I have spoken about biodiversity many times. It is easy to talk about how biodiversity gets created and destroyed. What do we ourselves do? We view all the plants and grass growing in our compound as wild growth, remove them, and lay tiles there. In effect, we destroy biodiversity. Many people ask me how medicinal plants can be grown. Common people don’t understand the concept although it is a very simple one. If you don’t till your plot, you will see all kinds of plants growing there. Let me show you an example. This plot of land where I stand is in Malayinkeezh, 15 km from Thiruvananthapuram. It has been purposely left untilled for some time. In summer, all the plants dried up. However, with the rains, new healthy plants, nearly 15 of them, have sprouted. Almost all are medicinal and indigenous.
That is the Golden Eye-Grass. Beyond it is the Jackal Jujube. The one next to it is the Asparagus. And the other is the Gale of the Wind. Next, the Nut Grass, the False Daisy or Bhringaraj, the Abuta, the Hairy Fig, another Abuta, the Indian sarsaparilla, the Goanese Ipecac and the Licorice Weed. All these sprouted on their own. We only have to leave them alone. I’ve already mentioned 10 to 15 names. All of them are medicinal plants. So let’s leave the land fallow. Sometime later, we may see plants like the Indian Birthwort, the Holostemma, the Mountain Knotgrass, the Slender Dwarf Morning Glory and many others take root.
If we leave a plot untilled for 10 years, about 200 types of medicinal plants may sprout there. Most of us don’t know their uses. As a result, we may uproot and throw them away. Therefore, in order to maintain biodiversity, all we need to do is leave the land, or parts of it, alone. Let us not throw away anything that falls naturally on the ground. Let them decompose and become part of the earth. Here, we’ve permitted the coconut and banana stems and the fallen fruits to remain wherever they are. Similarly, if there is a tiny brook in your plot, allow it to flow. If it comes from somewhere else, fish will naturally appear. If you have a pond, frogs will come, and slowly other creatures will follow. In course of time, biodiversity will happen on its own. We don’t have to do anything at all.