Here is our trip report wonderfully summed up by Gayathri. Italicised comments are my additions and can be ignored, as they are usually some frivolous details that are important to me.
THE THAMIRABARANI LANDSCAPE | MNS TRIP REPORT | 17th APRIL to 20th APRIL 2023 | By Gayathri R
The perennial Thamirabarani has significant environmental and cultural importance to southern Tamil Nadu. It is born in Agasthyamalai, also called the Podhigai Hills and is 130 km long. Our aim was to explore Ainthinai in the Thamirabarani region which denotes the five geographical landscapes– Kurinji(mountainous regions), Mullai(forests), Marudam(cropland), Paalai(desert) and Neithal(seashore).
As I was keen on exploring the Tan Porunai (Sangam name for the Thamirabarani) landscape, I quickly hopped on to the trip with MNS. We were a set of 21 people and the journey started on 16th April 2023 with the night train from Chennai to Tirunelveli.
Latha, Sheila and I were in one compartment, and got stuck with an ace snorer, who spent his waking time on the phone and sleeping time snoring.
Day 1: 17 April 2023–
Midnight rendezvous - Raji was to get on at Trichy at midnight. Station comes, train stops; Sheila - who is in the lower berth - goes to investigate, no sign of Raji. I call Raji - and she says they just announced the platform, and she was coming. Earlier in the night we had asked the TTR and he said the stop was for 3 minutes. I panicked - where is this friend of mine? Was she going to miss the train? From the other platform? Finally we saw her in the distance! But she was not hurrying!! turns out that the train had arrived 10 minutes early,, and so the stop was 13minutes! So she did board and did make the trip, yay! Raji and I were on a trip together after years! She was with the boys Samrudh and Aditya, and we went back to sleep for the few hours until daybreak.
At 6:30, on the morning of 17th April 2023, a couple of us joined the group at the Tirunelveli junction. My eagerness transformed into a feeling of warmth once I met with the bubbling (and babbling) group of people. As a first stop, we went to catch a glimpse of the mighty Thamirabarani, as suggested by Ajith, a young lad who was our driver and a support for the trip.
The multi-coloured painted bridge that we all took pictures of, as we had our first glimpse of the river that defined and accompanied our trip.
We malingered as we are wont to do - watching the dragonflies, taking selfies and just being delighted at the bucolic scene.
The stop was brief and we soon left for our place of stay, ATREE's Agasthyamalai Community based Conservation Centre. The Agasthyamalai landscape was rustic, dotted with palm trees and the comfortable dorm type rooms made our stay lively. We had a wholesome breakfast and interacted with the research team at ATREE (Mr. Mathivannan, Mr. Thanikaivel and Mr. Isakki).
The landmark Agastyamalai hill and scenery from ATREE.
We ladies had one dorm of 6 beds, the kids had another along with Sagarika and Chitra, and the men were far away in the meeting hall. It was a really nice set up for the research scholars, with study tables, adequate plug points and solar power. Several fans circulated the warm air, though one fan protested and moaned about having to do its job! There was much discussion about who would clamber to the upper bunks - and the problem was solved by pulling the mattresses to the floor.
This mango tree was very inviting indeed
As planned, we went to bathe in the stream nearby(a part of the Manimutharu river) in Zamin Singampatti. It was my first river bathing experience and I had a splendid time (as did we all. The aftermath of dealing with wet clothes and trying to change out of them - that's another story).
It was blazing hot and I wondered how these birds stood around in the sun, without seeking the shade. Photo by Sagarika
This field with the ibises and egrets had been irrigated - when we went there a second time it was bone dry. Photo by Sagarika
The surrounding villages depend on the Porunai and its various streams for their daily life. The sight here held a peaceful village life in its entirety. After the refreshing bath, we birded in the surrounding patches and ponds. We were also able to spot the Red-naped Ibis and Black-headed Ibis. We observed the Copper-smith Barbet making a perfect hole on the branch of a tree near the river. Probably it was trying to make a spacious home.
The conservation is efforts from the local village community, along with the FD, we were told by Thanikavel, who explained in detail about the place and the trees.
After lunch, we went to the Tirupudaimarathur temple and bird conservation centre. The picturesque village is located adjacent to the Tamiraparani river. The Conservation Reserve is an IUCN Category V protected bird nesting area in the 2.84 hectares (7.0 acres) compound of Siva temple in the village. It was fascinating to learn that the village community manage this area consisting of the temple, the river and it’s sand bank, and the conservation centre. This is the only village along Thamirabarani where commercial sand mining from the riverbed is banned. Justice Ratnavel Pandian, former Chief Justice of Madras High Court, who hails from this village, has been the master behind all these postive efforts.
