The Kerala State Biodiversity Board (KSBB) is hoping to get academic institutions and government and non-government establishments to help with the conservation of rare, endangered, and threatened plant species found in the State.
The board has invited proposals from research and development institutes, universities, and government and non-government institutions for setting up conservatories for red-listed flora of Kerala outside their natural habitats.
The board has also published a list of 297 plants/trees from which interested institutions and organisations can choose from. The list includes several ‘Critically Endangered’ species such as Crinum malabaricum (Amaryllidaceae), an aquatic plant, and Buchanania barberi, a very rare tree found in the Western Ghats, in addition to numerous species in the ‘Endangered’ and ‘Vulnerable’ categories.
This list is based on a first-of-its-kind Red Data Book on plants of Kerala prepared by the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (JNTBGRI), Palode, last year under a project funded by the State Biodiversity Board, board chairman C. George Thomas told The Hindu.
The list had employed International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria to classify species. ‘‘Today, it is very hard to find sufficient saplings of many of these species when we need them for biodiversity parks or gardens and for ecosystem restoration schemes,’‘ Dr. Thomas said, adding that conservatories at the local level can help conserve and propagate these species.
Under the KSBB scheme, institutions and organisations are expected to develop ex situ conservatories of the threatened species on their land with long-term conservation strategies in mind.
They would be eligible for financial assistance ranging from ₹2 lakh to ₹5 lakh during the one-year project period.
Species chosen for conservation can include plants that are rare in a particular locality or plants currently threatened with extinction at local, regional, or global level, according to the board. ‘‘The expected outcome of the project is to conserve the red-listed plants of Kerala in different districts which will naturally develop into a human-made forest through natural succession over the course of time,’‘ the board said in its proposal.
