Western Hills

The paper informs that the conventional wisdom that ‘more forest is always better’ has dominated policy making in the management of forested watersheds. In the context of the supposed hydrological regulation service provided by forest ecosystems, however, hydrologists have debated this assumption for more than two decades.

Jog falls in Western Ghats

 These dams have had a profound negative impact on communities and ecology upstream and downstream. While promised benefits of these dams (irrigation, hydro-power or flood control) have been overstated, numerous interrelated and complex negative impacts have simply not been studied or documented. Nonetheless, communities and ecosystems continue paying huge prices of these impacts.

The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India (GOI) had been asked to identify ESAs along the Western Ghats, and to suggest how to manage them. The concept of ESAs has been extensively discussed in the literature. Several ESAs have been set up in India over the last 22 years under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, and a GOI committee under the chairmanship of Pranob Sen has proposed certain criteria for identification of ESAs.

Content Courtesy: Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India

Author: Madhav Gadgil

In view of the environmental sensitivity and ecological significance of the Western Ghats region and the complex nature of its geography, as well as the possible impacts of climate change on this region, the Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India constituted a Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel to assess the current status of ecology of the Western Ghats region. The panel aimed at identifying ecologically sensitive areas in the Western Ghat region and making recommendations for the conservation, protection and rejuvenation of the region. This report presents a brief summary of the key issues that were dwelt on to understand the situation of the Western ghats and the key findings of the evaluation.

Guest Post by: Parineeta Dandekar

At the first sight, Daarche Paani (‘water at the doors’) appears unreal.. on a small flat plateau called ‘Sadaa’ in konkan, an elegant cobbled walkway leads a puzzled visitor to stairs carved in stone, which go down to an ancient grove, and here is an intricate system of tanks, channels and falls which supplies water to the Panderi village and goes down as a free flowing stream, to irrigate a plantation of arecanut, pepper and mangoes in a village called Gudaghe. When I visited the place, I could see three eminent visitors, a silent lady washing her load of clothes, a fairy bluebird splashing at a tank and a huge moonmoth in one of the trees.

Stone walkway and ancient mango trees leading to Daarche Paani.
Photo: Parineeta Dandekar

This report prepared by the Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment (INCCA) provides an assessment of impact of climate change in 2030s on four key sectors of the Indian economy, namely agriculture, water, natural ecosystems & biodiversity and health in four climate sensitive regions of India, namely the Himalayan region, the Western Ghats, the Coastal Area and the North-East Region. This is the for the first time that such a comprehensive, long term assessment has been undertaken based on rigorous scientific analysis for the 2030s (all previous assessments were for the 2070s and beyond). 

How would we judge ecological sensitivity? Scientists view an ecologically sensitive area as an area whose ecological balance, once disturbed, is very hard to restore. Thus, steep Western slopes of Western Ghats, subject to heavy rains and winds, if deforested, are likely to be quickly stripped of soil cover and for ever lose their pristine vegetation. We do have a scientific understanding of the environmental attributes that render areas more sensitive; we also have insights into processes that have resulted in irreversible ecological damage.

India is gifted with heterogeneous landforms and variety of climatic conditions such as the lofty mountains, the raverine deltas, high altitude forests, peninsular plateaus, variety of geological formations endowed with temperature varying from arctic cold to equatorial hot, and rainfall from extreme aridity with a few cms (<10 cm) to pre humid with world's maxim