Biodiversity

ICIMOD has a number of ongoing activities in biodiversity conservation. At the Knowledge Park at Godavari, the emphasis is on providing the conditions to enable the degraded vegetation to return to a species rich semi-natural vegetation more closely resembling the original natural forest of the area. An increase in the biodiversity of the vegetation is likely to be accompanied by an increase in the faunal biodiversity. Many of the vegetation management activities at the site are also biodiversity management activities, they are described in more detail in the sheet on Vegetation Management.

The flora and fauna of the site was surveyed when the site was established, and additional sitings have been recorded ever since on a regular basis. In 1993, only 394 species of plants were identified, by 1996 this had increased to 450, and by 2002 it was 694. The status as of 2002 is as follows.

Flora - A total of 694 species of flora have been identified; close to 10% of the reported 7000 vascular plants of Nepal. They include

3 endemic species
4 rare
3 exotic species
22 threatened species
7 newly discovered species
20 fodder species
41 multi-purpose tree species
93 aromatic and medicinal species
31 poisonous species, and
54 edible fruit plants.
4 endangered species

Fauna - So far 231 different species of wild fauna have been observed and identified. They include

2 species of leeches
2 species of earthworms
2 species of frogs
2 species of toads
2 species of crabs
1 species of preying mantis
6 species of spider
97 species of butterflies
88 species of birds, (1 endangered, Aroborophila mufogalis)
4 species of reptiles
7 species of snakes
5 species of large mammal
6 species of small mammal
dragonflies
ants
centipedes
millipedes