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Biodiversity in India’s iconic Western Ghats is facing a threat from forest loss, encroachment and conversion, said a global environment agency in its report. It also put the hills in the “significant concern” category in its new outlook in the conservation prospects of natural World Heritage sites. The report, released recently by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) at the UN climate change conference in Bonn, Germany, says pressure from the human population in the Western Ghats region is greater than that faced by many protected areas around the world. The new report, “IUCN World Heritage Outlook 2”, which assesses for the first time changes in conservation prospects of all 241 natural World Heritage sites, warns that climate change will probably exacerbate a system already under pressure and has the potential to impact the large-scale monsoonal processes which the Western Ghats influence. Moderating the region’s tropical climate, the site presents one of the best examples of the monsoon system on the planet.