NGO lists species found around Pune

PUNE: Giving planners another reason to check development activities at the ParvatiPachgaon reserve forest, city-based environment research institutes have documented as many as 806 species belonging to 215 families of fauna and flora from this reserve forest recently.
Nongovernmental organizations such as Ela Foundation and research institutes such as the Agharkar Research Institute, Zoological Survey of India (Western Regional Centre) and Abasaheb Garware College have put together an exhaustive list of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, ringed worms, arthropods, arachnids such as scorpions and flora including angiosperms, among others.
"It is important that small pockets of biodiversity are documented to protect them. Apart from biodiversity that exists in reserves, there are two other biodiversity-rich pockets, such as rural and urban areas. It is therefore essential that not only the biodiversity, but also the geo-climatic environment of these hilly habitats remains unchanged with no interference of any kind," said Satish Pande, founder, Ela Foundation.
He added that any alterations such as road and other constructions, quarrying, tunneling, rope-ways, wind-mills or other similar interference should not be allowed to safeguard the life that exists in these hilly habitats.
Pande added that only few representative insects are listed in the paper while several major insect orders were not included in this paper, and work on these taxa is ongoing. It is thus expected that the actual species list of the macro-fauna alone will be over 2,000.