The Eastern Himalayas and the Indo-Burma Hot-Spot of Biodiversity
The Eastern Himalaya extends from the Arun-Kosi valley in eastern Nepal, through
Bhutan, Northeast India, Southeast Tibet and northern Myanmar to Northwest Yunnan
in China. The area also includes the mountains that extend from Nagaland and
Manipur in India, south to the Chin Hills in Myanmar and the Chittagong Hills
in Bangladesh. The Eastern Himalaya is considered a part of the Indo-Burma
hotspot of biodiversity which encompasses approximately two million square
kilometers of tropical Asia east of the Indian subcontinent, Cambodia, Laos,
and Vietnam, nearly all of Thailand, Myanmar, and Bhutan, parts of Nepal,
far-eastern India, extreme southern China, as well as several offshore islands
including the Hainan Island in the South China Sea and the Andaman Islands in
the Andaman Sea. The Eastern Himalayan region is especially unique because it
is the meeting ground of the Indo-Malayan and Indo-Chinese biogeographical
realms as well as of the Himalayan and Peninsular Indian elements.
The Eastern Himalaya in India is spread over the nine states of Arunachal Pradesh,
Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and West Bengal. The
region is topographically diverse with a range of natural ecosystems. The region is
home to botanical rarities and is exceptionally rich in endemic plant species along
with mammals, birds and other animals. About 7,000 of the 13, 500 plant species found
in the Indo-Burma hotspot are endemic, as are 528 of the 2,185 species of terrestrial
vertebrates. Unfortunately, the forest cover in the Eastern Himalaya has dwindled
over the past several decades, along with concomitant decline in biodiversity.
Approximately thirty million people live in the 265,000 sq. km. that comprise the Eastern
Himalaya in India. Despite the relatively small population in this area compared to the
total population of India, the people display an astonishing diversity of cultures,
languages, customs, and patterns of resource use.
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