Peril in the hills

THE NILGIRI HILLS ARE WITNESSING ECOSYSTEM COLLAPSE DUE TO EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS TRIGGERED BY CLIMATE CHANGE

- GODWIN VASANTH BOSCO

THOUSANDS OF trees lay dead and strewn around the western parts of the Nilgiri Plateau in southern India. Deep gashes scar ancient mountains, standing a stark contrast to the lush green vegetation that they otherwise support. As conservationists and activists are fighting to protect forests and wilderness areas from being deforested, mined and diverted to “developmental” projects, there is another level of destruction happening to our last remaining wild spaces. Climate change is causing widespread collapse of ecosystems.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere hit a record-breaking 417 ppm in May 2020, highest in 3 million years. Along with global warming caused sea-level rise and the melting of polar ice caps and glaciers, the steep increase in greenhouse gas concentrations has led to a surge in the frequency of extreme climate events. A region of the Earth where climate change caused weather extremities are exceedingly apparent are the coastal plains and the Western Ghats regions of southern India. In the last four years, this region has been affected by eight tropical cyclones and consecutive extreme rainfall events during the southwest monsoon periods of the last two years. These bouts of intense storms have been interspersed with periods of severe droughts, heatwaves, deficient and failed monsoons.

On August 8, 2019, the Avalanche and Emerald valley regions, which are part of the Kundha watershed, received an unprecedented 900 mm rainfall within 24 hours. It broke the record for the highest rainfall in Tamil Nadu, by nearly twice the amount. Over four days, the region experienced close to 2,500 mm rainfall. To put this in perspective, Coimbatore, the nearest city in the plains of Tamil Nadu, receives 600 mm of rain annually. The Kundha watershed bore a deluge that was four times the annual rainfall amount, over just four days.