Wildlife is directly or indirectly useful in many ways for human beings. They are the source of food, medicines, fibres, rubber, timber, fuel wood etc. It makes the nature healthy by balancing the ecosystem.
1. Source of Food and Improved varieties –
The biodiversity is useful for modern agriculture in following three ways –
- Source for new crops
- Material for the reproduction of improved varieties.
- Source for new biodegradable pesticides
Out of thousands of food yielding plants only 20% or less species are grown in the world to yield 85% of the food. Three main crops viz – Wheat, Maize and Rice provide food for 2/3 of human population.
The genes of wild species are used to improve the characters of domestic species such as disease resistant, cold resistant, more production etc. For example, a variety of rice found in Asia was made resistant to grassy stunt virus using the genes of one wild Indian species, Oryza nivara i.e Oryza nivara is a wild progenitor of the cultivated rice Oryza sativa.
2. Drugs and Medicines –
Many important drugs are derived from the plant and their products. About 25% of medicines used today in India are obtained from 120 species of plants but in the world thousands of plant species are used to get conventional medicines. The plants are used to synthesize many botanochemicals or phytochemicals.
For example Opium (Papaver somniferum – Morphine) as pain killer and recreational drug, Cinchona (Cinchona ledgeriana – Quinine) for malaria treatment; Taxus (Taxus baccata) cancer treatment: Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea digitoxin) for heart diseases: Mamala tree (Homalanthus nutans prostatin) for AIDS are some useful plants.
3. Aesthetic and Cultural Benefits –
Biodiversity plays an important role in ecotourism, bird watch, wild life and horticulture etc. We have linked biodiversity with the cultural and religious acts since ancient time. Such as Basil (Ocimum sanctum – Tulsi), Fig (Ficus religiosa-pipal) and Khejri
(Prosopus cineraria) etc are grown as religious symbol and are worshiped being sacred plants.
4. Balance of Ecosystem –
Biodiversity is essential for balancing and controlling of ecosystem.
The main roles of biodiversity in to maintain ecological balance, to control air composition, to control of environment of forests and oceans, natural control of pests, pollination of plants by insects and birds, conservation of water and soil etc.
