Seven years in Nilgiris: Hills offer bio-resilience lessons amid devastation, says author

CHENNAI : Nilgiris is a Petri dish of what’s happening to the world’s ecology, claims Godwin Vasanth Bosco, the author of the new book Metaphor Island. For seven years, he wandered every slope, plateau and fold of the mountain range, documenting Nilgiris’ resilience to adverse environmental decline.
Despite being tormented by various ecological pressures, the relatively small region is still home to at least six main types of vegetation, 3,500 species of plants, 100 species of mammals, 350 species of birds, 150 species of fish and 300 species of butterflies. 

“The mountains are alive and teaching us to preserve what’s left after all this ecological destruction,” he says. In this book, he unveils various patterns of resilience demonstrated by the living and non-living forms of Nilgiris, against severe ecological pressure.

What are the different ecological pressures on Nilgiris and can this small region in Indian peninsula be a representative for places across the world?
Certainly. It has almost every kind of ecological pressure in the world. A large portion of the native forests has been replaced by tea and other plantation. The rest of the forest has been infiltrated by exotic (foreign) species. This has led to change in water usage by plants, causing drastic hydrological disruption. Tea plantations have also led to loss and erosion of black soil that is special to Nilgiris.

New species such as black wattle and eucalyptus that was brought by colonisers release chemicals that suppress growth of native species; nutrient and pH levels of soil has changed, as the cash crops fix more nitrogen in the soil than it’s ideal for native species; the biome (microbial composition) of the soil has changed altering overall quality and there is also constant disturbance due to tourism. Nilgiris certainly faces every problem faced by other forests in the world.

But can this universality be extended to the native forest itself? How diverse are the native forests?
You can find a new kind of vegetation every 30 km in Nilgiris. Even the neighbouring lands don’t share this unique diversity with Nilgiris. There are at least six main types of vegetation in this relatively small area. There are wet evergreen forest and moist deciduous forest with trees that are taller than 25m. You can spot regions of dry vegetation, montane vegetation and grassland. There is intense heat, heavy rains, strong winds, dry weather and even frost. The native species have adapted to all these weather patterns.

You say that the neighbouring regions do not have the diversity that Nilgiris have. What is different here?
In the book I elaborate about the tectonic movement of the Indian subcontinent and how species from different continents are found in Nilgiris. The Western and Eastern Ghats are results of such grand tectonic event. Nilgiris was formed at the intersection of the highest points of the two mountain ranges. These two mountain ranges that stretch across the east and west, act as highways for species to be collected at the Nilgiris. Survival of such species is volition. This is not a random occurrence,  a million things must have happened at different times to capacitate this place for such diversity.

How is there collective resilience within such diversity? How concepts such as ‘Nilgiris Mosaic’ and ‘microclimate’ aid this?
The vegetation is distributed across an interesting pattern called the ‘Nilgirs Mosaic’ or the ‘shola grassland mosaic’. The shola or the forest grove are confined to folds and depression of the hills, while hill faces are covered by montane grassland. This contrast forms interesting mosaic-like patterns that vary in shape and size, yet have distinct edges that separate the forest from the grassland.

Factors such as aspect (the direction the mountain slope faces), frost, rainfall, fire, fog and mist contribute to the making of this mosaic as clouds get trapped by different parts of the forest leading to precipitation. The Shola grassland goes through a marked dry season and intense spells of rain. Regardless of the climate outside, the grassland preserves a rather stable environment of temperature and humidity. This is what is called a micro-climate. The edge plants break heavy winds that bring with them these climatic conditions and the trees and plants inside control the amount of water they retain and release depending on the climate.

Nilgiris gets its name from the famous mass flowering of Neela Kurunji, that blooms only once in 12 years, colouring entire hills with its lilac bloom. Where is this plant caught up in all this diversity and degradation?
Kurunji is the speciality of the area. There are 30 species of Kurunji on the mountains. Neela Kurunji blooms once in 12 years and there are other species that bloom once in eight years. Earlier, the entire landscape was carpeted blue, by its bloom, but now Kurunji is restricted to small portions of the land. The mass flowering rapidly increases pollen, honey and therefore bees in the forest, restabilising it every now and then. Kurunji also acts an edge species, that protects the micro-climate. They build a wall wherever they are. I planted some in my nursery and they formed a wall even there.

You’ve captured both the diversity and degeneration of Nilgiris in your book. There is regeneration of native species despite adverse environmental decline. What is the metaphor in the central idea of your book?
There is exceptional evidence and patterns that can be drawn very easily. In many places, the native forests die  while making way for the altered foreign ecosystem. But the Nilgiris is still resilient. The species are here, and we can see the impact we have on the forest. The highest portions of all the mountains are oriented to get the highest rainfall. The mountains are intelligent. The landscape actually rose up to make use of the Northeast and Southwest monsoon.

When regeneration is fighting its way through decline, it is a message that environmentalists across the world should pick up to understand the complexity of conservation that Nilgiris has to offer. We are at the verge of tipping into another level of environmental decline, from which we cannot recover. The shola grasslands are choked and even the trees are dying. A tree dying is a sign of dangerous levels of toxicity. The mountains will disintegrate with that one, due to landslides and erosion. Nilgiris is a metaphor for what can be done to prevent this dystopia and its time we paid attention.