The other day I was writing about the receding rainforests.Rainforests are a treasure trove of medicinal plants and wild relatives of many of our crops. Before we get a chance to study them properly the forests are being hacked down all over the globe at an alarming rate. Here is yet another proof for our goof up.

The latest paper by Gerardo Ceballos of Mexico's National University and PaulR. Ehrlich of Stanford University appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is an eye opener. 408 species of mammals have been discovered since 1993.

The most alarming feature is that a substantial number exists only in areas undergoing rapid habitat destruction. Out of the 408 new species, 221 have restricted distribution. 23 are already at risk of extinction. The paper points out how little we actually know about our natural capital and how little we know about the services that flow from it. According to Ehrlich human economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the economy of nature, which supplies us from our natural capital a steady flow of income that we can't do without. The ecosystem services include keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, supplying freshwater, preventing floods, protecting our crops from pests and pollinating many of them and recycling the nutrients that are essential to agriculture and forestry.

Ehrlichsays by reducing the diversity of mouse-like creatures in a forest, the forest becomes dangerous for people by way of spreading diseases like hantaviruses. If the diversity of the different species of rodents in a forest is reduced the rodents that carry hantaviruses can become more common. Hantaviruses infects human beings and frequently kills them. This is just a small example.

Biological diversity plays a very important role in maintaining the proper equilibrium ofnature. Many of the diseases that spread like wild fire is in fact is theresult of loss of checks and balances due to mans’ avarice in extracting thingsfrom nature. If we do not pay proper heed today it is comeuppance time tomorrow.