Conserving our varied heritage

Conserving our varied heritage

Pankaj Sekhsaria
First Published : 29 Jan 2011 09:57:00 AM IST
http://expressbuzz.com/magazine/conserving-our-varied-heritage/242849.html

The Western Ghats are, without doubt, one of the richest eco-regional systems in the entire subcontinent. Straddling six states from Gujarat in the north to Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the south, the 1,600-odd km long mountain range extends from the River Tapti in the north to Kanyakumari at the southernmost tip of the Indian landmass. They are home to a wide diversity of life just as they support innumerable human communities and cultures. It is a mountain range with a history of nearly 50 millions years, with only the last 12,000 to 15,000 years having seen the gradual entry here of the human species.

The beauty of the landscapes here is unmatched, endemism in the forests is high and nearly 250 million people living in peninsular India are nourished by the many rivers that originate here. The forests here are also home to more than 300 globally threatened species including rare and unique ones like the Malabar torrent toad, the Nilgiri langur, Wroughton’s free-tailed bat, the Nilgiri laughing thrush and many species of caecelians, the limbless amphibians. Conservative estimates put the number of microorganisms, plants and animals here at about 15,000, 40 per cent of which are found nowhere else in the world.

Serious challenges

It is with good reason that the ghats have been recognised as one of the world’s top 34 biodiversity hotspots and a large number of protected areas dot their length. There are nearly 60 sanctuaries and national parks here, ranging from the tiny 4 square kilometres Karnala Sanctuary in the Raigad district of Maharashtra, to others that extend over hundreds of sq km like the Bandipur NP in Karnataka and the Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary in the Anaimalais of Tamil Nadu. The region has over 60 important bird areas and also a number of areas designated as tiger and elephant reserves for the protection and conservation of two of the subcontinent’s most charismatic mega fauna.

This richness and wealth notwithstanding, the Western Ghats face a range of serious and complex challenges: there is unregulated mining in large parts; a number of rivers have been (or continue to be) dammed resulting in the loss of riverine ecosystems and the submergence of pristine forests; a rapidly growing network of roads and rail lines is fragmenting the patchwork of existing forests; continued habitat loss due to urbanisation, agriculture and plantations is leading to an alarming rise in human-wildlife conflicts; and tribal communities like those in Nilgiris continue to face increased marginalisation, loss of access to resources and livelihoods. It is estimated that only a third of the mountain range is still under natural vegetation and this too, is highly fragmented and completely degraded. For the ghats that are spread over an area 1,60,000 sq km and support millions of people and heads of livestock, this is only to be expected.

Conservation efforts

The Western Ghats is perhaps the most-studied eco-system in the country, and has had the maximum number of initiatives and efforts towards conservation directed at it. The mountain range has also been lucky in that there have always been vibrant local communities, NGOs, researchers and officials who have continued to engage with the complexities and work with the challenges of this unique system.

There have been, in recent times, a number of small, localised efforts that are

extremely heartening: children in schools in the vicinity of the Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary in Maharashtra demanding that plastic be banned from within sanctuary limits; the creation of 12 new Important Bird Areas in Kerala; efforts to bring down deaths in traffic accidents inside forest areas either by banning traffic like in Bandipur and Nagarhole National Parks or by strictly regulating it in many other forests areas; new public private initiatives to secure corridor forests so that animals can move without hindrance and a number of awareness and environment education activities across the entire region.

Significantly, there are a range of programmes that have an appeal and relevance cutting across state and political boundaries. A large conservation research and action initiative is being implemented under the aegis of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund; the iconic Save Western Ghats Movement that was initiated two decades ago is on the way to being revived; a new Nilgiri Natural History Society has been formed; the creation of the Sahyadri Ecological Authority has been mooted and the ministry of environment and forests’ expert panel on the Western Ghats has been working to ‘assist in the preservation, conservation and rejuvenation of this environmentally sensitive and ecologically significant region.’

