Most of us, who come from coastal Karnataka, know the Western Ghats, by the twisting , winding mountain roads that go over it to reach places such as Mysore, Bangalore, Mercara, Hubli etc. Charmadi Ghat to go to Chickmagalore and then connect with the trains to go to Hubli or Bangalore; Shiradi Ghat to go to Bangalore via Hassan; Sampaje Ghat to go to Mercara and then proceed to Mysore; Someshwara/Agumbe Ghats to go to Sringeri and to Shimoga, etc. Primarily the busses and the cars ply at high speeds, the object being to reach the destinations in record times. During the process of these travels , it rarely occurs to our mind that we are traveling through one of the most majestic natural wonders and a remarkable place on this planet.
The Western Ghats are known to us by various names – Pashchima Ghatta, Sahyadri, Malenadu, etc. These mountain ranges start from Bombay and run all the way up to Kanyakumari. They form a distinct border between the coastal plains and the high plateau of Deccan. The forests on these ghats in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are treasure houses for a tremendous diversity of biological wealth matched by only a few other places in the world.
Biodiversity, in terms of plants, flowers, animals and all other living species is what makes the beautiful tapestry of nature. However, biodiversity is not uniformly distributed over land and sea. A large part of it is concentrated in a very few places. According to Ecologists and Conservation experts, over one third of known land plants and vertebrates exist in less than two percent of the planet. Because they are the homes of this rich diversity and the incubators of sustaining this richness for the future, conservation scientists have designated various places in the world as biological hotspots. Even among these selected locations, twenty-five locations have been identified as the hottest of these hotspots. According to National Geographic Magazine (January 2002 issue), ??Just 25 of the hottest of these hotspots occupy 1.4 percent of the planet?s land surface, roughly equivalent to Alaska and Texas combined, yet are the exclusive homes of 44 percent of Earth?s plant species and 35 percent of it?s birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians??.
The Western Ghats is one among these twenty-five biological hotspots of the world.
The biodiversity contained in the tropical rainforests of Western Ghats is truly astounding- The majestic Indian tigers , Asian elephants, King cobras, wild peacocks are well known inhabitants of these rich forests. There is a tremendous variety of plants, birds, reptiles and amphibians found only in the Western Ghats. Of these, some of the animals such as Nilgiri langur, lion-tailed macaque, Nilgiri tahr are currently on the endangered species list.
For people from the coastal Karnataka, the Western Ghats occupy a very special and dear place in our culture, religion and daily lives. Even from the coastal areas, we grew up on the majestic backdrop of the high mountain ranges. ??Kudremukh?? (Horse Face) peak is ever visible from the coastal areas. The monsoons that are part of our psyche ( torrential rains, school closings, chenne mane games, aati kalenja shows,. and on and on) are gifts of the Western Ghats. The rivers Nethravati, Kumaradhara, Sharavati………are the life lines of agriculture and fishing. The famous temples Dharmastala, Subramanya, Kolluru are nestled in the forests of the Western Ghats and their unique locations have enriched the spiritual significances of these great places of worships. The isolation provided by the forests and the mountains has provided a significant role in the preservation of many of the cultural traditions of coastal Karnataka.
A portion of the Kudremukh National Park, near Beltangadi lies in Dakshina Kannada district. Most of it is in Chickmagaluru district. It is the largest declared Wildlife Protected area of a tropical wet evergreen type of forests in the Western Ghats. The Government of Karnataka had previously declared the region as ??reserved forest area??. Later in 1987, through the dedicated and aggressive works of volunteer conservation groups, the area was declared as a National Park based on the presence of one of the largest breeding population of the highly endangered lion-tailed macaque. This area is also rich in minerals, most notably iron ore. When heavy open face mining of these mountain ranges adversely impacted the ecosystem and polluted the Bhadra river with red mud and silt, the conservation groups mobilized heavy opposition and took the case to the Supreme Court of India. Recently, the Supreme Court has given its verdict to stop the mining operations at Kudremukh by the year 2005, which I believe has stopped in December.
Besides mining operations, several other human activities ruin the delicate balance of the ecosystem that makes the Western Ghats so special. Expanding agriculture by cutting down forests, expansion of monoculture such as commercial estates and plantations that displace the rich mix of rain forest and grass land, dams that submerge the rain forests and alter the landscape, etc. Kaveri and Krishna, two of the major east flowing rivers are fed by the Western Ghats. Not too far from Kudremukh, in a place known as Gangamoola, three important rivers, Tunga, Bhadra and Nethravati originate. Currently there is a formal proposal by the Irrigation Department of Government of Karnataka for the diversion of the Nethravati River water at its origin to the North and the East across the Western Ghats. The Project proposes to form a series of canals at mid-elevation of the Ghats and a series of 38 reservoirs across 38 different streams submerging pristine natural grassland and shola forests. Additional damages to the ecosystem will come from the access roads and other developments associated with the project. The impact on the river systems and agriculture in Dakhina Kannada and Uttara Kannada will be huge. Hopefully, the Environmental and the Conservation groups will have success in preventing the progress of this project.
It is a constant tension between the need for development for economic growth and the desire to preserve the natural environment. For a developing country, India has done very well in setting aside plenty of spaces and protecting the natural treasures. Karnataka State is also fairly progressive in this regard. But, the ultimate responsibility for preserving a very special place, a rare gift of nature, such as the Western Ghats, really belongs to an active, involved people , who are constantly vigilant and take proper action before it is too late.
Author: J. M. Bhandary- USA