Geographic Guides
Rev 1: Feb 25, 2026
Authors: Parvathy V and Sanjna GY
Untitled -- Flowers and Landscapes 6/7, MS-038-8-5-13-8, T N A Perumal Papers, Archives at NCBS.
The Western Ghats are a mountain range that stretches over 1600 km along the Western coast of India, for which there is a wealth of documentation in the Archives at NCBS. These resources include materials ranging from maps and bird checklists to extensive studies on the impacts of developmental activities and various conservation initiatives. The collections also feature photographic materials that not only showcase the region’s diverse flora and fauna but also document changes in the landscape over decades. The Western Ghats can be roughly divided into three parts: the northern Western Ghats that extend from the Tapi River valley down to the Goa/Karnataka border, the central Western Ghats that encompass the Karnataka region from Goa down to the Palakkad Gap in Kerala, and the southern Western Ghats, located south of the Palakkad Gap. The range meets the Eastern Ghats at the Nilgiris, situated at the trijunction of Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, before continuing further southward.
The archival collections reflect this regional diversity. To begin with, the Prakash Gole Papers include materials from Gole's work with the Pune Ecological Society, which does ecological restoration and conservation work mostly in Maharashtra,which forms a part of the northern Western Ghats. It includes a dedicated subseries on the birds of the Northern Western Ghats. It also contains materials on plants and animal life and on the restoration of biological diversity in the region.
The Panduranga Hegde Papers include material from the region of Uttara Kannada in Karnataka which forms a part of the central Western Ghats. He is an activist-conservationist who works in the region, and his papers include a wide range of material, including projects and campaigns focused on conserving and protecting the landscape. The A N Yellappa Reddy Papers further enriches the regional perspective. He is an environmentalist, a former Indian Forest Service officer, and a member of the Karnataka High Court's Lok Adalat for environmental project initiatives. His papers include research reports, writings, and projects from the region. The Wayanad Prakrithi Samrakshana Samiti (WPSS) Papers documents the work of a grassroots environmental collective in Wayanad, Kerala and illustrates the community-driven efforts to protect the local ecosystem. The collection consists mostly of material from the activist organisation, with administrative and publicity material. The Panduranga Hegde Papers, alongside the WPSS collection, help illuminate differing models of environmentalism within the central Western Ghats. WPSS represents a grassroots movement funded and sustained by its members. In contrast, Hegde’s work connects to broader conservation networks and is supported by national and global funding mechanisms. The Western Ghats Forestry Project, in which Hegde played a key role, exemplifies such collaborative conservation efforts.
Material on the Nilgiris is available in the R J Ranjit Daniels Papers and the R Prabhakar Papers. R J Ranjit Daniels is a tropical ecologist and conservationist and his papers feature extensive documentation of the region's reptiles, fish, mammals, amphibians, birds, and plants. His photographs from the 1980s provide visual records of the Nilgiri landscape. R. Prabhakhar is an ecologist whose PhD thesis was on the cultural and ecological changes in the Nilgiri Hills. He primarily used oral histories for his research and also has notes on the ecological history of the region. Leslie Coleman was an entomologist and plant pathologist, whose work was primarily in Mysore. However his papers include materials from the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, specifically photographs from the Biligirirangana Hills.
For the southern Western Ghats, the Dohnavur collection and the Naraikadu collection, are interesting to look at. It consists of material from the main campus and the spiritual retreat of The Dohnavur Fellowship (TDF), respectively. It is located in the foothills of the Western Ghats in southern Tamil Nadu. TDF is a non-denominational Christian charity not affiliated with any institutional Christian administrative and/or theological bodies. The collection includes field diaries, field notes, sketches, logbooks, songbooks, photos, slides, maps, and graphs, with information on the flora, fauna, and biodiversity as well as sustained weather observations of the region. Unlike the WPSS and Panduranga Hegde papers, which primarily reflect activism in response to environmental change, the Dohnavur materials offer long-term observational and ecological records.
Finally, the T N A Perumal Papers bring together photographic material from across the Western Ghats, visually linking its diverse landscapes. Collectively, these archival collections provide a multi-layered understanding of the Western Ghats, its biodiversity, its shifting landscapes, the evolution of conservation strategies, and the role of both grassroots activism and institutional initiatives in shaping its environmental history.
Despite the breadth of these collections, a critical gap remains which is the absence of the Western Ghats' Adivasi communities. The collections in the Archives at NCBS largely comprise materials either produced by researchers studying Indigenous communities, or by activists and organisations working on their behalf. Hence, Indigenous peoples are often represented in the historical record, as subjects of research or advocacy rather than as active custodians of the landscape. The Archives at NCBS recognises this imbalance and are trying to address it by developing new, equitable workflows to work with Indigenous communities to ensure they have agency over how their community and knowledge is documented, contextualized, accessed, and shared.
Search terms to use to find related materials (Controlled Vocabulary)
Western Ghats (India)
Nilgiris -- Karnataka -- Tamil Nadu
Pune Ecological Society
Biodiversity
BR Hills -- Biligiri Rangana Betta -- Karnataka
Ecology
Environmental Activism
