Protected Areas · Long read · 12 min read

Silent Valley: The Forest That Changed India

In the 1970s, a hydroelectric dam threatened to drown one of the last undisturbed rainforests of the Western Ghats. The campaign to save it became a turning point in India's environmental history. The story and ecology of Silent Valley National Park.

By GK Global, Adimali, Munnar · Trails & Tales by GK

In the northeast corner of Palakkad district, where the Nilgiri hills meet the plains of Kerala, lies a valley of tall, ancient rainforest. Through it runs the Kunthipuzha, a clear river that rises in the forest and flows out of the hills without passing a single dam. Half a century ago, the valley was due to be flooded. That it survives is the result of one of the most important environmental campaigns in Indian history.

A valley of legends

Local tradition links the valley with the Mahabharata. It is known in Malayalam as Sairandhrivanam, the forest of Sairandhri, the name taken by Draupadi during the Pandavas' exile, and its river as the Kunthipuzha, after Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. The English name "Silent Valley" is often said to come from the apparent absence of the noisy cicadas that are common in other forests, though the forest is far from silent.

The dam and the movement

From the early twentieth century, engineers had identified the Kunthipuzha gorge as a site for a hydroelectric dam. In February 1973, the Planning Commission approved the Silent Valley Hydroelectric Project, a 120 MW scheme whose reservoir would have flooded a large part of the valley's forest.

Opposition grew through the 1970s. Scientists drew attention to the valley's unique rainforest and to the lion-tailed macaque, an Endangered primate that lived there, which became the symbol of the campaign. The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP), a people's science movement, published studies arguing that the project would add little to Kerala's power supply and that alternatives existed. The poet Sugathakumari became a leading voice of the movement; her poem Marathinu Stuthi ("Ode to a tree") became its anthem. The ornithologist Salim Ali appealed for the project's cancellation, and in 1978 the IUCN called for the valley's protection.

The case went to the Kerala High Court, which first halted and then, in 1980, allowed work to proceed. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, persuaded by scientists and conservationists, asked Kerala to suspend work and set up a committee under M. G. K. Menon, which included the ecologist Madhav Gadgil. On the committee's advice, the project was abandoned in 1983. The area was notified as a national park on 15 November 1984, two weeks after Indira Gandhi's assassination, and was inaugurated by Rajiv Gandhi on 7 September 1985.

The Save Silent Valley movement is widely regarded as the first major environmental movement in India to stop a large development project on ecological grounds. It helped to shape a generation of Indian environmentalists and the country's approach to protecting forests.

The rainforest

Silent Valley protects one of the last large tracts of undisturbed tropical wet evergreen forest in the Western Ghats, rising from about 650 m to more than 2,300 m, with shola forest and grassland on the highest ridges. The forest is believed to be of very ancient origin. Its tall trees support a rich community of epiphytes, including orchids and ferns, and many plants found nowhere else.

The park is home to the lion-tailed macaque, Nilgiri langur, tiger, leopard, elephant, gaur, Nilgiri tahr, Malabar giant squirrel and Nilgiri marten, and to a rich community of birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish and insects, including many species endemic to the Western Ghats.

People

The park itself has no human settlements, but the communities of Attappadi, including the Irula, Muduga and Kurumba peoples, live in the surrounding hills and valleys, and are involved in the park's protection and in eco-tourism programmes.

Silent Valley today

The addition of a buffer zone in 2007 extended protection to the surrounding forests. Proposals for hydroelectric projects elsewhere in the area have continued to raise concern. The park's future depends on protecting the wider landscape of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, including the corridors that link it to the forests of the Nilgiris, Mukurthi and New Amarambalam.