It seems "over 400 little egrets, pond heron and painted stork nest in this grove of 20 huge, century-old Maruthu, Mahwa, Neem and Iluppai trees and feed in the many agricultural fields, a few ponds and the Tamiraparani River adjacent to it." (Wikipedia) However, since the rainfall was low in recent times the birds haven’t started nesting yet. Other birds seen were Pied Kingfisher, Spotted Owlet, Rosy Starling, Pale-billed Flowerpecker, Short-toed Snake Eagle and Yellow-throated Sparrow.
We also saw hundreds of Indian flying foxes on the giant iluppai trees near the pond and we sighted the leaf nosed bats inside the temple.
The protected sacred groves within the temple walls, opposite the temple tank we went to. the neer marudhu trees were awesome.
Photo by Sagarika - the Illupai tree with hundred of bats, in various stages of stupor, sleep or wakefulness. We even saw some babies.
They would make sorties like this - were they cooling themselves? Photo by Sagarika
Photo by Kumar - magnificcent
There was this lovely stone corridor in the side that I wandered through.
The Shiva temple at Tirupudaimarathur. We circumnavigated around theouter walls, through the sacred and ancient groves.
At the beginning, these spotted owlets distracted us, and soon the group was straggling, with some fascinated with the owlets, others engrossed in Thanikai's accounts of the trees, and still others like me just wandering and day dreaming. Photo by Sagarika
Illupai - Mahua - Madhuca longifolia, getting into fruit
Gaps in the temple wall and I saw the river and the cleen village streets,
...and even the "sandy beach" where we were headed.
The trees seemed to be looking at me from above.
The path around the temple - a deserted quiet moment to myself.
Inside the temple. Legends of the Leaning Lingam and the swayambu Amman. It was interesting to hear the legend of the leaning lingam, as Lord Shiva leaned to listened to his bhakta who prayed for a way to help him across the river in spate. The amman is made of rudrakashas.
Photo by Kumar of the leaf-nosed bat, which was within on the rooms of the temple, closer to the roof. The elaborate noses of these bats is supposed to help in echolocation
Vilvam tree
The incident of the Yellow throated sparrow - on the top of the gopurma, was supposed to be perched a YTS, and as I peered through my bincolars it just sat there, very still and unmoving. Turns out it was a piece of cloth, wire and lightning arrestor, which magically suggested itself to be a YTS. Anyways, as the light faded, I did manage to see one on the wires - there were a bunch of females - and this photo is by Sagarika.
We headed to the sandy shore of the river, past this beautiful speciment of a tree. Undisturbed and growing with abandon?
We spent some time on the banks of the river which was
nothing short of a beach. We enjoyed the time with a wonderful sunset to
complement.
The dogs decided the children were more amenable to giving them tidbits...and we had a tough time ensuring they did not feed them. Many got their feet wet once again - I did not - too much effort to take out shoes etc - and I just sat and watched the sunset, the ibis flocks in the sky and the setting sun.
We came back to our stay around 7 or so.
The mothing screen was kept ready by moth researcher Thalavaipandi Subbaiah of Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) for regular study. He and his colleague are the first in the world to photograph the moth species Mimeusemia ceylonica, as only an illustration of the insect existed previously. For reference- Moth Found In Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi Districts After 127 Years It was so fascinating to know about this field of research and few boys stayed up late to learn from the expert.
The poochis that were attracted to the moth screen that night. I didnt stay up - the boys and Sagarika did. These are her pictures. Even though the temperature was soaring, all of our minds longed to experience more of this place.
I visited this lake today. Saul kere, after an unsuccessful attempt to reach it a few days ago, I chose a straightforward path, off Sarjapur main road, past the fire station, apartment blocks, drainage canals, fruit vendors, an auto stand, a recycling station, into Maruti nagar, and finally the southern gate of the lake!
The entry was completely flooded with overnight rain mixed with sewage. A Good Samaritan had placed stones to hop across - and I am proud that I did so without falling in the puddle, as I am wont to do.
A 2km periphery mud bund was heavily used by walkers, joggers and later by pedestrians hurrying to the EZ large complex at the Western gate.
For some strange reason, this part of the lake/wetland seems to be getting dredged. Marsh is also good and natural, someone needs to tell BBMP.
