To be eligible to be categorized as biodiversity hotspot, a region must fulfill following criteria:
1. It should have more than 0.5% of total endemic species of the world. It should have at least 1500 endemic species.
2. At least 70% of original habitat of the region should have been destroyed, i.e. is under threat because of human activities.
3. Such regions are in immediate need of conservation and hence are categorized as biodiversity hotspots. Conservation programmes are implemented at large scale in such regions. The 34 biodiversity hotspots of the world are home to 42% endemic species, 55% freshwater fish and 50% endemic species of plants. Some important biodiversity hotspots of the world are, Atlantic forest, group of east Malaysian islands, Mountains of south west China, islands of Madagascar, Central America, Columbia, Central Chile, Eastern Himalayas, Western Ghats, Sri Lanka, Indo-Burma, etc.
