My Science School

Dholavira is a well-preserved Harappan-era city situated in the Rann of Kutch, Gujarat. It is the fifth largest metropolis of Indus Valley Civilisation excavated so far, after Mohenjo Daro, Harappa, and Ganeriwala in Pakistan, and Rakhigarhi in Hanjana, India. Dholavira is also the most dominant archaeological site of the Indus Civilisation in India.

The ancient city, dating from the 3rd to mid-2nd millennium BCE (3000-2500 BCE), was excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India in 1967. The site, which served as a commercial hub for over 1,500 years before its decline in 1500 BC has a citadel, a middle town, and a lower town with walls made of stone. According to UNESCO, the ancient urban settlement stands out for its water management system, multi-layered defensive mechanisms, extensive use of stone in construction, and special burial structures. A range of artefacts of copper, shell, stone, jewellery, and terracotta had been found at the site. Sites such as these provide valuable insights into the ways of life of earlier societies, their knowledge, and customs.

With Dholavira joining the coveted list,Gujarat now has four world heritage sites - the others being Rani Ki Vav of Patan, Champaner fort, and Ahmedabad City.

The Indus Civilisation

The Indus Valley Civilisation or Harappan Civilisation was one of the earliest human civilisations which flourished around 2.500 BC in the western part of South Asia (present day Pakistan and western  India) Basically an urban civilisation, it was characterised by neatly planned, well-built cities which served as centres of trade. So far over 1.400 sites of the indus Civilisation have been discovered, of which over 900 are in India and over 400 in Pakistan.

What is a World Heritage Site?

 A World Heritage Site is a place designated by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) for its special cultural, historic or physical significance. The list of World Heritage Sites is maintained by the World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. UNESCO, headquartered in Paris, France, seeks to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of heritage around the world.

What does the status mean?

UNESCO awards world heritage status to sites considered to be of special value to humanity. The sought-after distinction brings intangible benefits boosts tourism, and can help secure funding for the preservation of sites.

Picture Credit : Google

Situated in the northeastern part of Bolivia, the Noel Kempff Mercado National Park in South America borders Brazil. Spanning more than 15,000 sq.km., it is considered one of the largest and the most intact Parks in the Amazon basin. Within its boundaries, it holds a variety of habitats from evergreen Amazon rainforests, grasslands, and swamps to savannahs and semi-deciduous dry forests. Small wonder this region, with large swathes of untouched land, offers incredible biodiversity - think 4,000 species of plants, more than 600 species of birds, 250 fish species, and more than 300 mammal, reptile, and amphibian species together! This includes several globally threatened and endangered species too.

In 1996, the Noel Kempff Climate Action Project, a joint government and private initiative, was set up in the Park. The project ended logging rights and strives for continuous action towards forest protection, reducing emission and degradation, conservation, and sustainable development, among others. In 2005, it became the world's first "forest emissions reduction project to be verified by a third party based on international standards established by the Kyoto Protocol". In 2000, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Wildlife

Fed as it is by the mighty Amazon, the Park's waterways are home to several water-dwelling creatures such as giant otters, dolphins, and caimans. Among the several mammals and marsupials in the region are opossums, tapirs, deer, marmosets, pumas, jaguars, wolves, oxes, raccoons, armadillos, giant anteaters, and monkeys. The birds in the region include tinamous, herons, cormorants, egrets, storks, ibises, ducks, vultures, kites, hawks, eagles, falcons, kestrels, crakes, lapwings, terns, sandpipers, pigeons, doves, macaws, cuckoos, owls, nightjars, swifts, quails, trogons, kingfishers, toucans, piculets, woodpeckers, woodcreepers, flycatchers, atbills, manakins, swallows, martins, thrushes, seed-eaters, honeycreepers, and more than 20 types of parrots / parakeets.

It's good, but...

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's latest report (2020), the conservation outlook for this site has been assessed as "good with some concerns. The assessment says that this comforting fact is due to how isolated the Park is. This isolation offers the place a lot of protection from livestock the transmission of diseases from livestock to wildlife, and commercial fishing And so "ecological processes, biodiversity and threatened species are in a good state of conservation Despite this aspects such as illegal logging, fishing, and hunting are of concern. Also, due to its very isolation, there is no clear data on management effectiveness in the region. It is also believed that the park rangers do not have enough means to carry out their work and carry out effective control and surveillance of the advance and incursion of settlers

Forest fires

The foremost threat to the region are forest fires. As recently as 2020, Bolivia witnessed more than 120 forest fires and a quarter of it is said to have burned in protected areas. One of the places affected was the Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, at least 21,000 acres burned then. The Park encompasses three biomes Amazon rainforest, Chiquitano dry forest and Cerrado savanna. It is reported that fires were detected in the transition zone between the rainforest and savanna, moving mostly into the park's drier savanna biome" As climate change becomes more and more severe, forest fires in the region are expected to reach even greater proportions, and perhaps touch such severity this place will be unable to recover from.

Picture Credit : Google