Silent Valley National Park

Silent Valley National Park സൈലന്റ് വാലീ നാഷണല്‍ പാര്‍ക്ക് (Core zone: 89.52 square kilometres (35 sq mi)) is located in the Nilgiri Hills, Palakkad district, Kerala, in South India. The area under this national park was historically explored in 1847 by the botanist Robert Wight, and is associated with Hindu legend.
The park is one of the last undisturbed tracts of South Western Ghats montane rain forests and tropical moist evergreen forest in India. Contiguous with the proposed Karimpuzha National Park (225 km²) to the north and Mukurthi National Park (78.46 km²) to the north-east, it is the core of the Nilgiri International Biosphere Reserve (1,455.4 km²), and is part of The Western Ghats World Heritage Site, Nilgiri Sub-Cluster (6,000+ km²) under consideration by UNESCO.

Plans for a hydroelectric project that threatened the parks high diversity of wildlife stimulated an environmentalist Social Movement in the 1970s called Save Silent Valley which resulted in cancellation of the project and creation of the park in 1980. The visitors' centre for the park is at Sairandhri.

English exploration
The first English investigation of the watersheds of the Silent Valley area was in 1847 by the botanist Robert Wight. The British named the area Silent Valley because of a perceived absence of noisy Cicadas. Another story attributes the name to the anglicisation of Sairandhri. A third story, refers to the presence there of many Lion-Tailed Macaques Macaca silenus. In 1914 the forest of the Silent Valley area was declared a Reserve Forest, however, from 1927 to 1976 portions of the Silent Valley forest area were subjected to forestry operations. In 1928 the location on the Kunthipuzha River at Sairandhri was identified as an ideal site for electricity generation and in 1958 a study and survey of the area was conducted and a hydroelectric project of 120 MV costing Rs. 17 Crore was proposed by the Kerala State Electricity Board.

Buffer zone
Territorial forests located around the national park have been subject to a working-plan to accomplish revenue oriented objectives such as extraction of bamboo and reed which affect the long-term conservation of the park. In addition Illegal activities such as ganja cultivation, setting forest fires, trapping and poaching wild animals, frequently occur in the territorial forests located in the immediate vicinity of the national park. This has resulted in degradation of habitat and reduced forest cover, which has adverse effects on the long term survival of the core area of the national park.
In 1979, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, then Secretary to the Department of Agriculture, visited the Silent Valley area and suggested that 389.52 km² including the Silent Valley (89.52 km²), New Amarambalam (80 km²), Attappadi (120 km²) in Kerala and Kunda in Tamilnadu (100 km²) reserve forests, should be developed into a National Rainforest Biosphere Reserve

The proposed buffer zone will have 94 km² in Attappady Reserve Forest east of the Kunthipuzha and 54 km² taken from the Mannarkaad range and Nilambur south division west of the river.
The new 147.22 km² zone will include 80.75 km² taken from Attapady Forest Range, 27.09 km² from Mannarkkad Forest Range and 39.38 km² from Kalikavu Forest range and consolidated to form a new range, Bhavani Forest Range, of 94 km² and 54 km² would be brought under the existing Silent Valley Range of the National Park.

Geography

Silent Valley is rectangular, 7 km (east-west) X 12 km (north-south). Located between 11°03' to 11°13' N latitude and 76°21' to 76°35' E longitude it is separated from the eastern and northern high altitude plateaus of the (Nilgiris Mountains) by high continuous ridges including Sispara Peak (2,206 m) at the north end of the park. The park gradually slopes southward down to the Palakkad plains and to the west it is bounded by irregular ridges. The altitude of the park ranges from 658 m to 2328 m at Anginda Peak, but most of the park lies within the altitude range of 880 m to 1200 m. Soils are blackish and slightly acidic in evergreen forests where there is good accumulation of organic matter. The underlying rock in the area is granite with schists and gneiss, which give rise to the loamy laterite soils on slopes.

Rivers
The Kuntipuzha River drains the entire 15 km length of the park from north to south into the Bharathapuzha River. Kuntipuzha River divides the park into a narrow eastern sector of width 2 kilometers and a wide western sector of 5 kilometers. The river is characterized by its crystal clear and perennial nature. The main tributaries of the river, kunthancholapuzha, Karingathodu, Madrimaranthodu, Valiaparathodu and Kummaathanthodu originate on the upper slopes of the eastern side of the valley. The river is uniformly shallow, with no flood plains or meanders. Its bed falls from 1,861 m to 900 m over a distance of 12 km, the last 8 km being particularly level with a fall of only 60 m. Kuntipuzha is one of the less torrential rivers of the Western Ghats, with a pesticide-free catchment area.

Climate

Silent Valley gets copious amounts of rainfall during the monsoons, but the actual amount varies within the region due the varied topography. The mean annual rainfall ranges from over 5000 mm in the Neelikal area in the west to around 3200 mm on the eastern side of the park. The park being completely enclosed within a ring of hills, has its own micro-climate and probably receives some convectional rainfall, in addition to rain from two monsoons. In general the rainfall is higher at higher altitude and decreases from the west to east due to the rain shadow effect. Eighty per cent of the rainfall occurs during the south-west monsoon between June and September. It also receives significant amount of rainfall during the north-east monsoon between October and November.[21]
The mean annual temperature is 20.2 °C. The hottest months are April and May when the mean temperature is 23 °C and the coolest months are January and February when the mean temperature is 18o C. Because of the high rainfall, the relative humidity is consistently high (above 95%) between June and December.

Tribes

There is no record the valley has ever been settled, but the Mudugar and Irula[22] tribal people are indigenous to the area and do live in the adjacent valley of Attappady Reserved Forest.[23] Also, the Kurumbar people occupy the highest range outside the park bordering on the Nilgiris.[24]
Many of the Mudugar and Irula now work as day laborers and porters. Some work for the Forest Department in the park as forest guards and visitor guides. 16 out of 21 tribal colonies in the Attappady range are notorious for ganja cultivation. Many Mudugar are in abject poverty and easily recruited by the so called ganja mafia, There is a plan to employ 50 additional men from these 21 tribal settlements as forest guards for Rs.500/man/month.