All city Corporations seem to be the same....some strange (to me) ideas of restoration, beautification, development?
The lake is surrounded by Tech parks, offices, etc. If one didn't but a boundary of some sort, then I guess this would just vanish? Like erstwhile water bodies in T Nagar and Lake Area in Chennai and Indira Nagar in Bangalore
I enjoyed my walk, in solitude. Solo birding after a long time.
Ashy Prinias called from every bush, and from the reeds. I have never heard so many at one spot!
Each part of the lake had different colonies. There were Black-headed ibis on one side, Great Coromorants on the central island,
Cattle Egrets in breeding plumage in another area, along with pond herons.
Pelicans swam in their usual contemplative fashion - After many years, I saw a pelican walk - it strolled onto the dryer fringes. The cattle egret hung around together in breeding plumage, the Ashy Prinias called from every tree, a couple of Brahminy Kites circled and settled in the middle, where the lake bed was being dredged, swamphens scratched around. I did not see a single grebe - they were all at KKhalli lake?
In the more wooded area, beeeaters swooped and bulbuls called. In the side nallahs, white-breasted waterhens cackled loudly, and the Spot-billed ducks swam in families in the more open waters.
Black ants were starting out on their home-building project.
It was a lovely cool morning, and the rain held off, I went back to the stepping stones - one of the stones had been knocked off - so damp socks, but happy me, as I walked out into urbania again.
It is quite an adventure trying to cross the main Sarjapur road - tellingly, there are no pedestrian crossings, so you make your way, with a prayer on your lips and nerves of steel. And a little too late, I realised the stupidity of trying to do this with 80+ year old mother as well.
All this urban adventure in order to see Kaikondrahalli lake, which we had enjoyed on our previous visits. Mother and daughter let out a collective gasp of consternation on entry, as we were hit by the smell of sewage, and foamy, green water covered with hyacinth at the entrance run-off area. It did not get better as we went in and around the lake on the bund - the water level was understandably low, but there was no sign of life - where were the fishes we would see? And where were all the ducks and coots and cormorants?
The path wound round to the other side, and here I saw a whole lot of Little Grebes
Of course there were more apartment blocks all around - to be expected - but not the flow of untreated sewage in from the side!
At the far end, in the submerged skeleton of the eucalyptus grove, the Large Cormorants continue to roost, and there were several Black Kite nests, untidy and large.
A large, undisturbed ant hill - I wonder if it is still intact after the rain of the last few days.
I listed 19 species, as we left and headed back for our reverse adventure crossing.
My mother entered the apartment complex, and exclaimed that she was not going back to the lake - it had made her so upset and despondent. She did not want to go back.
I wonder if the Late Mr Miyawaki thought that his method would become a one-size-fits-all? I think he did his work for the temperate forests of Japan, and maybe it makes sense in some other countries with similar climactic conditions?
It is definitely not suited to TDEF areas of India, which is a large swathe of the subcontinent. And the definition of what is "native" - should include grasses and scrub, one would think.
Representative image of a ‘Miyawaki forest’. Photo: BemanHerish/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
It was half past midnight as we peeled our eyes off our computer screens. My colleague and I leaned back to discuss whether the jhadber – a wild cousin of the common ber – is a ‘shrub’ or a ‘sub-tree’. “It does grow tree-like in Delhi and westwards,” I said. From the process documents we’d learnt that the ‘shrub layer’ was supposed to grow to a maximum of ‘human height’, no taller. We looked up the global average for human height. Fair enough. Glossing over its ecological complexities, we pronounced the jhadber a ‘shrub’ and moved on. Next step: to calculate how many jhadber saplings we’d need to ensure it constitutes exactly 8-12% of our so-called ‘native forest’. Apparently, the 8-12 range is the prescribed percentage of shrubs in forests across India (perhaps even the world).
This was one of the first times we were creating a ‘native forest’ on our laptop screens. We felt like we’d found our ikigai. This work demanded meticulousness and a calculator. We had been given a process and we were going to follow it to the tee. We ensured that our ‘canopy layer’ – defined as ‘the tallest trees in the local forest’ – stayed firmly between 15-20% of our total plantation. We also went to great lengths to make sure our ‘sub tree layer’ – defined as ‘trees which are taller than human (sic)’ but still small compared to ‘normal trees found in forest (sic)’ – stayed exactly at 27.5%, no more, no less. This was because we wanted to give a little extra weightage to our ‘tree layer,’ which was defined ‘based on the average height of trees in your geography.’
