipko movement in the Himalaya in the 1970s, in which villagers hugged trees to stop felling, not only saved the forests but showed that community afforestation with indigenous species can succeed. The Beej Bachao Andolan in Tehri and Navdanya have shown that diversified crop production without chemicals is possible. In Odisha the Niyamgiri movement of the Dongria Kondh in Rayagada and Kalahandi against bauxite mining on their sacred hills, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2013, protected both a forest and a people.

The Forest Rights Act of 2006 and the recognition of community forest resource rights give legal standing to this participation. Conservation, in this wider view, is not fencing nature off from people but restoring the ancient partnership between them, and Odisha's villages have shown the country how it is done.

Living things do not respect borders. Migratory birds cross continents, sea turtles nest on one coast and feed on another, and the trade in wildlife products spans the world. Conservation therefore needs international cooperation, and a Class 10 student should know its main instruments.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), founded in 1948, maintains the Red List of threatened species that gives the categories studied earlier and guides national action. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and other organisations support projects; Project Tiger began with WWF support.

The Ramsar Convention on wetlands of international importance, signed in 1971 in Iran, lists wetlands that countries undertake to conserve. Odisha's Chilika, listed in 1981, was the first Indian site along with Keoladeo; Bhitarkanika followed in 2002, and Ansupa, Satkosia gorge, Tampara and Hirakud reservoir were added in 2021 and 2022.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of 1973 regulates the trade in listed species and their products, such as ivory, tiger parts, rhino horn, turtle shell and rare orchids, so that hunting for the market is cut off at the border. India is a party and the Wildlife Protection Act gives it effect.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, commits countries to conserve biodiversity, to use it sustainably and to share fairly the benefits of genetic resources. India's Biological Diversity Act of 2002 implements it. The Convention on Migratory Species protects animals such as the olive ridley turtle and the migratory birds of Chilika along their whole route.

The UNESCO Man and the Biosphere programme of 1971 established the world network of biosphere reserves in which conservation is combined with research and the sustainable use by local people; Similipal joined the world network in 2009. The World Heritage Convention lists natural sites of outstanding value, such as Kaziranga, the Sundarbans and the Western Ghats.

The Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement of 2015 are also conservation instruments, since climate change is now among the greatest threats to species, and forests are counted as carbon sinks under them.

International cooperation also takes the form of transboundary reserves, shared research and funding. For Odisha it matters directly: the olive ridley turtles that nest at Gahirmatha and Rushikulya are protected by fishing rules at sea and by agreements with countries along their migration; the birds of Chilika come from Siberia, Central Asia and the Himalaya; and the trade that once threatened the state's crocodiles and tigers is checked by CITES. Conservation begins in the village but must reach around the world.

The greatest biotic resource of Odisha is its forest, and this section gives the overview that the next lesson develops in detail.

The recorded forest area of the state is about 58,136 square kilometres, which is about 37 per cent of its geographical area, against the national average of about 23 per cent and the national target of 33 per cent. Of this, reserved forests are about 26,300, protected forests about 15,500 and other forests the rest. Actual forest cover measured by the Forest Survey of India in 2021 was about 52,156 square kilometres, about 33.5 per cent of the state, of which very dense forest was about 7,200, moderately dense about 21,300 and open forest about 23,600 square kilometres. Odisha ranks among the top states in forest cover, and its cover has grown slowly in recent assessments.

The forests lie in the highlands. The northern plateau of Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and Sundargarh carries the sal forests of Similipal and the Bonai and Keonjhar hills. The Eastern Ghats of Kandhamal, Gajapati, Rayagada, Koraput, Kalahandi, Nabarangpur and Malkangiri carry mixed deciduous forests, the wettest with semi-evergreen patches. The central tableland of Angul, Dhenkanal, Boudh and Nayagarh has dry deciduous forests around the Mahanadi gorge of Satkosia. The coast has the mangroves of Bhitarkanika and the Mahanadi mouth and plantations of casuarina. The coastal plain itself has little forest.

By type, the forests are mainly tropical moist deciduous, with sal as the dominant tree, followed by tropical dry deciduous forests in the drier west and centre, small areas of tropical semi-evergreen forest in the wettest hills, mangrove forest on the tidal coast, and scrub and savanna on the degraded laterite. The chief species are sal, teak, bamboo, kendu, mahua, sisoo, asan, piasal, kusum, harida, bahada, amla and hundreds of medicinal plants.

The economic role of the forest is large. Timber and bamboo supply the paper mills and the construction trade; kendu leaf, sal seed, mahua flower, tamarind, honey, lac, hill broom and medicinal plants are minor forest produce collected by lakhs of tribal families and marketed through cooperatives; and the forests supply fuelwood to most rural households. The ecological role is larger still: the forested catchments feed the Mahanadi, Brahmani, Baitarani, Rushikulya and Vamsadhara, hold the soil of the uplands, moderate the climate and shelter the wildlife of the next lesson.

The threats are those already described: mining in Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Jajpur and Koraput; reservoirs; encroachment; podu; fires; fuelwood and timber removal; and the growing pressure of industry. The responses, from reserved forests and community protection to the Forest Rights Act, are Odisha's contribution to Indian conservation.

