Environmentalists to study bio-diversity in Eastern Ghats

Rajahmundry: Environmentalists and wildlife conservationists, belonging to various organisations like, Centre for Environment Education (CEE), Birdwatchers Society of Andhra Pradesh (BSAP), Butterfly Conservation Society (BCS) and Terra Virdis will visit various pockets of Eastern Ghats, to study Bio-diversity of this hill range. In this 5-day programme, the team will visit East Godavari district and Visakhapatnam in its first phase of their programme.

The objective of this study is to focus more on, assessing the degradation of forest and threatened wildlife, said Asian Wildlife Foundation (AWIFO) managing trustee Prabhu Podipireddy, sponsors of this programme.

Ushodayan (CEE) team leader mentioned that there are many hotspots in this region to be explored. This region, particularly Maredumilli, Chintoor, Mothugudem, Sileru and Chintapalli are very rich in bio diversity aspect, for example “Golden gecko” is discovered in this area. In the phase-II, the team plans to cover some areas of Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts before March, 2009.

According to Mr. Ushodayan, the collected data will be made available for researchers and departments of the State.