Communities in olden days respected wildlife habitats of Western Ghats, says K N Ganesh

T'puram: Kerala Council for Historical Research chairperson K N Ganesh said that communities in the olden days looked at the Western Ghats as a resource-rich, biodiverse region, and respected the habitat of the wildlife. He added that it was never considered a frontier back then. Delivering a talk on ‘The Western Ghats in History', organized by the forest department headquarters as part of its lecture series Anthropocene, Ganesh said that communities in Western Ghats in those days respected the space of the wildlife, did not disturb them, and preferred co-habitation.
He mentioned elephant corridors as an example, saying that these corridors were habitats that people of those times left alone. They also had better knowledge about the animals. Ganesh said that "everything changed when hunting came into the picture. Not the small-time hunting by the tribes." People these days hardly know anything about animals, he added. Ganesh said that a lot of people, especially from areas close to Western Ghats, are moving out, citing wildlife presence. Discussing the significance of Western Ghats and how it was transformed in different ways, he said that it should be treated as central to south India and not as a frontier, as it is currently seen. He said that Western Ghats transformed from a resource-rich region in the Megalithic period to swaroopams of the 16th-17th centuries, to a mono-crop plantation region during the British era, to the current-day region of capital for commercial tourism. There is evidence of human presence closer to Western Ghats on the eastern side, like Varshanad, Andipatti Hills, Palani Hills, Pollachi, Udagamandalam, Coonoor and Vanavasi in the Megalithic age, with the most evidence found at Idukki, he said. "This shows that people lived here or moved around here, but there is no evidence of human settlement. Among the signs of continuous movement of Western Ghat communities, two are interesting – the Kurumba movement from Karnataka through the Ghats all the way to Tiruvallur in Chennai, and that of the Irulars. These communities travelled through such areas, and for them, the Ghats were never a hindrance," Ganesh said. These paths could be considered exchange routes for resources, including food produce and other materials, to people from the coast, he added. "We may have to do further studies to find out what these resources were and from where to where they were sent." He said that the first major change happened when people from the midland regions moved to hilly areas, and many swaroopams were set up by families who migrated due to different reasons. The second major change happened when the colonialists introduced the plantation economy. "By the end of the 19th century, selective felling became widespread and forest plantations were implemented. To maintain it, some regions of the Ghats had to be protected. The animals had no place to go, so reserve forests were notified," Ganesh said. The shift happened with the help of forest laws, though a multi-crop resource region could have been maintained, he said.