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| Flora and Fauna |
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| Flora refers to plant species and fauna refers to animal species. The term biota includes both plant as well as the domesticated and wild species of animals. Our country has a rich diversity of flora and fauna. There are over 45,000 plant species and 81,251 animal species. It represents about 7% of world's flora and 6.5% of world's fauna. |
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| Plants are the main source of food, fodder and other useful things such as fuel (fire wood), fibre, timber, medicine, gums, tannin etc. |
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| Flora and fauna of India form the following two most important natural resources. |
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| Forests can be described as uncultivated and uninhabited pieces of land covered by trees and shrubs. |
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| Forests play a vital role in the life and culture of the people. They form an important renewable natural resource. India has about 63.5% million hectares of forests and forms 1/5th of the geographical area of the country. |
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| Uses of forests |
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| Forests are intimately linked with our culture and civilization. Forests are useful to us in many ways: |
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 Forests provides timber for the furniture and building |
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 Forests provides raw material for paper, board and plywood industry |
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 Forests provides fodder for cattle, sheep, goat and other animals |
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 Forests provides bamboo which is called poor man's timber |
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 Forests gives protection to wild life |
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 Forests helps in balancing the carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere. During photosynthesis, plants release O2 and use CO2 thus, they put check on the green house effect. |
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 Forests regulate the earth's temperature and weather cycle. They enhance local rainfall |
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 Forests check soil erosion, landslides and also prevent floods |
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 Forests protect wild life |
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 Forests also provide fruits, nuts, gums, rubber, dyes, fibre, medicines, camphor, essential oils etc. |
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 Forests are major sources of various animal products such as honey, wax, tussore, lac etc. |
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| Naturally occurring animals, plants and their species, which are not cultivated, domesticated and tamed, are called wild life. The Indian fauna includes variety of animal life such as mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects etc i.e. about 800 species of mammals, 2000 species of birds, 420 species of reptiles, 2000 species of fish, 50,000 species of insects, 4000 species of molluscs (Source K.C.Agarwal, 1998). |
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| The animals like black buck, nilgiri tahr, pigmy hog, golden langur, lion tailed macaque etc are unique to India. |
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| Wild life has links in food chain from which we derive benefits. Rodents and different insects are controlled by hawks, kites and snakes. It plays a vital role in biological control and maintains ecological balance in forests. When man destroys wild life, the ecological balance is upset. When forests are destroyed, harmful insects such as caterpillars, borers, and moths increase in number since birds are no longer there to eat them. |
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