The report ‘Where Worlds Collide’ prepared by the Eastern Himalayas Network Initiative, mentions that at least 353 new species have been discovered in the Eastern Himalayas between 1998 and 2008, equating to an average of 35 new species find every year for the last 10 years.

The discoveries include 242 plants, 16 amphibians, 16 reptiles, 14 fish, two birds and two mammals, and at least 61 new invertebrates.

Out of these discoveries, three new fish species and 16 new plant species have been found in Sikkim nestled in the middle of the Eastern Himalayan range. The WWF report stated that orchid stands supreme in the plant kingdom for its beauty.

In the Eastern Himalayas, 21 new orchid species have been identified between 1998 and 2008. Roughly one quarter, including the pure white Coelogyne pantlingii were found in Sikkim, the report mentions.

While the WWF is upbeat over the findings in Sikkim and other parts of Eastern Himalayas, another international agency, Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has already underlined the importance of understanding why Sikkim is so important in terms of bio-diversity hotspot.

The JICA had recently said that the continental shift millions of years ago linking Southeast Asia with other parts of Asia led Sikkim to become a faunal gate and species found here are not found elsewhere.

The Eastern Himalayas is at the crossroads of two continental plates represented by the lowland Indo-Malayan Realm and to the north, the elevated Palearctic Realm. The meeting of these worlds has created one of the biologically richest areas on Earth.

Spanning Bhutan, the North-eastern States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, North Bengal and Sikkim, the far north of Myanmar (Burma), Nepal and Tibet, the region includes four of the Global 200 eco-regions, critical landscapes of international biological importance, the WWF report stated.

The Himalayas are home to an estimated 10,000 plant species, 300 mammal species, 977 bird species, 176 reptiles, 105 amphibians and 269 freshwater fish.

The WWF has also highlighted its concerns and said that despite protection efforts, in the last half-century, this area of South Asia has faced a wave of pressures as a result of population growth and the increasing demand for commodities by global and regional markets.

The host of threats includes forest destruction as a result of unsustainable and illegal logging, agriculture, unsustainable fuel wood collection, overgrazing by domestic livestock, illegal poaching and wildlife trade, mining, pollution, hydropower development, and poorly planned infrastructure.