In another commendable development a few months ago, the minister of environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, organised a special meeting of 43 Members of Parliament from the 51 districts which have the Western Ghats running through them.

It has been argued often that if political constituencies had been carved out on ecological or even eco-regional criteria, politics would have been different. Ecological systems, be they mountain ranges, river systems or the coast often get looked at in a piecemeal manner. The integrity of what is a single unit is completely overtaken by other considerations and the consequences have only been adverse. The minister’s initiative could well be the starting point of a better, more holistic approach.

To say however, that things will suddenly be better now in the Western Ghats, would be putting the cart much ahead of the horse. The challenges, needless to say, are daunting. Speaking at the inaugural session of the 13th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons in Hyderabad in the first week of January, Ramesh argued that the country will have to make trade-offs between attaining 9-10 per cent economic growth and maintaining an ecological balance. The more pertinent question is being asked by those who are being ‘traded off’. In the Western Ghats, this has been most starkly visible in the controversy surrounding the nuclear power park at Jaitapur in Maharashtra. Local people here are strongly opposed to the project that they claim will destroy their livelihoods as also the environment that sustains them. There are many other such examples.

It is in this extremely complex and sometimes charged context that the conservation initiatives have to deliver. It is only with this mixture of apprehension and hope that the Western Ghats can look towards the future.


Forests in the Nilgiri Mountains, Tamil Nadu


Gaur in the small remnant forests of Longwood Shola close to Kotagiri in the Nilgiris


A ready to be harvested banana crop is destroyed by elephants in the Nilgiris


Tree felling in the catchment area of the dam on the Sharavathi river in Uttara Kannada, Karnataka


The Bhimashankar Temple in the Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary in Maharashtra. In the background are the forests of the sacred grove


River Aghanashini as seen from the crest of the Western Ghats in Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka



— The writer is an environmental researcher, writer and photographer. psekhsaria@gmail.com
All photos by Pankaj Sekhsaria

OLD GROWTH - Longwood Shola

OLD GROWTH

A walk in the Nilgiris' enchanting—and still surviving—Longwood Shola reserve forest
by
Pankaj Sekhsaria
http://travel.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?267512


Don’t let its size fool you. Longwood Shola, the little forest located in the Kotagiri taluk of Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris district, is a very big deal. For one, it is an unexpected gem—a sparkling island of a forest in a sea of villages, tea estates and plantations of exotic trees. Longwood is also one of the last remnants of the primeval forests that once clothed the Nilgiris. It has taken zealous guarding and action by conservationists and locals to keep even these 100-odd hectares safe.

I had barely entered Longwood Shola, on a visit sometime in April last year, that its treasures tumbled out one after the other. Up in the canopy to my left, a rust-and-cream Malabar giant squirrel scurried restlessly on a branch, the colour of its fur glowing in the morning sun. If you’ve seen this resident of the forest canopy, you’ll know just what I mean when I say ‘my jaw dropped’ and I ‘stood stunned’. Then suddenly, really suddenly, the creature froze. It was looking straight at me, the intruder. The squirrel turned around in a flash and, in three nimble leaps, managed to disappear completely in the foliage above.


Even as I was scanning the canopy for another glimpse, something flew past me and across to the bushes on my right. It flitted around for a while and then came right up. Here was another stunner: a little brown bird with striking white eyebrows, just a few feet from me. Its eyebrows seemed to form an inquiring frown, no doubt asking me, “Why are you looking at me like that, mister?” Senthil had noticed my stupefaction. “Quickly, Pankaj,” he said. “This is a great chance, take your picture.” Before I could recover enough to act on that, though, the endemic Nilgiri laughing thrush decided it had made its point and was gone.

K. Senthil Prasad, incidentally, is the best walking companion one could have in the Longwood Shola. He is part of the Kotagiri Wildlife and Environment Association (KWEA) and the Keystone Foundation, has lived his entire life here and continues to work to protect Longwood Shola. And herein lies an important story.