Besides its forests Odisha holds biotic wealth of a rarer kind in its lagoon, its mangroves, its beaches and its rivers, which make the state one of the most important conservation areas of the country.

Chilika, spread over Puri, Khordha and Ganjam districts, is the largest brackish-water lagoon in Asia, about 1,100 square kilometres in the monsoon, connected to the Bay of Bengal by a mouth. It is the largest wintering ground of migratory birds in the Indian subcontinent; every winter more than ten lakh birds of about two hundred species, flamingos, pelicans, ducks, geese, waders and raptors, arrive from Siberia, Central Asia, the Himalaya and beyond, concentrated in the Nalabana bird sanctuary and around Mangalajodi. The lagoon supports about 225 species of fish, the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, and the livelihood of about two lakh fisherfolk. It was the first Ramsar site of India in 1981, fell into decline from siltation, weed growth and prawn farming, was restored by the Chilika Development Authority after a new sea mouth was opened in 2000, and its recovery is an international model.

Bhitarkanika in Kendrapara district is the second largest mangrove forest of India after the Sundarbans, about 650 square kilometres of tidal creeks and mangrove islands at the mouths of the Brahmani and Baitarani. It holds India's largest population of the salt-water crocodile, about 1,800, including some of the largest individuals in the world, along with the king cobra, water monitor, spotted deer, wild boar, fishing cat, otter and a heronry of thousands of nesting birds. It is a national park, a Ramsar site and a wildlife sanctuary, and its mangroves protected the coast in 1999.

Gahirmatha beach, within the Bhitarkanika sanctuary, and the Rushikulya river mouth in Ganjam and Devi mouth in Puri are the mass nesting grounds of the olive ridley sea turtle. In the arribada, or mass nesting, of February and March, several lakh female turtles come ashore on a few kilometres of beach in a few nights, the largest such gathering in the world. Gahirmatha marine sanctuary, created in 1997, and the seasonal ban on fishing protect them.

Similipal in Mayurbhanj, with its sal forests, waterfalls and meadows, holds the tiger, elephant, leopard, gaur, sambar, wild dog, mugger crocodile and about three hundred bird species and is a biosphere reserve, tiger reserve and elephant reserve. Satkosia on the Mahanadi gorge is a tiger reserve and gharial sanctuary. Debrigarh beside Hirakud, Sunabeda in Nuapada, Karlapat in Kalahandi, Kuldiha in Balasore, Chandaka-Dampara elephant sanctuary at the edge of Bhubaneswar, Balukhand-Konark for black buck and Nandankanan zoological park with its white tigers complete the main list.

Odisha has about two thousand wild elephants, the largest population in eastern India, whose conflict with people around mines, farms and railways is the state's hardest wildlife problem; about thirty tigers in Similipal; the recovering black buck of Ganjam; and the Irrawaddy dolphins of Chilika. The protection of this wealth, its threats and its management are the subject of the lesson on wildlife resources that follows.

The unit ends by gathering its lessons into the principles by which biotic resources should be managed, in India and especially in Odisha, and by noting what the examination expects.

Harvest within renewal. The first rule of any living resource is to take no more each year than nature replaces: fell no more timber than the forest grows, catch no more fish than the stock breeds, graze no more cattle than the pasture carries. Working plans for forests, fishing limits and closed seasons for Chilika and the sea, and grazing rotations apply this rule. Where it has been broken, as in Chilika in the 1990s, the resource has collapsed; where it has been kept, as in the community-protected forests, the resource has grown.

Protect the habitat, not only the species. A tiger without a forest, a turtle without a beach or a dolphin without a clean lagoon cannot be saved. The protected area system, the forest conservation law and the coastal and wetland rules exist to keep habitats intact, and every development decision, mine, dam, road, port or factory, should be tested against them through environmental impact assessment.

Conserve diversity at every level. Gene banks and in-farm conservation of traditional crop varieties, the protection of wild relatives, seed exchanges and the recognition of farmers' varieties keep the genetic base of agriculture; the protection of all types of ecosystems, from mangrove to dry forest, keeps the range of habitats.

Share the benefits and the responsibility with local people. Forest rights, joint forest management, community reserves, eco-tourism run by villagers, fair prices for minor forest produce and the settlement of shifting cultivators bind the interest of the community to the survival of the resource. Odisha's own history proves that this works.

Reduce pressure through alternatives. Cooking gas and improved stoves reduce fuelwood cutting; fodder plantations and stall feeding reduce grazing; social forestry and farm forestry supply timber and poles; aquaculture done properly relieves wild fisheries.

Restore what has been damaged. Afforestation with native species, mangrove replanting, wetland restoration, the reclamation of mined land and the removal of invasive species can recover degraded ecosystems, as Chilika and Kesharpur show.

Educate and involve. Every student can plant and protect trees, refuse products of wildlife, avoid plastic that ends in rivers and the sea, and take part in the biodiversity register of the village or school.

In the examination, this unit yields questions on the meaning and levels of biodiversity, the ecosystem and food chain, the classification of species with examples, the causes of depletion, the laws and projects with their dates, the difference between national park, sanctuary and biosphere reserve, community conservation with Odisha examples, and the biotic wealth of Odisha. Answer each with a definition, a clear list and at least one example from the state.