The non-profit had also warned that 2,093 sq km of tree cover was lost from 2001-2019 - a 3.3 per cent decrease.įSI has attributed the decline pressures of increasing population, developmental activities, and clearing for jhum agriculture. Global Forest Watch, hoewver, estimated the forests cover at 74 per cent of its total land area. The Forest Survey of India in 2019 estimated that Arunachal had 66,688 sq km of forests - 79.6 per cent of the state’s area. Construction of dams is among factors that have led to the destruction of forest cover. Activities like habitat loss, deforestation and overexploitation have threatened the rich biodiversity. They wrote about their research in the Journal of Natural History.Ī typical fast flowing forest stream and associated moist habitat of the newly discovered Amolops adicola photo: Dhritiman MukherjeeĪrunachal, a biodiversity hotspot, is home to many endemic, endangered and threatened species as well as to indigenous people who depend on its biological resources. “One of the major threats to these animals is rapid change to their habitat such as the construction of small dams on streams, altering stream-flow for agriculture and removal of boulders,” said Naitik G Patel from the Department of Endangered Species Management at Wildlife Institute of India (WII).Ī team of Indian and American biologists from WII, University of Delhi and North Carolina Museum of Natural Science discovered the species at Arunachal’s Adi hills. As such, modification of stream channels may endanger them. Both adults and tadpoles of Adi cascade frogs, the species in question, are particularly adapted to fast flowing sections of stream. Genus Amolops is among the largest groups of ranid frogs (family Ranidae) with 73 known species widely distributed across India’s North East and north, Nepal, Bhutan, China, the Indochina region and the Malaya Peninsula.Ĭascade frogs, in general, depend on the flow of water. The nomenclature ‘cascade frogs’ draws on their preference for small waterfalls. Making of check dams on streams and removal of boulders may wipe out the local population of Adi cascade frogs ( Amolops adicola), a recently discovered species in Arunachal Pradesh, scientists claimed.

Loss of species diversity