Paleontologists claim that the history of life on Earth is 3.5 billion years old. In addition, they have convincingly proved that rapid environmental changes have caused huge drops in biodiversity in the past. With climate change manifesting itself more starkly than ever—each year reaching a new high in terms of temperature. Negative anomalies on biodiversity count is but an obvious reality. Extinction of endemic species and uncontrolled spread of invasive varieties can spell unwarranted disaster—a disaster of proportions we are yet to comprehend fully. With the global total species count still at a fraction, scientists claiming that more than 80 per cent remain undiscovered, biodiversity will be long gone before we are able to comprehend how much we have actually lost.

Humans are yet to grasp the magnitude of this slow disaster. Loss of biodiversity can in effect cut away an exit path for humans in a dwindling resource scenario. If anything, the loss of biodiversity is perhaps a bigger challenge than even climate change, which in recent years has been grabbing the attention of global policy makers.

This issue covers myriad aspects of biodiversity, from policy, to regional biodiversity hotspots and man-animal conflict. Marine life has been treated with preference, keeping in mind the future resource scenario for a country like India. However, with biodiversity being such as vast and complex area of study, it has been difficult to dedicatedly cover all aspects. There are pertinent concerns, and newer areas of work that will need further research in the following issues of G’nY.Happy Reading.