Check out our new WordPress blog Project Brahma - a blog on environment, education and social topics relevant to India. Click here.
Biodiversity of India Wiki is Semantic Wiki of the Month for May 2012! Click here.
Welcome to Biodiversity Of India!
What is this project about? We strongly believe that knowledge is the first step towards any kind of change. Thus, we created this Biodiversity Of India website. The BOI website, part of the Project Brahma Initiative, is an open-source, community driven project, much like Wikipedia, where anyone - regardless of their religion, nationality, language, expertise - can contribute their knowledge of India's biodiversity.
An elephant ornately decorated for a religious occasion at the temple in South India. Indian biodiversity gives the culture its unique identity.
Why do we need to do this? India is a megadiverse nation, housing around 6-12% of world's species. India also has a rich cultural heritage going back thousands of years. Much of Indian biodiversity is intricately related to the socio-cultural practices of the land. Unfortunately, due to population explosion, climate change and lax implementation of environmental policies, several species are facing the threat of extinction. Not only does this affect the food chain, but also the livelihood and the culture of millions of Indians who depend on local biodiversity.
It is vital that the common man is made aware of the domino effect of species loss and what we stand to lose. Project Brahma aims to create such awareness, by increasing participation of the people in biodiversity documentation and conservation. In addition, there are several organizations carrying out notable conservation work in India. Our aim is also to create a central resource where such organizations can access all kinds of knowledge about Indian biodiversity. We imagine that the Biodiversity of India website will significantly enhance environmental conservation efforts in India. Learn more about the need and aims of this project...
What we do... The Biodiversity Of India website is under the umbrella of Project Brahma. Our project has both online as well as field components. We are working on four different aspects of Indian biodiversity (and you are welcome to contribute to any of them!):
About us We are common, everyday folks who felt agitated by the problem of species loss and decided to do something about it. People running this site on everyday basis are PhD students and postdocs from reputed academic institutions in India and abroad. However, our contributors and supporters have included people from all walks of life - web designers, artists, college professors, freelance writers, NGO activists and academics. We encourage you to join us and help us in our mission to spread awareness about India's biodiversity!Know more about the people running this site...
Explore this website
Check out the following links and get to know this wiki better!
Only 20 articles are listed here. For more, click on (further results) on the bottom right corner of the table above.
Recently added species
An integral component of the this wiki is to document scientific, traditional and socio-cultural knowledge about various Indian species and present it in ways that make it interesting and enable its easy extraction. We are currently focused on plant and mammalian species. A total of 664 species currently exist in the database and several of them have some information filled in.
A total of 664 species pages in the database as of this moment. 233 have some information filled in.
Want to make a new entry? Edit existing entries? Click here
Like us on Facebook!
Featured Video
The amazing sites of the Western Ghats of India This video narrates the story of an Orissa farmer named Natabar Sarangi who has been collecting rice varieties for a long time now. He has managed to save and reintroduce over 350 varieties of rice back in India.
These writeups are a part of Division:Community pages section of this website where we have tried to document the myriad connections between India's flora and fauna and its peoples. Through these writeups, we hope to provide a reason, a purpose for the common man to start thinking about biodiversity conservation.
In several Himalayan states like Uttarakhand, ecology is highly synonymous with the religions practiced. In the nine districts in Uttarakhand, there are 168 sacred natural sites including 75 sacred forests, 74 sacred groves, 10 water bodies and 9 pastures. In some cases, entire forest areas are dedicated to deities. Let alone resource exploitation, trespassing into the sacred forests is considered a taboo, punishable by the wrath of the deity. As a result, forest areas flourish untouched. The only occasion these areas are accessed, with minimal invasion, is during annual festivals. Continue reading...
Fig trees in Rome, Greece and in Christianity Contributed by: Gaurav Moghe
Prophet Isaiah
Figs have been consumed with relish since ancient times, even by the Romans and Greeks. According to an ancient myth, fig was the favorite fruit of Bacchus, the Lord of Carnival and the Lord of Wine. Fig juices were also used in religious ceremonies. In addition, the fig tree is widely employed in Roman symbolic traditions, as the twin founders of Rome - Romulus and Remus - when they were infants, were transported by the River deity Tiberinus in a basket made from roots of the fig tree. The fig tree, in Rome, was considered an emblem of the future prosperity of the race. Continue reading...
Man made radiation and nature's resilience Contributed by: Mohan Rajinikanth
The 1000-year old cherry tree near Fukushima
In 1986, the worst nuclear accident in history- the Chernobyl disaster- occurred in Ukraine. It was the result of the explosion of a nuclear reactor built to generate electric power. The blast splattered radioactive material across 200,000 square kilometers of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. Many plants and animals died quickly from radiation overdose. Pine tree needles withered away, earning an area near the destroyed reactor, the name ‘Red Forest’. More than a third of a million people were evacuated. A 60 mile exclusion zone was created. But with the migration of people, began a spectacular ingress and resurgence of animals and plants. Continue reading...
A total of 65 articles in the database as of this moment. For the complete list, click on any article, then scroll down on the subsequent page
.jpg)
