Language: English
The survival of biodiversity is now under severe threat due to over exploitation of natural resources, increasing human population, habitat fragmentation and other developmental activities leading to apparent environmental degradation. The importance and preservation of biodiversity and acknowledgement of the limitation of our knowledge on the status of biodiversity in general and diversity of the Himalayan region in particular, become necessary to update information on various aspects. The Himalaya represents a great deal of variation in altitude, latitude, topography and exposition giving rise to considerable difference in ecoclimate and thus resulting in high biological diversity. There is a major gap in our knowledge of biological resources. This book is the outcome of the contributions made by experts and researchers working across the Himalayan region and these research papers contain a wealth of information on the algae, fungi, lichens, bryophytes, pteridophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms, ethnobotany including medicinal plants, wild edibles, ecology, biotechnology, taxonomic methods, argro-techniques and conservation of rare and endangered plants. Biodiversity is the key to the prosperity of any given region. Biodiversity Potentials of the Himalaya contain much information that will be available to those intended in understanding and solving the problem of biodiversity of the Himalaya.