The Palani Hills bug bit Bob Stewart and Tanya Balcar, two young British backpackers who were travelling through southern India in 1985.
Bob and Tanya …
The Palani Hills bug bit Bob Stewart and Tanya Balcar, two young British backpackers who were travelling through southern India in 1985. Bob and Tanya at Ibex Peak,2011. Photo courtesy Ian Lockwood The Western Ghats are not only among the world’s 35 biodiversity hotspots, but also among the eight “hottest” of the hotspots. They’ve also won another ecological the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And the Palani Hills (actually mountains) are one of its stars, a treasure trove like no other. Apart from their rich biodiversity, they also host wildlife corridors to neighbouring mountain ranges, and two ecosystems unique to the south-western reaches of the Ghats. The first of these, ‘sholas’, are cloud forests that nestle in the valleys. With their high endemism, these are biodiversity hubs with knobs on. The second are the montane grasslands, ecologically as important as sholas: maybe even more so, because their high water retention makes them a major water source for downstream and plains communities. This mountain mosaic, which includes the Kodaikanal plateau, falls into the evocative category of sky islands — isolated mountains surrounded by dramatically different lowland environments. It is an ethereally beautiful place. I went there in ’87 for a short stay, and stayed on for 18 years. The Palani Hills bug had bitten me, good and proper. It also bit Bob Stewart and Tanya Balcar, two young British backpackers who were travelling through southern India in 1985. They decided to do a short Kodai visit, and “take in” the mountains. Three decades later they were still there, an important part of the local conservation community of citizens, NGOs, academics and government officials. Their commitment, work and achievements were phenomenal, and their deaths — Tanya’s in 2016, and Bob’s in September this year — have left a huge vacuum. They died too soon, too young, but left a legacy of immense value: an understanding of the Palanis’ ecosystem which will have a permanent bearing on its conservation and restoration. It is an interesting story with a quixotic twist; a reminder that Things Aren’t Always What They Seem. In 1852, the British Raj — in the form of portly Major Partridge of the Bombay Army — took the disastrous step of introducing plantations of eucalyptus, pine and Australian wattle in the Palanis. No doubt a well-meant attempt to provide fuel for the “natives”, it was disastrous for the environment. These exotic species quickly and completely changed the fragile montane ecosystem. With none of their natural checks and controls, exotic plants tend to go mad, spreading like wildfire and wiping out indigenous landscapes (as we have seen with lantana). At that time montane grasslands were conveniently and erroneously called wastelands; and in terms of income from fuelwood and timber, the plantations were successful. So more and more of the “wasteland” was given over to these fast-growing, income-generating species.
