Sri Lanka - A Hotspot of Biodiversity

46 on Amazing Biodiversity
Human has been the most complex creation of Earth's Biodiversity who has the power to protect or destroy it. All the characteriscs of the Human decide on DNA that consists of 46 pieces known as Chromosomes that takes the gene pool forward. To stress the power of humanity that should come forward to protect Earth's valued Biodiversity, 46 pieces on interesting aspects of Sri Lanka's biodiversity will be published throughout year 2010. This is the first piece of the series '46 on our Amazing Biodiversity' 
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Biological diversity - or biodiversity - is the term given to the variety of life on Earth and the natural patterns it forms. The biodiversity we see today is the fruit of billions of years of evolution, shaped by natural processes and, increasingly, by the influence of humans. It forms the web of life of which we are an integral part and upon which we so fully depend. But this valued Biodiversity on earth is threatened by our own activities. United Nations, identifying this as a serious threat to our own survival has declared the year 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity. 

Despite its relatively small land area of 65,610 sq.km, Sri Lanka is blessed with exceptionally high diversity of animals and plants. This made our country being recognized together with Western Ghats of India as an area having one of the richest biodiversity of the world known as biodiversity hotspot. Only 34 such hotspots were identified in the whole world stressing the wealth of the biological diversity treasure of the island called Sri Lanka. 

“Endemic biodiversity in Sri Lanka is exceptionally high” pointed out Vimukthi Weerathunga – the head of Biodiversity Unit of the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Sri Lanka. These species we called Endemic are not occurring anywhere in the world, so if they disappear from Sri Lanka, they will be gone forever. According to IUCN who publishes the Red List which is accepted as the status of world species; 27 % of the flowering plants, 84 % of the amphibians, 50% of the reptiles, 54 % of the fresh water fish, 85 % of the land-snails are endemic to Sri Lanka. 

But the most fascinating creatures found in country are Fresh water crabs where all the 51 species discovered in Sri Lanka can not be found elsewhere in the world. “100% of the freshwater crabs are endemic to the island, but Public interest in freshwater crab conservation is unfortunately rather low” said Vimukthi Weeratunga highlighting the need to put more attention on Invertebrate animals, which often escape our attention. Amphibians are another group where Sri Lanka records one of the highest endemism in the whole world. But 17 of these species were also got extinct putting Sri Lanka on the top of the world that lost the highest number of Amphibians during the last century. 

So, according to the above figures, it is obvious that the wealth of our biodiversity lies on these small creatures. But most of the conservation plans are targeting to protect charismatic animals like Elephants or Leopards. When contacted the Department of Wildlife, its Deputy Directory H.D.Ratnayake commented that department takes the approach of conserving habitats as a whole rather than focusing small, small animals individually. “When the ecosystem is protected, the small species live in them will automatically be protected” Ratnayake said. Island of Sri Lanka blessed with vast number of ecosystem diversity due to its geo-climatic variations. Ecosystem diversity is very important part of the biodiversity as every ecosystem has its own unique species diversity. Conservation focus on ecosystem diversity will protect not only the species that inhabit those habitats but also interaction of habitat specific species and their biophysical components as well. 

Sri Lanka also has an unfair balance of protected areas where majority is located in the dry zone. More than 75% of total Endemic Species are restricted to rainforests of wet zone and the cloud forests of montane regions. For example, out of the 830 endemic flowering plants of Sri Lanka, 92% found in the lowland tropical forests that cover only 2% of the total land area. Although vast expense of dry zone covers 65% of the land area, only 8% of the endemic flowering plants are existing in dry zone forest habitats. But wet zone is having only few protected areas. To make the matter worst, there is lots of human pressure on these biodiversity rich rain forests that continues to shrink. Encroachment has been a huge problem and the lowland tea plantations continue to spread further fragmenting the remaining wet zone forests. Tomatoe, livestocks and other farming activities are posing problems to the hill country habitats fragmenting the forest patches. This fragmentation could affect the genetic diversity of the species which is another very important aspect of the Biodiversity. When isolated, the species trapped in a small area continues to breed with a small number of species, hence loosing the chance to mix with other species of its own. 

There are multiple threats to Sri Lanka’s biodiversity other than the habitat loss. Extensive use of Agro-chemicals is another bad habit that pollutes the water and soil eradicating the small animals. The ecosystems in the wet zone are so fragile, that removing of one factor can be catastrophic. One such example is Wilpita Rasbora (Raspora wilpita) one of the endemic freshwater fish discovered in 1990s from a stream in Wildpita in Matara district. When the Wildlife Conservation Society of Galle had done a survey recently, they couldn’t find this small fish in the stream where it was discovered few years ago. This fish that prefers shady streams couldn’t be located, perhaps due to agro chemical use or due to change of the vegetation around the stream. Invasive species that are introduced to accidently or deliberately also puts a huge pressure on biodiversity. Introduced Tillapia fish had removed most of the native fish species from our water bodies. Invasive plants like Lanthana or Eulex are only few examples. 

However, there is a rare positive side too. Discoveries and rediscoveries of Animals continue to strengthen the pool of Sri Lanka’s biodiversity. “We had re-discovered Omestonii’s Oakblue butterfly after 100 years that is believed to be gone extinct recently from Kanneliya. The butterfly was discovered in 1917 in Nakiyadeniya by a naturalist named Omestonii, but when he return to Sri Lanka in 1927, the habitat was destroyed for rubber plantations and butterfly couldn’t be located raising fears of extinction. There were many researches carried out from then, but until recently it escaped the researchers’ watchful eyes. “The availability of new tools and the renewed enthusiasm of researchers are a good sign for biodiversity where a quite a number of new species discovered in recent years” commented Madhura de Silva – the president of the Wildlife Conservation Society of Galle. 

There can be much more hidden biodiversity as such. The Biodiversity Secretariat established under the Environmental Ministry has also doing a commendable job encouraging the new researches to have more focus on small creatures. One such project carried out by the Wildlife Conservation Society of Galle which was funded by the Biodiversity Secretariat ended up discovering 4 new species. Biodiversity secretariat had also published few guide books aiming at giving knowledge to amateur researchers. 

“We need a clear conservation plan to protect our biodiversity and it should goes beyond the traditional approach of saving habitats” says Vimukthi of IUCN. He suggests modern mechanisms such as River Basin conservation approach. According to this methodology the river basins of selected rivers can be developed. A river goes through many ecosystems from Ridges of highlands to the Reefs of ocean. So it flows through different habitats which house a variety of species. Vimukthi also points out the importance of getting the community participation, where human participation for conservation action is very important for the protection of Biodiversity. 

The loss of biodiversity threatens our food supplies, opportunities for recreation and tourism, and sources of wood, medicines and energy. Imagine sudden disappearance of Blue Whales from Mirissa. It will be catastrophic to the budding tourism industry based on whale-watching. Likewise Biodiversity’s economic value too is huge. “Conservation of biological heritage of Sri Lanka is not only a job of conservationists, but also every single citizen has an important role to play” urges Vimukthi Weeratunga. 

Hence the time has come to protect the biodiversity at least thinking in our self-interest. So let’s take the International Year of Biodiversity – the New Year dawn few days ago to get a conscious effort to save our valued biodiversity.  

Sinharaja and Freshwater Crab (c) Vimukthi Weeratunga | Rasbora wilpita (c) Wildlife Conservation Society of Galle