The Government of Kerala is on a green binge. In a grim scenario where forests across the country are being wiped out by the timber mafia and the mining mafia, the state government here has adopted a unique strategy. Convert all the forests that remain into sanctuaries or at least as protected areas. As a result, many sanctuaries have sprung up in the enchanting forests of Wayanad in the last couple of years. At Chulanoor, Kadalundi and Kaprikkad; and even in Nilambur, where a sanctuary was created only to protect the ‘neelakkurinji’ that blooms here once in 12 years.
The youngest among these is Malabar Wildlife Sanctuary. It's the 22nd sanctuary in Kerala and it admeasures around 75 sq kms that harbour many re-discovered and endemic species. One of them being the reed frog that exists in this forest and nowhere else in the world.
According to K. V. Subramanian, a Senior Forest Officer who is an authority on the rich bio-diversity of this area, the only way forward is to involve the forest-dependent communities in all conservation efforts. He says affirmatively, 'It's not for nothing that they are called 'adivasis' or the 'original dwellers of the forest'. So how can you successfully protect these forests without their whole-hearted support?’
We drove from Kozhikode to a temple town called Balussery. The town houses the temple of a tribal god, Vettakkoru Makan. It's believed that this god was created by Lord Shiva to protect him during his various sojourns in the forest.
The only place to stay here is a temple inn run by a portly and friendly gentleman named Babu, and we booked ourselves in.
The time we spent in the balcony just outside our room can best be described as 'arm-chair birdwatching'. Right in front was a tributary of the Kuttiadi river, and on its banks were two peepal trees. The older of the two must have been over 300 years old and had stopped bearing fruit decades ago. The younger one was in its prime, a 100 years old to be precise, and was laden with ripe fruits. This tree was a veritable one-stop-tree for birds. Sitting in the balcony, we discovered that the entire tree was divided into segments by over ten species of birds, and they sat and fed on their designated branches: bulbuls, flycatchers, minivets, munias, barbets, tree pies, robins, orioles, mynas and koels. In the morning, they would arrive in droves singing the morning ragas. I had never seen a single tree with so many species feeding at once, and in such large numbers. No wonder the peepal is considered sacred and accorded such importance in the Indian scheme of things.
Along with such life-sustaining trees, we also revere, or at least used to, a whole host of flora and fauna, each one attached to one god or the other: lotus, peacock, lion, tiger, hawk, fish, turtle, boar, elephant, monkey, swan, serpent, parrot and so on. Yes, surely conservation was deep-rooted in our collective consciousness. Till it was uprooted by greed and avarice.
Just outside the buffer zone of Malabar Sanctuary, we saw vast stretches of rubber plantations. And
in these plantations there was a plant imported from Southern Kerala. It's called thottappayar or plantation beans, but is of no use to man or beast. Over-zealous plantation owners planted them here in order to keep their plantation floors cool.
But in the blink of an eye it spread like a green cancer, far out of the plantation areas right up to the periphery of the sanctuary, strangulating the unique local plants in the process. Yes, not all that's green is good for the environment.
As we drove up to the top, we saw the backwaters of the Kakkayam Dam encircling the mountains like giant water-snakes. The first sightings of wildlife at Malabar Sanctuary were across a wide spectrum: the largest of all Indian butterflies, the southern birdwing; the endangered lion-tailed macaque; the shy and elusive grey-fronted tree pie; and a solitary Indian bison just across the river.
At the next blind turn, our guide George Kutty stopped abruptly and told us, 'This is where our Forest Watcher was mauled by a lone tusker two weeks back'. And he added matter-of-factly, 'He's out of the ICU now and recovering.' His resigned tone was that of a person who had accepted these incidents as an inevitable part of a forester's life, almost as an occupational hazard.
Just as we were getting closer to the dense, tropical evergreen forests of Malabar Sanctuary, we were stopped by the very first line of defense of these pristine forests: hordes of blood-sucking leeches lying in wait in the decaying leaves of the perennially wet forest floor.
This is the decisive point where the picnickers stop but true nature lovers venture ahead. Unmindful of the bites of these leeches that don't unfortunately distinguish between the two kinds of visitors, we went where no picnickers had ever been before: the awesome waterfalls of Urikkuzhi. The view from the head of the waterfall was absolutely breathtaking. A sheer drop of over 500 feet to a place that's inaccessible to man. It's believed that the body of a young rebel named Rajan, who died in custody in these forests during the dreaded Emergency in 1976, was flung into oblivion from this spot, never to be found again.
On the way back, George spotted the amazing oakleaf butterfly, so well camouflaged that I couldn't spot it till he almost touched it. A lesson that the best way to live in Nature is not to stand out, but to blend in.
As we proceeded to our base-camp in the town of Balussery, I got a call from my brother Manu Menon, whose organization Jungle Lens is into many conservation efforts in Kerala. He told me in an excited whisper, 'Chetta, near Munnar a few more areas have just been declared as sanctuaries. And all of them belong to the endemic type of forests that are special to that region, the unique shola forests!'
At the time of independence, around 35% of our country was under forest cover. Today, it has been reduced to a mere 8%. Converting all the forests that have survived the bulldozers of development into protected areas is probably the only way to preserve the green cover that is left.
