TROUBLED WOODS

Forests are a great bulwark against climate change. But this is fast changing. AKSHIT SANGOMLA travels through some of the pristine patches of the Western Ghats to explore how natural disturbances triggered by global warming now threaten the forest health

- AKSHIT SANGOMLA

SOON AFTER the Wayanad landslides in July, which claimed over 400 lives, scientists with the World Weather Attribution, an international collaboration, unequivocally said that the disaster was exacerbated by nearly 11 per cent due to global warming. But for a handful of scientists closely monitoring the Western Ghats, global warming is responsible for almost every landslide in the region occurring in recent years. “Landslides are happening throughout the eastern slopes of the Western Ghats, from Coorg district in Karnataka to Vellarimala in Kozhikode district of Kerala,” C K Vishnudas, director of Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology in Kalpetta, Wayanad, tells Down To Earth (dte). “And these all are clearly linked to climate change.”

Usually areas that are urbanising fast, have mines and a diminishing green cover are considered vulnerable to landslides. But the eastern slopes are sparsely populated and have lush forests, Vishnudas says. Since 2018, Vishnudas and his team have been collecting rainfall data for Wayanad district from historical weather logbooks of tea estates. They find that the number of rainfall events above 300 mm per day has increased since 2018. Records from the local agricultural weather station also show that Wayanad has warmed by 1.5oC over the past decade.