West Bengal

West Bengal is a northeastern Indian state of amazing extremes. It stretches from the Himalayas through the Gangetic plains to the Bay of Bengal over the course of about 483 km and displays almost all the geophysical features and its associated biodiversity that the Indian subcontinent boasts of. The northernmost district of Darjeeling is cradled in the laps of the colossal Himalayas, followed by the sub montane terai region which supports a huge diversity of life forms, the western districts feature a semi-arid region of red lateritic soil with dry flanks of Chhota Nagpur plateau, low hills and Sal Segun forests, the eastern districts represent vast riverine flood plains on both sides of the river Bhagirathi and its northern and western tributaries and in the southern most part the Bay of Bengal caress the deltaic regions of Sundarbans mangroves and coastal part of Midnapur.

Nature has bestowed our state with a treasure house of bioresources, a lot of which has already been discovered, utilized and lost forever, a lot is still in use and a lot remains to be unfolded and discovered. Covering just 2.7% of the Indian landmass it is home to 12.27% of Indian biodiversity known till date. The state has more than 7000 species of described flora including bacteria, algae, fungi, bryophytes, pteridophytes and angiosperms and more than 10000 species of described fauna.

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