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  • Essay / Diversity of Sri Lanka's amphibians - 669

    Biodiversity degradation is becoming one of the world's worst environmental disasters. Given the state of the world's biological resources on which much of human life depends, biodiversity loss is one of the world's most urgent crises and global concern is growing that the decline and extinctions of population (Wilson 1988; WHO 2005; McKinney et al. 2009; Sobéron and Peterson 2009). The current estimate of the extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times the natural rate (Kumar and Khanna 2008). Unsustainable human activities, particularly the extremely high rate of land development, have led to drastic population declines of many species, reaching critical levels, destruction of crucial habitats, fragmentation of existing habitats, destabilization ecosystems, loss of ecosystem functions and alteration of biologically critical ecosystems. structure (Bengtsson et al. 2000; Pimm and Raven 2000, Scott and Helfman 2001, Kremen et al. 2008). Climate change preceded by global warming, environmental pollution and invasive species are worsened....