Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary showing the rain forest fragments. 

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Context 1

... Cervus unicolor ), spotted deer ( Axis axis ), tiger ( Panthera tigris ), leopard ( Panthera pardus ), and Indian wild dog or dhole ( Cuon alpinus ). There are 508 species of birds, of which 15 are endemic (Ali and Ripley, 1987; Daniels, 1997). The existing forests of the Western Ghats, especially wet evergreen forests, are highly fragmented. Between 1920 and 1990, when forest loss was nearly 40%, the number of forest fragments was estimated to increase nearly fourfold, from 179 to 769, with an 83% reduction in average fragment size (Menon and Bawa, 1997). Moreover, there has been an increase in perimeter-to-area ratio of the fragments. Only a few areas have more than 200 km 2 of continuous wet evergreen forests. These are Agasthyamalai Hills, Cardamom Hills, Silent Valley-New Amarambalam Forests, and southern parts of the South Kannada District in Karnataka State. There are several proposed hydroelectric projects that could submerge some of the best remaining lowland wet evergreen forests (e.g., Pooyamkutty Project). New roads and railways could cut across the few remaining large rain forest areas (e.g ., the proposed road from Papanasam in Tamil Nadu to Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala across the Agasthyamalai Hills and the railway to Sabarimala Temple in Kerala). The objectives of the project were to assess the variation in the occurrence and abundance of primates in forest fragments in relation to several landscape and habitat parameters; assess the changes in the demographic parameters of lion-tailed macaque and Nilgiri langur due to habitat fragmentation; and use the findings from the study to suggest appropriate measures to enhance the survival of these primates in forest fragments. The Indira Gandhi (formerly Anamalai) Wildlife Sanctuary (IGWS) in Tamil Nadu is one of the largest sanctuaries in south India (Figure 1). Created in 1976, it covers an area of about 987 km 2 , extending 45 km north to south and 25 km east to west (10 ° 12' and 10 ° 54' N and 76 ° 44' and 77 ° 48' E). It is located about 90 km from Coimbatore City, mainly in the Valparai Taluk, but extends to Pollachi and Udumalpet Taluks of Coimbatore District and Kodaikanal Taluk of Dindugal District. Three major public roads from Pollachi Town pass through IGWS—the Pollachi to Chalakudi Road through Valparai, the Pollachi to Parambikulam Road through Topslip, and the Pollachi to Munnar Road through Udumalpet Range. A network of roads connects Valparai Town to various estate settlements (Figure 2). Almost in the center of IGWS is 180 km 2 of tea and coffee estates that are under private ownership, and in its center is Valparai Town. IGWS is bordered on the southwest by Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary (287 km 2 ), on the south by the Reserve Forest of Chalakudi Forest Division and Eravikulam National Park (97 km 2 ), and on the southeast by Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary (90 km 2 ), which are all in Kerala State. In the east it is mostly surrounded by cultivated plains. These sanctuaries along with the Reserve Forest of Nelliyampathi Hills form a large conservation area for large and wide-ranging species such as elephant, gaur, and tiger. The altitude of IGWS ranges from 220 m in the plains at the foothills in the east to 2,513 m atop Thanakkanmalai in the Grass Hills. Rainfall varies considerably, ranging from 500 mm in the eastern slopes of IGWS to 5,000 mm in the western slopes. IGWS receives both southwest (June to September) and northeast (October and November) monsoons, with about 80% of the rainfall during the former. The daytime temperature varies considerably from 23 ° C to 40 ° C at the foothills (200 to 350 m) to 20 ° C to 30 ° C at higher elevations (1,800 to 2,300 m). In the night, temperatures range from 15 ° C to 25 ° C at the foothills and from 10 ° C to 20 ° C at mid-elevation of 900 m to 1,200 m. The temperature is lower at higher elevations, going down to 0 ° C in December and January at about 2,000 m. March to May are the hottest months. The natural vegetation in this area includes wet evergreen forest, montane shola- grassland, moist deciduous, dry deciduous, and thorn forests (Figure 3). Tropical wet evergreen forest is found in an altitude of 600 to 1,600 m. Fragments of wet evergreen forest were identified during a survey of the study area in January and February 1994 (Table 1). A fragment was defined as a patch of natural vegetation originally of wet evergreen type, isolated from other such forests except for narrow corridors, if any. It is often surrounded by human-made