Good morning to one and all present over here.

I am
Parth Mishra from class 6 (I am Purva Bhandekar from
class 7) We are representing Channawar’s e-vidya
Mandir and our todays topic is “ARE WE LOOSING
OUR INDIGENOUS VARITIES?”
In our today’s presentation we are going to cover
following points:
Let me start with the famous quote of father of our
nation Mahatma Gandhi
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need but
not every man’s greed.”
Before moving on to our topic lets understand -
What are indigenous varieties?
Indigenous varieties of plants are native plants of a
geographical area, that have been cultivated by farmers
for generations without the use of chemical fertilizers,
pesticides, or genetically modified seeds. They are
adapted to the local soil, climate, and pests, and often
have higher nutritional value, test, and diversity than the
modern high-yielding varieties or hybrids. This includes
plant that have developed naturally or existed for many
years in an area.
Examples-
Ber -Ziziphus Mauritania
Baheda -Terminalia Billerica

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Jamun -Suzygicam cumin
Now coming back to our topic “Are we losing our
indigenous varieties of plants” then the answer to
this is YES
We have lost around 94% of our indigenous food
varieties in the 20th century.
The diversity of our vegetable and grain plants is as
endangered as a panda or a polar bear. We have the
largest seed shortage in history and losing seed is losing
traditional way of eating because once it’s gone it’s
gone.
Threats to indigenous varieties loss
A) Habitat loss – Habitat loss poses the greatest threat
to species. It is a process in which a natural habitat
becomes incapable of supporting its native species
causing the native species to get displaced or even
die.
For example:
Many plants, both wild and agricultural, depend on
pollination to reproduce. However, as you may know,
bee numbers are on the decline because of habitat
loss. The increase of intensive urban development
has meant that bees have lost several of their food
sources. When there are fewer bees pollinating the
flowers and plants, there will be fewer flowers and
plants that can successfully reproduce.

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Habitat loss takes several forms:
a) Habitat destruction: (where habitat is destroyed
either by human interventions or by natural
activities and they can be destroyed gradually or
immediately.)
Example
Conversion of forest to agricultural fields, cutting
down trees, filling in wetlands etc.
Natural activities includes volcanic eruption
rendering a habitat unusable.
b)Habitat degradation: In this process the habitat is
neither destroyed nor made into smaller patches,
but the habitat is made unsuitable for the species to
live in it. Various factors such as pollution, human
invasion and utilization of natural resources
contribute to this.
c) Habitat fragmentation: when large sized habitat is
broken into smaller parts due to human activities
they are called fragmented habitat and it leads to
population decline of species. Example, a small
forest near an urban settlement.

Main causes of Habitat Loss are.

 Agriculture (converting forest land into agricultural
land)
 Urbanization (conversion of land that once
provided wildlife habitat to housing development,
roads, industry)
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  Water development (such as construction of Dam)
 Pollution (untreated sewage, mining waste, use of
chemical fertilizers and pesticides dumped into
rivers, lakes and wetlands and eventually end up in
habitat loss)
 Climate change (Rising temperatures affect
vegetation, food sources, access to water and much
more)

Deforestation - People cut down the trees to grow crops

for consumption of their families and local population,
which affects ecosystem and causes climatic change.
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Due to increase in atmospheric temperature global
warming increases and weather patterns changes which
causes natural disasters and due to which it affects
natural flora.