Abstract
Sahyadri mountains are witnessing a great change in land use pattern and lifestyle of local people overthe last few decades because of modern development and construction of dams. As a result ecologicalsystems within the catchment have changed resulting in a change in socio-economic conditions. The usualapproach to tackle this situation is plantation or afforestation. However, this approach does not consider therevival of ecosystems. As mitigation measures, the Ecological Society, in 1986, had conducted experimentsin the Panshet dam catchment. This resulted in the development of restoration methods for the bioclimaticregion of Sahyadri. The approach of this experiment was using a low-cost restoration methodology. In this,enhancement of the ecosystem in early stages of restoration provides ecosystem services and products, suchas fodder in the intermediate stage to the local communities. By using similar techniques, oikos forecological services, a company engaged in ecological restoration, undertook several ecological restorationprograms on private lands within the Sahyadri region. The results showed significant improvement inecosystems and biodiversity, thereby improving livelihood options for the local communities.Funded by a grant from Global Forest Watch, Ecological Society conducted an assessment of changes inland use and status of biodiversity in Panshet, in 2014-15. The Panshet dam catchment forms a part ofSahyadri and similar conditions are encountered elsewhere in the region. This study made an assessmentof the potential for restoration in the catchment area. Based on this study and earlier studies by oikos forecological services, we created templates which are intended to guide restoration process of degraded landsin Sahyadri.The templates are backed by the experience of actual implementation of restoration techniques on variousland patches within Sahyadri during the last 30 years. Three templates are presented to guide the completeprocess of restoration.
Highlights
Under undisturbed conditions, the physiography and climate of the Northern Western Ghats, locally known as the Sahyadri mountains, should support a tropical semi evergreen forest on the crest line and a moist deciduous forest on its eastern spurs in the ‘climax’ state of vegetation (Champion and Seth, 1968)
The present state of the landscape of Western Ghats is the outcome of years of use by local people and the modern developmental pressures within the last few decades (Ghate, 2014)
The restoration templates are intended to offer a process guide to help users plan and take decisions based on the collected data
Summary
The physiography and climate of the Northern Western Ghats, locally known as the Sahyadri mountains, should support a tropical semi evergreen forest on the crest line and a moist deciduous forest on its eastern spurs in the ‘climax’ state of vegetation (Champion and Seth, 1968). Especially in the Northern Western Ghats (NWG) some important aspects must be considered These are (i) ‘fragility of ecosystem’ due to very high rainfall along the crest line (ii) catchment of some of the major rivers in the Indian peninsula (iii) physical conditions (abiotic conditions) and forests (biotic resources) at the river source regions (iv) these are the major soil producing areas, supplying soil downstream. All these special physical features have created unique habitats which have been supporting biodiversity some of which are unique to the habitat, that is endemic species. The biodiversity and ecosystems are extremely important and precious. (Ghate, 2014)
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