Biological Diversity of Kerala: A survey of Kalliasseri panchayat, Kannur district T.P. Sreedharan Discussion Paper No. 62 Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development Centre for Development Studies Thiruvananthapuram Biological Diversity of Kerala: A survey of Kalliasseri panchayat, Kannur district T.P. Sreedharan English Discussion Paper Rights reserved First published 2004 Editorial Board: Prof. P. R. Gopinathan Nair, H. Shaji Printed at: Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development Published by: Dr K. N. Nair, Programme Co-ordinator, Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development, Centre for Development Studies, Prasanth Nagar, Ulloor, Thiruvananthapuram Cover Design: Defacto Creations ISBN No: 81-87621-65-6 Price: Rs 40 US$ 5 KRPLLD 2004 0500 ENG 2 Contents Page No. 1 Introduction 4 2 Objectives and method 16 3 Studies on biodiversity in India: an overview 19 4 Socio-economic profile of study area 25 5 Plant diversity 34 6 Fauna 53 7 Cultural heritage and lifestyle 66 8 Summary and conclusions 85 9 Suggestions 87 APPENDIX Appendix I Convention on biological diversity 90 References 176 3 Biological Diversity of Kerala: A survey of Kalliasseri panchayat, Kannur district T.P. Sreedharan 1. Introduction Biodiversity Effective utilisation of biodiversity determines prosperity. This is so because of the limitless potential for application of biodiversity for human welfare. Biodiversity is the most significant of the resources available to man (Pushpangadan, 1999). Biodiversity encompasses the limitless array of organisms from microbes to large life forms. We owe our achievements for the past 500 years to biodiversity. Tropical regions where light and water are available in plenty are the abodes of biodiversity. India and Latin America are important examples. Sixty-five thousand species of flowering plants have been recorded from Latin American countries. Fifteen thousand species of flowering plants have been ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: It was Dr M. P. Parameswaran who encouraged me to take up research on Biodiversity of Kalliassery and introduced me to Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development (KRPLLD). I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Dr Parameswaran. Let me also express my gratefulness to Dr K N. Nair for sanctioning a project under KRPLLD, which provided the funds for carrying out this study. I have received generous support from all the panchayat members of Kalliasseri, especially from its president Smt. Janaki teacher. She granted me freedom to make use of the documents and the infrastructural facilities of the Panchayat Office. The Panchayat Development Committee rendered the study all help and support. I express my sincere thanks to all of them. The services rendered by more than 20 volunteers as facilitators and by Sri. K. V. Babu, Sri. P. P. Sasi, Sri. P.V. Prabhakaran, Sri. Jerry Thomas and Sri. Manoj Nambiar who served in the project for varying periods as Research Assistants and Field Investigators, are gratefully acknowledged. My gratitude goes also to Sri K. Radhakrishnan, Assistant Director, Zoological Survey of India, Hyderabad, Sri E. Unnikrishnan, Sri. V.C. Balakrishnan, Sri. Dineshan Cheruvat and Prof. M. Bhaskaran, who rendered yeomen service in the identification of species from the specimens collected. Dr Vineetha Menon helped by translating some texts in Malayalam into English. Prof. M. K. Prasad was kind enough to go through an earlier draft of the report and offer valuable suggestions. Sri. T. Gangadharan gave a few suggestions some of which have been incorporated in this report. Dr. Khaleel Chovva corrected the manuscript on plant diversity. The Scientists at the Centre for Environment and Development, especially Sri. Renjan Mathew Varghese and Dr Babu Ambat, Director, Centre for Environment Development, helped me with suggestions for improvement of the report. My gratitude goes to all of them. Veterans like Sri. M. P. Narayanan Nambiar spent many hours with us nostalgically digging up the past from memory. Several schoolteachers and their students, farmers, artisans and vaidyas came forward with help at various stages of the project. Documentation by photography and video recording was done by Sri. C. Unnikrishnan. Had it not been for the sincere co-operation rendered by the people of Kalliasseri, this work would not have been completed. There are so many of them that I do not venture to mention them all by name. I take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to them all. Let me conclude with the disclaimer: all the errors that remain in the report are all entirely my own. T.P. Sreedharan is Former Head, Department of Zoology, Payyannur College, Payyannur. 