KOCHI: Experts have long established that climate and biodiversity are interconnected. Hence, it becomes very important to preserve the biodiversity of a place. A fact that Kerala State Biodiversity Board (KSBB) has been trying to instil among the people.
As part of the initiative to upgrade the People Biodiversity Register, the board has launched a project to catalogue the flora and fauna across the state’s various campuses.
“The Campus Biodiversity Register (CBR) aims at not only getting the school, college and university students to learn about the flora and fauna found on their campuses, but also cataloguing them and working towards conserving them,” said Dr V Balakrishnan, member secretary of KSBB.
According to him, the state campuses are very rich in biodiversity. “An example is the Government College, Chittur, in Palakkad district. During a green audit conducted at the college as part of the NAAC accreditation procedure, it was found that the campus had a very rich biodiversity. There are other campuses too that are rich in biodiversity,” he added.
But what does CBR comprise? He said, “A CBR is a systematic, documented inventory of the flora, fauna, and microorganisms found within an educational institution’s grounds. It serves as an essential baseline tool for environmental education, ecological conservation, and tracking green-space management.”
The board has invited applications from educational institutions wanting to take part in the initiative. According to him, applications have been pouring in since the initiative was launched. “Once the applications are received, we will scrutinise them and identify the ones that can be included in the project. The board will also provide training,” said Dr Balakrishnan.
The board will provide financial aid to the educational institutions implementing the initiative, he added. According to the member secretary, the CBR is an initiative that is the phase II of the People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR).
“PBR was a comprehensive grassroots document that recorded local flora, fauna, and associated traditional knowledge. Spearheaded by the KSBB and local Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs), Kerala became the first Indian state to complete these registers across all 1,034 of its local governing bodies,” he added. It has been pointed out that if a campus is found to have a vibrant biodiversity, then the board will take over the responsibility of conserving it as per the Biodiversity Act.
What is CBR?
Campus Biodiversity Register is a systematic, documented inventory of the flora, fauna, and microorganisms found within an educational institution’s grounds
It serves as an essential baseline tool for environmental education, ecological conservation, and tracking green-space management
This story is reported by Anu Kuruvilla
