Current Project

Biocultural Diversity Studies

   A research partnership was established among Scientists (Drs Balasubramaniam and Nagaraj) at the Kongunad Arts and Science College, Coimbatore, India and the Botany Division at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph. Our Bio-cultural Diversity studies integrates scientific knowledge of biological diversity with cultural traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) on biodiversity in the landscape in the context of ecosystem management issues such as resource harvesting and climate change. For example the Malasars of Dravidian Tamils are an indigenous society occupying the forests of the Western Ghats, South India. They are known to be exceptional healers and keepers of TAK and TEK of the flora in the Velliangiri Holy Hills. More importantly Aboriginal’s TEK provide criteria for quick biodiversity assessments. Figure 1 shows the two distinct floristic patterns of this holy hill, which has thick and dense vegetation on one side and open grassland on the other side. Aboriginals who live there have many stories about the changing patterns of vegetation.

   Thenkailaya Malai, or more popularly known as the ‘Holy Hill’ of South India is the last of the seven peaks in the Velliangiri hills, which form a major range in the Western Ghats. The Holy Hill is rich in biodiversity and largely untouched by the surrounding developing communities because of a long history (10,000 yrs) of considerable cultural and religious importance. The Velliangiri Andavar temple and the cave of “Panchalingas” are popular pilgrimages in Velliangiri hills. Several thousand pilgrims visit the Velliangiri Andavar temple bare foot every new moon. It is a dangerous trek through grasslands and forests with wild bisons, elephants and poisonous snakes around. This concludes with a 10 km hike up the steep hillside through a tropical moist deciduous forest with many thorny shrubs. Devotees climb bare foot as they believe that animals would attack them if they wear shoes. The pilgrims start walking up the hill early in the morning and climb down before dark. We participated in a floristic investigation that revealed considerable diversity (1715 species of angiosperms including 439 endemics) on the Holy Hill. It is astonishing that this relatively small (48 sq. km.) holy reserve contains over one third of the angiosperm diversity as defined during comprehensive surveys of the large (5520 sq.km.) Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. Field biologists must adhere and respect these religious customs, which places a restriction on how far they can explore in a day. This may explain why botanists have not fully explored the richness of this unique flora.