Our spreadsheet planting complete, we moved on to soil. The process doc instructed us that ‘forest creation’ goes hand in hand with ‘soil creation’. A jar test result confirmed that our site’s soil was a sandy loam. Apparently, this was not good enough, so we needed to add 4 kgs per square meter of ‘perforator material’ in the form of wheat crop residue. Nor was our soil ‘water-retentive’ enough, so we’d need to add cocopeat (trucked in from Kerala) as a ‘water retainer’ material. Add to this cow manure and 1 kilolitre of jivamrit (a gobar and gomutra based liquid fertilizer) and voila: these ingredients would be mixed in approximately 200 hours by the long arms of a JCB earthmover to produce an instantly teeming ‘forest soil’ into which we’d plant the carefully chosen ‘layers’ of our ‘native forest’ all at once. It was about 2 am by now. We were done; we’d run the numbers; we were ready. We said arigato to the process files and lay down to sleep, eyes twitching slightly due to the prolonged laptop glare.
We city boys had found our ikigai and we were out to save the world, one tree at a time. Best of all, a certain Mr Miyawaki – a Japanese botanist – seemed to have provided us with a way to do it: a “forest creation process”. This method promised an insta-forest: a rapidly growing plantation that leapt straight towards a climax ecosystem. We’d avoid all the gradual stages of ecological succession. Climax sans foreplay – that’s exactly what we needed. This method also promised speed. Apparently these ‘forests’ grow at a breakneck pace, no less than a bullet train slicing its way into the future. All of this sounded nice and marketable: grow a forest with Japanese speed and Japanese efficiency. This is what we were trying to sell to the CSR wing of one of India’s largest gutka companies. They wanted a ‘green belt’ around the bulging waistline of their massive glass-and-steel head office in a Delhi satellite city. We were out to sell them the silver bullet of the Miyawaki method of forest plantation.
The natural jungle of the Thar Desert is a shrubland called ‘Roee’, a climax ecosystem without any trees! Photo: Arati Kumar Rao
Luckily, that project never came through. Our work at an ‘urban farming’ start-up in Delhi led us to this Miyawaki business. We mostly made kitchen gardens but our clients’ requests to plant native trees in their fortress-like farmhouses foisted us into the heady dealings of the professional tree-planting world. This was 2018 and India’s Miyawaki pioneers had just made their process open source. New non-profits – many with names like iTree, MeTree, and MyTree – were mushrooming all over the city, each trying to net the lakhs of CSR funds floating around. We were also about to enter the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration and nothing made us happier than to have a set of Excel sheets that would automate the ‘forest creation’ process. With this file in hand, we could avoid the slow process of engaging deeply with the nuances of our local ecology and landscape. We could become overnight native forest experts! What else could we ask for? With vaulting ambition, we leapt into the fray.
At the time, we were beginners in matters related to ecology. We were bootstrapping at the urban farming start-up, helping grow gajar and mooli on rooftops in Delhi’s dome of smog. We had picked up tree spotting as a hobby and soon realised the paucity of native trees in the city, and even more so of nurseries that focus on native plants. So we were immediately lured towards the Miyawaki method by celebratory articles and videos on a few goody-two-shoes, ‘better’ news websites. Who wouldn’t want to create a ‘forest’ that promised 10x faster growth, 30x more carbon sequestration and 100x more biodiversity than any other method of plantation in the world? It sounded too good to be true (and didn’t seem to require much work either).
No sooner had we started dipping our toes into the Miyawaki method, than a 200-acre ecological restoration project in Rajasthan fell into our laps. Our brief was simple and direct: Jungal bana do (Make me a jungle). We tinkered with our Miyawaki forest-making Excel sheet once again, punched in the numbers, and saw the material quantities and costs for this project shoot through the roof. We would have required tens of thousands of tons of manure and wheat crop residue; an Olympic-size swimming pool full of jivamrit, thousands of earthmover-hours, and over 2.4 million plants! Something didn’t make sense.
We placed our calculators back on the table again. We couldn’t yet put our finger on it, but something felt wrong. When we tried to imagine the visual effect of this planting scheme, our minds got entangled in a dense thicket, unlike anything we had seen on our wanderings in Rajasthan. Perhaps we’d only seen highly degraded landscapes, chewed thin and scanty by endless hordes of goats and sheep. But, if a ‘climax forest’ were truly so cramped and impenetrable, where did any of our grassland and scrub fauna – the gazelle, the blackbuck and the ground-nesting bustard – live? Were they originally monkeying around in a dense woodland? When our calculator coughed up these gargantuan numbers, we felt like we were beating around the wrong bush and unable to look at reality as it were. We needed to seek alternative advice.