4 recorded from India (Agarwal, 1999). Among the biodiversity-rich nations, India is unique being the only country with the largest sub-specific diversity. Sixteen thousand and five hundred varieties of rice are cultivated in India. Six hundred varieties of rice are cultivated in Kerala alone. There are 300 varieties of lemongrass and 1000 varieties of mango in India. There exist numerous examples to prove India’s richness of biodiversity. In the case of microbes also India is rich. Several new species of fungi, algae and bacteria are being reported from India almost by the day. Our forests are fast degrading due to anthropogenic factors. Among the twenty-five biodiversity hotspots recorded all over the world, two are in India. These are the Western Ghats and Sub-Himalayas (Indo-Burma). The biodiversity of Western Ghats has been well known for millennia. It is considered to be the centre of origin of important commercial spices like pepper, cardamom and ginger (Nair, 1997). India’s forests and their biodiversity were the significant source of income for the colonialists since 1750. Forests resources had been severely exploited. Teak and Rosewood were extracted in large scale for shipbuilding. Biodiversity of the colonies and western technology made the western countries the leading economic powers of the world. The present-day developed countries do not possess such diverse life forms. Developing countries are also the storehouse of information on various unique applications of biodiversity. Tribesfolk of such countries have utilized 30 percent of the biodiversity of their environments for various purposes. It is a pity that indigenous information on biodiversity has not been properly documented. The past two decades have seen tremendous progress in the field of biotechnology. Biotechnological processes make use of their life forms or derivatives to make or modify products or processes for specific uses. Under General Agreement on Trade and Tariff (GATT) principles such as Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), micro-organisms, plants and animals may be patented to make them exclusive private property. Developed countries have always used Third World germplasm freely or modified them. Such modified materials have been used for commercial applications. Huge profits thus earned have not been shared with Third World countries that are the legal owners of the resources. There are many examples of our indigenous knowledge or resources being patented in other countries. Neem, Turmeric, Jamun, Carela, Brinjal, Jute and Basmati rice were patented in the United States. If we were to take counter-measures to prevent such eventualities, we will have first to understand fully our bio-resources. We will also have to document the unique properties and applications of each species and obtain patency for such applications. A shining example of such possibility is that of Arogyapacha (Trychopus zeylanichus), which has been patented by Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI). Biodiversity - definition Biodiversity represents the variety and abundance of life expressed at the genetic, population, species and ecosystem levels, both cultivated and natural, terrestrial and marine. Biodiversity provides the goods and services essential for the survival of human beings and other species 5 on the earth. Thus biodiversity may be roughly defined as the total number of species in a particular area. Conservation of biodiversity is therefore important to ensure sustainable human development. A bacterium, the domestic cow, rice, the resplendent tiger are all part of biodiversity. Biodiversity knows no limits, and no distinction between wild and domesticated, microbial and terrestrial. In short biodiversity is the diversity among all- living forms in this universe’. The term encompasses all species of plants, animals and the ecosystems of which they are part – many of which have developed over several millennia of evolutionary history. Several indices are used to calculate biodiversity. Summative measures, which count the number of species in an area, have proved to be a poor measure of the structure of a community. Weightier indices, attempt however, to describe the structure of a community as well as its richness by reflecting the functional importance of species within that community. It is estimated that there are about 1.4 to 1.7 million species in the world. This is almost certainly an underestimate as it is based largely on those species that live on the land. Many biologists estimate that there may be between 5 and 100 million species, most of which remain yet to be described. Ecosystems that are particularly rich in biodiversity, supporting thousands of species, include tropical rain forests, tropical dry deciduous forests and mangrove swamps. Such areas are seen in Third World countries including India. About 75 percent