22% of green areas in India invaded by invasive species: Study

Biological invasions threaten biodiversity and human well-being, with developing tropical countries such as India being more vulnerable, according to the study done by two Wildlife Institute scientists

Published on: Oct 5, 2023, 19:45:24 IST

By Chetan Chauhan

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New Delhi: Invasive plant species have invaded 22% of the natural habitats and have the potential to reach up to 66% of green areas in India, a new study released on Thursday said, basing its findings on the study of 3,58,000 square km of tiger habitats across 20 Indian states.

The study found high potential for invasive species in Central India and Western Ghats, where almost half of India’s 3,682 tigers live, as per 2022 tiger estimation (Representative Photo)

Biological invasions threaten biodiversity and human well-being, with developing tropical countries such as India being more vulnerable, according to the study done by two Wildlife Institute scientists Ninad Avinash Mungi and Omar Qureshi and the institute’s former dean Y V Jhala.

The five-year-long study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Applied Ecology on Thursday studied 1.58 lakh plots covering 358,550 sq kilometre and focussed on spotting the 11 most prevalent invasive species in the country.

The sampling covered 31% of savannas, 51% of dry deciduous forests, 40% of moist deciduous forests, 29% of semi-evergreen forests, 44% of evergreen forests and 33% of moist grassland savannas.

“High-concern plant invasions were recorded in 22% of natural areas and modelled to potentially threaten 66% of natural areas. These estimates were statistically robust as suggested by accuracy indicators,” the study said.

Savannas had the highest suitability for invasions (87%), followed by moist grasslands and dry deciduous forests (~72% each), while evergreen forests were relatively least suitable (42%), the study said.

Lantana Camara was found to be the most invasive of the 11 invasive plant species studied, covering around 50% of the natural habitat found invaded. Mikania Micrantha had relatively least expanse and was predominantly found in moist grasslands and forests, the study said.

It also found that anthropogenic disturbance in the form of livestock grazing and climate change-induced agro-climate conditions facilitated the spread of invasive species. Invasive species have the potential to take over the native species and impact natural forage and habitat quality, the study said.

“These prevalent human modifications likely explain the pervasive invasions across India. The influence of other environmental drivers could be broadly segregated in dry and wet systems. Proximity to water was found to facilitate invasive plants of dry systems (savannas, dry deciduous forests, etc.), whereas proximity to fire facilitated invasive plants of wet systems (semi-evergreen and evergreen forests),” the study said.

Jhala said that it was the first time that the magnitude of the problem through country-wide surveys has been documented. “The study identifies high invasive potential zones and could help the government in putting policies in place to deal with them as they have the potential to destroy the ecological systems,” Jhala said.

The study found high potential for invasive species in Central India and Western Ghats, where almost half of India’s 3,682 tigers live, as per 2022 tiger estimation. The environment ministry has already identified the problem of invasive species in tiger habitats. The ministry has implemented national-scale invasive plant monitoring by integrating it with the umbrella project on tiger assessment.

Using the surveys conducted for tiger estimation in 2018, the WII scientists found that two-thirds of India’s natural areas are under multiple plant invasions, owing to the legacy of anthropogenic modifications. The study said “one-time management” of invasive species in Indian forest will need US $ 13.5 billion, which would be a difficult task and therefore recommended “restoration priority” to be assigned to least invaded areas to maximise biodiversity returns.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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