The Maharashtra Government has issued a notification declaring a temple complex in Sindhudurg’s Amboli as a biodiversity heritage site under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002.
A team of researchers led by the Thackeray Wildlife Foundation discovered the schistura hiranyakeshi fish species in the temple pond recently.
Upon discovering the species, the foundation wrote a letter to the Revenue and Forest departments in early March requesting to turn the region into a biodiversity heritage site.
"The decision to declare the habitat of these freshwater species as the bio-diversity heritage site is taken because it is rare species, and due to fishing activities, it might have faced extinction. It was important to conserve the species," the government notification read.
Read - CM And Other Officials Inaugurate The Heritage Walk At The BMC Headquarters
Chief Conservator of Forests (Kolhapur Division), Ben Clement, confirmed the news and said that the heritage site spans over 2.1 hectares with a temple community conservation model.
The region is home to a temple dedicated to goddess Parvati and also where the Hiranyakeshi River begins. The schistura hiranyakeshi species has been discovered before in another temple pond within the Western Ghats.
Also read - BMC Will Carry Out Annual Restoration Work On Heritage Sites Across Fort
State agencies have declared multiple locations as biodiversity heritage sites across Maharashtra. This includes the Landor Khori Park in Jalgaon, Ganesh Khind in Pune, Glory of Allapalli in Gadchiroli, and Sindhudurg’s myristica swamp vegetation.
Some of the discoveries of freshwater fish species were published in the October 2020 edition of the International Journal of Ichthyology. This publication is co-authored by Tejas Thackeray, a wildlife researcher and the son of Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray.
Read - Kamathipura: India's Forgotten 150-Year-Old Rich Heritage
Share
Tweet