An open natural ecosystem with grasses and herbs covering the entire ground, with trees and shrubs spaced wide apart. Nothing akin to a Miyawaki plantation.
We knew of Pradip Krishen from his book Trees of Delhi. We’d also heard that over the previous decade, he had ‘rewilded’ or ecologically restored a large tract of rocky desert in Jodhpur. We timorously contacted him about our site near Jodhpur and he immediately called us over for a chat. He was forthcoming and relaxed and he told us something along the lines of, “All you need to do, boys, is to really get to know your plants, study the soil and moisture regime at your site, find an intact ‘analogue site’ nearby that has the same characteristics as your site, and carefully make a note of all the plant species growing there and how they’re growing in relation to each other spatially. Then, bring back the seeds of these plants to your site and start a nursery, and plant the seedlings in a manner that resembles their natural arrangement on your reference site. Or at least as close as possible to that. And remember: don’t forget your grasses!”
We looked at each other with our mouths agape. This sounded quite the opposite of our one-size-fits-all Miyawaki planning methods. Yes, the Miyawaki system does emphasise native species but it ignores ecological niche: the idea that species are adapted to very specific site conditions. For example, dry rocky slopes support a very different community of plants when compared to low-lying moist valleys. Calcium-rich or saline soils result in their own specialized suite of plants. But the Miyawaki system’s formulaic method ignores these subtleties, making generalised lists of native plants and shoving them all together in heavily manured soil. Add to this the heavy watering they recommend in the first two years and voila: the plants that tend to dominate Miyawaki plantations – at least the ones we’ve seen in North India – tend to be those that like nutrient-rich, moist situations like the desi babool. In fact, this is what the Miyawaki system does: create a specific ecological niche suited to plants that like deep, nutrient-rich soil and lots of moisture; it does not create a biodiverse community of grasses, wildflowers, shrubs and trees, each provided with the kind of open living room they prefer.
Khejri trees space themselves wide apart in sandy habitats in western Rajasthan to compensate for low nutrient and water availability in loose, sandy soils. Their roots spread far and wide, and go up to 30 metres deep to help them survive in this hot, unforgiving environment. Photo courtesy: Pradip Krishen
And so, after earnestly jumping on, we alighted from the Miyawaki bandwagon. We took a plunge into the local ecology and began doing field trips to learn about all kinds of plants: seasonal wildflowers; annual grasses; shrubs; lots of tiny things like lichens and, of course, trees. We climbed them to look closely at their flowers or to collect seed; knelt down to photograph tiny inflorescences; peered through a hand lens to look at minute grass florets. We troubled botanists to help us identify everything we were seeing. It was a slow and arduous process, but we began to develop a sense of connection to the plants and landscape. And to the local people that lived in them. This was exactly what the Miyawaki system – with its spreadsheets and formulas – ignores. Creating ecologically restored landscapes – let’s call them ‘native forests’ – demands that we slow down and peer closely into a landscape’s past and present conditions; understand its unique ecology and our role in degrading it; and then work with local communities to find ways through which ecological integrity can be restored. Japanese speed and efficiency have no role here.
As we went on, it didn’t take long for us to realise that in all our project sites, which lie in the semi-arid and arid parts of northwestern India, the natural forest (for the most part) is an ‘open’ forest with trees spaced apart, much like in a Savannah. Areas between trees are dominated by shrubs, grasses, and annual wildflowers that only live for a few months every year. We started understanding plants’ ecological niches: the very specific intersection of soil type, moisture regime and aspect in which those species really thrive. We learnt which plants are picky: they demand a specific soil mineral – like lime kankar or salt – to grow happily. Indrokh (Anogeissus sericea var. nummularia), for example, grows primarily in calcium-rich, nodular soils along seasonal streams. Some others are pioneers, like Daimal (Tephrosia falciformis). Daimal is among the first shrubs to germinate on a newly settled sand dune, and the moment other plants find a footing on the dune, it disappears. The Miyawaki system leaves absolutely no room for such nuances.
