ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES(ES)

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Lesson 14:Biodiversity and its conservation

Physically the massive country is divided into four well defined regions:

• The Himalaya region
  
• The Gangetic river plains or Indo-gangetic plains
  
• The Southern Plateau
  
• The Islands of Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar.
  

However, our country is divided into 10 major regions, based on the geography, climate and patterns of vegetation seen and the communities of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects and other invertebrates that live in them.

Bio-geographicZones

1. Cold mountaneous snow covered Trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh
   
2. Himalayan ranges and valleys of Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarkhand, Assam and North-Eastern states
   
3. Terai – low land where the Himalayan rivers flow into the plains
   
4. Gangetic and Brahmaputra plains
   
5. Thar desert of Rajasthan
   
6. Semi-arid grassland region of the Deccan plateau, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamilnadu
   
7. North-eastern states of India
   
8. Western ghats in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala
   
9. Andaman and Nicobar islands
   
10. Long western and eastern coastal belt with sandy beaches, forests and mangroves.