Forests especially those in the tropics serve as storehouses of biodiversity and consequently deforestation, fragmentation and degradation destroys the biodiversity as a whole and habitat for migratory species including the endangered ones, some of which have still to be catalogued. Tropical forests support about two thirds of all known species and contain 65 per cent of the world’s 10, 000 endangered species (Myers and Mittermeier, 2000). Retaining the biodiversity of the forested areas is like retaining a form of capital, until more research can establish the relative importance of various plants and animal species (Anon., 1994a). According to the World Health Organization, about 80 per cent of the world’s population relies for primary health care at least partially on traditional medicine. The biodiversity loss and associated large changes in forest cover could trigger abrupt, irreversible and harmful changes. These include regional climate change including feedback effects that could theoretically shift rainforests to savannas and the emergence of new pathogens as the growing trade in bushmeat increases contact between humans and animals
Another negative effect of deforestation is increasing incidents of human-animal conflicts hitting hard the success of conservation in a way alienating the people’s participation in conservation. Elephant habitat located at northern West Bengal in India is part of the Eastern Himalaya Biodiversity Hotspot which is characterized by a high degree of fragmentation. The heavy fragmentation of this habitat has resulted into an intense human-elephant conflict causing not only in loss of agricultural crops but also human and elephant lives. Mortality of about 50 persons and 20 elephants was reported due to these severe human-elephant conflicts from this hotspot area annually