The Longwood Shola reserve forest is not a big one by any standards; but it could quite easily have ceased to exist, just like the forests that once surrounded it. Over the years, the growing villages and settlements in the region have been pressuring the forest for fuel-wood and other resources. Local initiatives to protect Longwood started in the early 1980s. They took a more permanent form in May 1998, with the Forest Department setting up the Longwood Shola Watchdog Committee (LSWC) in collaboration with a group of concerned and committed local people (Senthil was one of them).

The LSWC took up a number of activities, including patrolling to keep away woodcutters, removing exotic plants that were threatening the local flora and clean-ups to remove garbage left behind by picnickers and visitors. Seminars were held for local schools and colleges and, importantly, LSWC began conversations with the villagers living around the forest. It helped that Longwood Shola is the prime and perennial source of water for nearly 15 villages located downstream and, over time, local communities became partners in protecting their forest.


It worked well for the locals—human and wildlife alike—and the conservation work has begun to be noticed. Longwood Shola was recently included in the Directory of Community Conserved Areas published by the NGO Kalpavriksh, and it has been recognised as an ‘Important Bird Area’ by BirdLife International for the conservation of the Nilgiri laughing thrush, the white-bellied shortwing and the Nilgiri wood pigeon. Ten of the 16 birds that are endemic to the Western Ghats have also been recorded in this small forest. It is also home to a large number of other fauna, including gaur, the occasional leopard, barking deer, wild boar, porcupine, black-napped hare and, of course, the Malabar giant squirrel.

In more good news, of late, the Nilgiris itself has become the focus of several local and regional conservation attempts. The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, for one, has set up a large research and action initiative for the Western Ghats, of which the Nilgiris are a part. For another, a new Nilgiri Natural History Society has been formed with the Keystone Foundation in the lead. And the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has set up an expert panel on the Western Ghats to “assist in the preservation, conservation and rejuvenation of this environmentally sensitive and ecologically significant region”. Longwood Shola is certainly a sweet little success story.

So it is the good people of the Nilgiris that I must thank for the fact that, just minutes into my stroll around the forest, I had already seen two endemics. With the thrush having done its disappearing act, we walked on a little before we were distracted by a murder of jungle crows creating a racket. We soon found out why—sitting on the other side of a small stream was a huge brown wood owl and the crows were harassing it. This fellow sat around for a while even after spotting us, and this gave me an opportunity to finally put my camera to some use. But then the crows started to get really aggressive and the owl took off, with the crows still in pursuit.

The wonderful thing about Longwood is just how walker-friendly it is. A comfortable path meanders through the forest, making it an enjoyable walk. Senthil led me past a biggish wetland, over a stream and up a gentle slope, stopping along the way to peer into the forest or strain upwards to catch the action in the canopy. At least on the morning I went, the squirrels seemed to be the most active residents. I must have seen at least half a dozen of them; the rudraskha tree (known locally as bikkimaram) was fruiting and that’s where these guys were mainly concentrated. The squirrels seemed to favour the seeds, for the floor under the trees was littered with fruit scrapings left behind after the seed-extraction.

That day, it seemed, my luck just wouldn’t run out. “Gaur,” said Senthil, as he pointed into the distance, “Be careful”. There were two there—a young calf and a huge adult that must have been the mother. The little one jumped away as soon as it saw us, but the mother stood regal and magnificent and stared as us for a while. She finally turned nonchalantly and sauntered off behind her young one.

Finally, we walked down a slope and across another small stream that had a magnificent tree fern growing on its bank, and we were back near the point we started from. The squirrel I had seen first was back in its place (I’m quite sure it’s the same one), but the owl was nowhere to be seen. The crows were still running amok. I had spent just over two hours in the forest and been privy to the tiniest part of its secrets, but that’s all it took for Longwood Shola to bewitch me.

For pictures see http://pankaj-atcrossroads.blogspot.com/2009/05/longwood-shola-kotagiri-nilgiris.html