Next to a gently flowing stream in the midst of Valparai, Tamil Nadu, a narrow mud road leads to an interesting place. The first native plants nursery in the Anamalai Hills!
The nursery was set up by wildlife scientists Divya Mudappa and T R Shankar Raman in 2001, who were – at that point – fresh out of their PhDs studying birds and small mammals in the rainforests of the Western Ghats. In the years prior, they had collected seeds that had passed trough civets and hornbills, and picked seeds from the rainforest in Kalakkad, in the neighbouring state of Karnataka. They found about 80% success when they tried to germinate seedlings from these seeds.
At the turn of the century, they arrived in Valparai to restore rainforest fragments amidst the tea plantations that engulfed the region. They realised the first step to restore the rainforest was to find healthy saplings they could plant in the fragments. And the sure shot way to find healthy saplings was to grow it themselves! And this lead to the birth of the nursery.
Seeing how difficult it already was for seeds within the rainforest to regenerate into trees, they decided not to collect trees from within the forest. Instead, they collected seeds from the forest boundaries and along roadsides for their nursery. As the seeds became seedlings and then grew into young saplings, the scientists also began to put together a team of -planters – comprised mostly of members from the local community – that grew with the nursery.
For the last 24 years, the nursery has nurtured countless seeds, seedlings and saplings before they make their way home to a rejuvenating rainforest. At any given point, the nursery boasts of 100-150 species of native saplings. In a carefully made system, each of these saplings are kept in different parts of the nursery based on their level of growth, light they need and the moisture they need.
Over the years, Divya and Shankar Raman have remained resolute about not sharing saplings from their nursery with restoration projects in different landscapes. Even adjoining, similar ones. Instead, encourage others to start their own native nurseries with the hope of restoring and maintaining as much biodiversity as possible. This unyielding stance of theirs has resulted in two more native nurseries in the region. Both by tea plantation companies that the scientists have worked with. Their restoration work in the region has also seen 35 rainforest fragments grow from degraded patches overridden with weeds to young, healthy rainforest fragments that are now home to hornbills and lion tailed macaques among other creatures!
