Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:47:11.744Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

India's Silent Valley and Its Threatened Rain-forest Ecosystems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

J.S. Singh ,
S.P. Singh ,
A.K. Saxena  and
Y.S. Rawat
J.S. Singh
Affiliation:
Reader, Department of Botany, Kumaun University, Naini Tal 263002, India; present address: Professor of Botany, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India
S.P. Singh
Affiliation:
Lecturer, Department of Botany, Kumaun University, Naini Tal 263002, India
A.K. Saxena
Affiliation:
Junior Research Officer, Hill CampusG.B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Ranichauri, Tehri Garhwal 249145, India
Y.S. Rawat
Affiliation:
Senior Research Fellow, CSIR, Department of Botany, Kumaun University, Naini Tal 263002, India.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Most of the features that are commonly attributed to typical tropical rain-forests, such as a preponderance of woody vegetation and species with leaves in the mesophyll size-class, tall slender trees with ‘flying buttress’ and unusually thin bark, multilayering of vegetation with abundance of epiphytes and stranglers, evergreenness, strong tendency to change in species composition in time and space, and high diversity of dominance, are plentifully displayed by the forests of the Silent Valley in southwestern India. A relatively high species-richness, remarkably thin bark of trees, and high total tree-basal area, indicate that the valley embodies a virgin forest and that conditions for growth are very favourable. Because of the terrain, heterogeneity in habitats is well marked.

