{"id":9655,"date":"2023-04-21T09:10:58","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T03:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=9655"},"modified":"2025-03-29T14:39:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-29T09:09:13","slug":"what-are-biodiversity-heritage-sites-bhs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-are-biodiversity-heritage-sites-bhs\/","title":{"rendered":"What are Biodiversity Heritage Sites (BHS)?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About Biodiversity Heritage Sites (BHS):<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>BHS are <strong>unique ecosystems having rich biodiversity comprising<\/strong> of any one or more of the following components:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Richness of wild<\/strong> as well as <strong>domesticated species<\/strong> or <strong>intra-specific categories.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>High endemism.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Presence of <strong>rare and threatened species<\/strong>, keystone species, and species of evolutionary significance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Wild ancestors<\/strong> of domestic\/cultivated species or their varieties.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Past pre-eminence of biological components<\/strong> represented by fossil beds and having significant cultural, ethical or aesthetic values and are important for the maintenance of cultural diversity, with or without a long history of human association with them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Under <strong>Section-37 of the Biological Diversity Act<\/strong>, 2002, <strong>the State Government<\/strong>, in consultation with local bodies, <strong>may notify areas<\/strong> of biodiversity importance as BHS.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>State Government<\/strong>, <strong>in consultation with the Central Government, may frame r<\/strong>ules for the management and conservation of BHS.<\/li>\n<li>The creation of BHS may <strong>not put any restriction on the prevailing practices and usages of the local communities<\/strong> other than those voluntarily decided by them.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>The purpose<\/strong> of declaring BHS <strong>is to enhance the quality of life of the local communities<\/strong> through the conservation of such sites.<\/li>\n<li>In 2007, the <strong>Nallur Tamarind Grove in Bengaluru<\/strong>, Karnataka, was designated as <strong>India&#8217;s first BHS.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Key facts about Biological Diversity Act, 2002:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an Act of the Parliament of India <strong>for the preservation of biological diversity<\/strong> in India and provides a mechanism <strong>for the equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the use of traditional biological resources and knowledge.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It was enacted to <strong>meet the obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD<\/strong>), as India is a party to it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Key Provisions:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Act defines, <strong>Biological resources as \u201cplants, animals and micro-organisms<\/strong> or parts thereof, their genetic material and by-products (excluding value added products) with actual or potential use or value, but does not include human genetic material.\u201d\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The Act <strong>provides measures for safeguarding traditional knowledge and practices<\/strong>, preservation of rare and threatened species and prevention of bio-piracy.<\/li>\n<li>Under the Act, the <strong>National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has been formed<\/strong> and is headquartered in Chennai<strong>. State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) also have been formed<\/strong> in all Indian states.<\/li>\n<li>The Act mentions that <strong>every local body shall constitute a Biodiversity Management Committee<\/strong> within its area for the purpose of promoting conservation, sustainable use and documentation of biological diversity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What are keystone species?<\/h3>\n<p>A keystone species helps define an entire ecosystem. Without its keystone species, the ecosystem would be dramatically different or cease to exist altogether.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/city\/kolkata\/bengal-notifies-four-more-biodiversity-heritage-sites\/articleshow\/99627626.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Bengal notifies four more biodiversity heritage sites<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biodiversity Heritage Sites are unique ecosystems having rich biodiversity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}