Biodiversity in Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a unique state. It has a great variety of ecosystems, a wide range of flora and fauna and a large variety of indigenous crops. These biological assettes are of great economic social and environmental value. The rich biodiversity spread over Maharashtra is now threatened by the state’s rapid and unsustainable economic development.

Maharashtra’s biodiversity is protected in its National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries to a great extent. However, outside these Protected Areas the threat to biological assettes continues to grow. While there are Acts to protect wild species and our forest resources in these Protected Areas outside these Areas, biodiversity can be preserved only if the people of Maharashtra see its importance and begin to preserve it for our future generations.

Maharashtra has always undertaken challenges that seemed impossible to achieve. But these have been metand even exceeded. I am sure that with the help of our citizens – tribal communities, rural people and urban dwellers the combination of our local knowledge systems and modern scientific expertise will lead to thelongterm preservation of biodiversity and its sustainable use for our future generations.