Earlier this year, we visited a three-year-old Miyawaki ‘native forest’ close to Jaipur. It was a long, thin strip of impenetrable green mass about as wide as a tennis court, abutting a bustling industrial area. A linear path cut through. As we entered, we were in the shade and the temperature fell. Not really what we wanted on a cold winter morning. Plants comfortable in deep, moist situations like the desi babool, moringa, siris and lasora dominated the canopy. The rest, at least the ones we managed to identify through the thicket, were hunkering below, assuming lanky forms, unlike anything we’d seen in natural open situations.
Some looked so different we struggled to identify them but this ‘forest’ was just too thick to get any closer to them. We felt dispirited, our curiosity subdued. This was straitjacketed wilderness at its worst: a veritable botanical zoo, but a badly designed one that created neither beauty nor allowed plants to express their real character. Here they were, the caged plants, packed like sardines by the human need for abstract formulas and processes. We were done; we’d seen the process and its results; we walked out feeling meh.
The Miyawaki forest we visited in Jaipur, with thin, lanky stems of trees, and the glaring absence of grasses and herbaceous annuals that form a key part of this ecosystem.
Just as we were exiting, we saw it. A few silvery, pale green stems, looking much thinner than usual, scrounging for sunlight. It looked as though this prostrate plant was attempting to drag itself out of this so-called forest. Surely this couldn’t be kheer kheemp (Sarcostemma acidum)? We leaned in a little closer and broke a stem. Milky latex oozed out. It was. Kheer kheemp is one of the few large succulents found in rocky habitats in western India. It looks like a starburst of pencil-thin pale green stems. The first time we saw a kheer kheemp in the wild was after a strenuous four-hour hike up a steep hill in the Aravallis near Sikar. As we reached the peak, we spotted it, right at the top. It resembled a massive terrestrial sea anemone with its long pale tentacles waving in the wind. It looked like the mountain had dreadlocks and this was its song of freedom. We stood there a moment in awe of this being that was showing us a glimpse of the sublime in one of the most inhospitable places you can imagine. But Kheer kheemp thrives in such conditions. Its roots are able to exploit thin, deep cracks in rock, and it photosynthesizes with its green stems. But in the Miyawaki forest, it was planted in a deep, loamy, heavily-irrigated soil under thick shade. A mighty shrub that clothes steep, rocky cliffs reduced to a puny, inconspicuous, sorrylittle plant. A friend once counted over 30 butterflies foraging on a single kheer kheemp in flower. Here it would probably never flower; it likely would not even survive.
Kheer kheemp, with pale stems, growing in sheer rock, in Zenana Gardens (Jodhpur). Photo courtesy: Pradip Krishen
The ironic thing about the Miyawaki system is that it’s wildly unreasonable, illogical and inappropriate. But it seems like we live in wildlyabsurd times where common sense is no longer common. Let’s do a little thought experiment: a Yemeni ecologist named Mr Mian Wali studies his local ecology over decades and arrives at a ‘system’ – a formula – that enables him and his team to easily restore their degraded ecosystems. Could you imagine an Indian businessman bringing Mr Mian Wali’s ‘system’ to India to help us restore our degraded landscapes with Yemeni effectiveness? We don’t mean any offence to Yemen, but this just sounds ridiculous. Then why have we let another Indian businessman convince us that we need a Japanese system to grow our native forests? Perhaps because we’re historically amenable towards Japanese speed and efficiency. (Not sure why either of these has any bearing on ecology.) Perhaps it’s an indicator of how deeply divorced contemporary Indian culture is from nature. Perhaps, the modern Indian mind is denser than Miyawaki plantations themselves? What’s clear is that many government agencies, NGOs and hubris-filled youth (like our earlier selves) have latched onto it as an easy way to make money and plant trees without needing to understand the nuances of ecology and biodiversity at all – and cause lots of damage in the process! How are we going to stop this Miyawaki mania? By slowing down and actually forming a connection with plants, landscape and local communities, but nobody seems to have the time for this, for such are the times we live in.
Fazal Rashid and Somil Daga are ecological gardeners working in Central India and Rajasthan. You can write to them at fazalrashid@gmail.com and somildaga@gmail.com
The stop was brief and we soon left for our place of stay, ATREE's Agasthyamalai Community based Conservation Centre. The Agasthyamalai landscape was rustic, dotted with palm trees and the comfortable dorm type rooms made our stay lively. We had a wholesome breakfast and interacted with the research team at ATREE (Mr. Mathivannan, Mr. Thanikaivel and Mr. Isakki). 