The proposed construction of a dam and large flooding reservoir threatens to bring about several undesirable alterations in the environment of the Silent Valley rain- and riparian forests, and the disturbances that would follow such construction and flooding would be highly detrimental to the diversity of the forests and to the complexity of their structure. Hence a plea is made for the setting aside forthwith of a proposed major ‘Silent Valley Biosphere Reserve’, which could safeguard a unique part of the world's genetical heritage and one of its most interesting complexes of natural ecosystems.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1984 , pp. 223 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ashton, P.S. (1976). Factors affecting the development and conservation of tree genetic resources in South-east Asia. Pp. 189–98 in Tropical Trees: Variation, Breeding and Conservation (Ed. Burley, J. & Styles, B.T.). Academic Press, London & New York. [Reprint only available.]Google Scholar
Chandrashekharan, C. (1973). Forest Resources of Kerala: A Quantitative Assessment. Kerala Forest Department, Trivandrum, Kerala, India: 245 pp.Google Scholar
Cody, M.L. (1968). On the methods of resource divisions in grassland bird communities. Amer. Nat., 102, pp. 107–47.Google Scholar
Dasmann, R.F., Milton, J.P. & Freeman, P.H. (1974). Ecological Principles for Economic Development. John Wiley & Sons, London, England, UK: ix + 252 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, J.F. (1980). The diversity of biomass of tropical mammals. Pp. 35–55 in Conservation Biology (Ed. Soule, M.E. & Wilcox, B.A.). Sinauer Associated, Sunderland, Massachusetts, USA: 395 pp.Google Scholar
Farnworth, E.G. & Golley, F.B. (1974). Fragile Ecosystem: Evaluation of Research and Applications in the Neotropics. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, USA: xxvi + 258 pp.Google Scholar
Farver, M.T. & Milton, J.P. (1972). The Careless Technology: Ecology and International Development. Doubleday, Natural History Press, New York, NY, USA: 1030 pp.Google Scholar
Foster, R.B. (1980). Heterogeneity and disturbance in tropical vegetation. Pp. 75–92 in Conservation Biology (Ed. Soule, M.E. & Wilcox, B.A.). Sinauer Associated, Sunderland, Massachusetts, USA: 395 pp.Google Scholar
Gadgil, M. (1979). Hills, dams and forests: Some field observations from the Western Ghats. Proc. Indian Acad. Sci., 2(3), pp. 291–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, L.E. (1980). Foodwebs organization and the conservation of neotropical diversity. Pp. 11–33 in Conservation Biology (Ed. Soule, M.E. & Wilcox, B.A.). Sinauer Associated, Sunderland, Massachusetts, USA: 395 pp.Google Scholar
Hartshorn, G.S. (1978). Tree falls and tropical forest dynamics. Pp. 617–38 in Tropical Trees as Living Systems (Ed. Tomlinson, P.B. & Zimmermann, M.H.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England UK. [Reprint only available.]Google Scholar
Heksira, G.P. (1981). The green revolution confronted with the world conservation strategy: Towards a conservation strategy to retain world food and Biosphere options. Ecoscripts, 14, pp. 1–37.Google Scholar
Herrera, R., Jordan, C.F., Medina, E. & Kilinge, H. (1981). How human activities disturb the nutrient cycles of a tropical rain-forest in Amazonia. Ambio, 10, pp. 109–14.Google Scholar
Jordan, C.F. & Medina, E. (1977). Ecosystem research in the tropics. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard., 64, pp. 737–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khadi and Village Industries Commission (1975). Gobar Gas, Why and How. Khadi and Village Industries Commission, Bombay, India: [not available for checking].Google Scholar
Kramer, F. (1926). Onderzock naar de natuurlijke verjonging in uitkap in preanger gebergtebosch. Med. Proefst. Boschw. Bogor, 14. [Not available for checking.]Google Scholar
Kramer, F. (1933). De natuurlijke verjonging in het Goenoeng Gredeh complex. Tectona, 26, pp. 156–85.Google Scholar
Lengerke, H.J. von (1977). The Nilgiris: Weather and Climate of a Mountain Area in South India, (Beitrage Zur Sudasienforschung 32.) Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden, West Germany: xviii + 340 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Lovejoy, T.E. & Oren, D. (1981). The minimum critical size of ecosystems. Pp. 7–13 in Forest Island Dynamics in Mandominated Landscapes (Ed. Burgess, R.L. & Sharpe, D.M.). Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, USA: [only reprint available].CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovejoy, T.E., Bierregaard, R.O., Rankin, J.M. & Schubart, H.O.R. (1983). Ecological dynamics of tropical forest fragments. Pp. 378–84 in Tropical Rain Forest: Ecology and Management (Ed. Sutton, S.L., Whitmore, T.C. & Chadwick, A.C.). Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, England, UK: xiii + 498 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
MacArthur, R.H. & MacArthur, J. (1961). On bird species diversity. Ecology, 42, pp. 594–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medway, Lord (1969). The Wild Mammals of Malaya. Oxford University Press, Kuala Lampur, Malaysia: [not available for checking].Google Scholar
Myers, N. (1979). The Sinking Ark. Pergamon Press, Oxford, England, UK: xiii + 307 pp.Google Scholar
Myers, N. (1980). The present status and future prospects of Tropical Moist Forests. Environmental Conservation, 7(2), pp. 101–14.Google Scholar
Nair, P.V., Sukumar, R. & Gadgil, M. (1980). The elephant in south India: A review. Pp. 9–19 in The Asian Elephant in the Indian Sub-continent. IUCN/SSC Report [not available for checking].Google Scholar
Ng, F.S.P. (1980). Germination ecology of Malaysian woody plants. Malaysian Forester, 43, pp. 406–37.Google Scholar
Ng, F.S.P. (1983). Ecological principles of tropical lowland rainforest conservation. Pp. 359–75 in Tropical Rain Forest: Ecology and Management (Ed. Sutton, S.L., Whitmore, T.C. & Chadwick, A.C.). Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, England, UK: xiii + 498 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Oza, G.M. (1981). Save Silent Valley as a World Heritage Site? Environmental Conservation, 8(1), p. 52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poore, M.E.D. (1968). Studies in Malaysian rain-forest, I: The forest on the Triassic sediments in Jengka Forest Reserve. J. Ecol., 56, pp. 143–96.Google Scholar
Ramakrishnan, P.S. (1984). The need to conserve Silent Valley and Tropical Rain-forest Ecosystems in India. Environmental Conservation, 11(2), pp. 170–1.Google Scholar
Richards, P.W. (1952). The Tropical Rain Forest: An Ecological Study. Cambridge University Press, London, England, UK: xviii + 450 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Singh, J.S., Singh, S.P., Saxena, A.K. & Rawat, Y.S. (in press). The forest vegetation of Silent Valley, India. In Tropical Rain Forest: Ecology and Management (Ed. A.C. Chadwick & S.L. Sutton). Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Leeds, England, U.K.Google Scholar
Stehli, F.G., Douglas, R.G. & Newell, N.D. (1969). Generation and maintenance of gradients in taxonomic diversity. Science, 164, pp. 947–9.Google Scholar
Swaminathan, M.S. (1983). The Silent Valley development with eco-conservation. Pp. 115–27 in Himalayas: Mountains and Men—Studies in Ecodevelopment (Ed. Singh, T.V. & Kaur, J.). Print House, Lucknow, India: xvi + 509 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Whittaker, R.H. (1975). Communities and Ecosystems. Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, NY, USA: 385 pp.Google Scholar
Whittaker, R.H. & Likens, G.E. (1975). The Biosphere and Man. Pp. 305–28 in Primary Productivity of The Biosphere (Ed. Lieth, H. & Whittaker, R.H.). Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, USA: vi + 339 pp., illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, E.O. & Willis, E.O. (1975). Applied biogeography. Pp. 522–34 in Ecology and Evolution of Communities (Ed. Cody, M.L. & Diamond, J.M.). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: [reprint only available].Google Scholar
Woodwell, G.M., Whittaker, R.H., Reiners, W.A., Likens, G.E., Delwiche, C.C. & Botkin, D.B. (1978). The biota and the world carbon budget. Science, 199, pp. 141–6.Google Scholar