Nagercoil: The Nagercoil municipal council here will take necessary steps to form a management committee for conservation of biodiversity, said the Chairman, Asokan Solomon.
Inaugurating a national seminar on ‘Biodiversity conservation’ recently, he said that the proposed committee would promote conservation of biodiversity, its sustainable use, documentation, preservation of biodiversity habitats and the preparation of biodiversity register. He also agreed to form a technical support group for the biodiversity conservation.
R.S. Lal Mohan, the convener of the seminar, said that the Government should form a district biodiversity board management committee as per the Biodiversity Act 2002 and the Biological Diversity Rule 2004.
The objectives of the biodiversity board was to prevent the depletion of the habitat to prevent poaching, over exploitation, unscientific methods of fishing, conservation of wet land, pollution and invasion of exotic species.
The principal of Women’s Christian college, Sinthikayal, emphasised the importance of biodiversity conservation and urged to save the traditional information.
She asked the student community to involve themselves in the task.
The District Forest Officer, V. Sundara Raju, said the forest was the repository of biodiversity and it should be preserved to ensure proper rainfall and the fertility of the land.
Karsten Wolff from Thiruvananthapuram, a biodiversity expert, said that though Kanyakumari district had about 62 varieties of rice, many varieties have disappeared and some were on the way to extinction.
He also highlighted those traditional varieties of rice, which may have many good qualities such as drought and pest resistance and good taste.
The former Joint-Director of Agriculture, N. Krishna Pillai, said that paddy cultivation has come down from 50,000 hectares to nearly 20,000 hectares in the district.
And if the conversion of agricultural lands was not stopped, the district would have to witness a decline in the rice production in the State.
Joy Mohan Dhas, professor of the department of Botany, Women’s Christian College assured that a management committee on biodiversity would be formed along with a medicinal plant farm.
The college would collect information on traditional medicines, traditional recipes and form a student committee to investigate the pollution in Pazhayar river.