vegetation such as plantations and human settlements. The fragments were initially identified based on personal knowledge of the area (Umapathy, personal observation) and inquiry with local forest officials, estate managers, and Taluk administrative officers. These fragments were marked on a Survey of India Map and later verified by field visits. We identified 25 total forest fragments in the study area within a radius of about 35 km of Valparai Town (Figure 1). A total of about 400 km were surveyed on foot, ranging from 500 m up to 10 km per fragment depending on its area. Habitat parameters were recorded from a total of 350 circular plots with 5-m radius. An analysis of the data revealed that several of the habitat and landscape parameters were closely interrelated. These interrelationships are presented first, before examining the occurrence and abundance of the primates in the fragments. Even though all the 25 fragments that we identified came within geographical limits of IGWS, 14 of them were privately owned and 11 were within the administrative control of IGWS (Table 1). All privately owned fragments were formed when the surrounding forests were cleared for planting tea, particularly by Tata Tea, Kothari, Parry Agro, and Non-conventional Energy Power Corporation (NEPC), as well as cardamon, coffee, or eucalyptus. The fragments were retained for soil and water conservation (on hilltops and slopes), for cardamom and coffee cultivation, or to meet firewood needs of estate workers. The first of these fragments was probably created in the 1880s, and the last one in the 1930s (Congreve, 1938). Some of the privately owned fragments have been fully or partly underplanted with cardamom (5 out of 14). In most of the privately owned fragments (10 out of 14), trees have been lopped and logged repeatedly, lianas removed, and undergrowth replaced with cardamom and coffee or have been invaded by weeds such as Lantana camera and Eupatorium odoratum. All the cardamom and coffee planted fragments have labor settlements nearby, the neighboring people often remove firewood, small timber, and forest produce from the fragments. A road passes through or near most of the private fragments. Within privately owned fragments there was a clear difference between those owned by large tea estates and those owned by smaller coffee and cardamom estates. The former were better protected from firewood and timber removal compared to the latter. In contrast, only a few of the fragments owned by the Forest Department have been underplanted with cardamom or coffee (e.g . , Akkamalai and Sankarankudi). Most of the fragments owned by the Forest Department were created after the 1930s and up to the 1970s, when surrounding vegetation was cleared for teak plantation (e.g., Varagaliar) or when a chain of reservoirs was built under the Parambikulam-Aliyar Project. Some of the Forest Department-owned fragments were formed when the surrounding forests were leased to private companies and individuals for tea plantations (e.g., Andiparai and Sankarankudi) between 1880s and 1930s. Most of the Forest Department-owned fragments are away from human settlements and thus are not under intensive human pressure. Many of these fragments have been selectively logged in the past (20 to 50 years ago). Presently, privately owned tea and coffee estates cover more than 180 km 2 in the center of IGWS (Sundararaju, 1987). The matrix around the fragments showed considerable variation depending on ownership of the fragments. Most of the Forest Department-owned fragments were surrounded by teak or eucalyptus (e.g., Varagaliar Shola) or tea plantations (e.g., Andiparai Shola), and none had large human settlements on the edge. The fragments owned by large tea estates were mostly surrounded by eucalyptus and coffee plantations (and reservoirs in some cases) and had large human settlements, but not close to the fragments. The fragments owned by small cardamom and coffee estates were also mostly surrounded by tea estates. All of these, however, had labor settlements either within or at the edge of the fragment (e.g . , Puthuthottam and Korangumudi Estates). Orchards raised around these settlements included bananas ( Musa spp.), guava ( Psidium spp.), jack fruit ( Artocarpus heterophyllus ), and mango ( Mangifera indica ) and formed an integral part of the fragment. The lion-tailed macaque is an endangered primate (IUCN, 1996) and is listed in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 (Figure 4). It is endemic to the wet evergreen forest of the Western Ghats in south India. Its distribution ranges from Agasthyamalai Hills in the south to a few kilometers north of Sharavathi River in the north (Kumar, 1995a) in an elevation ranging from 150 to 1,500 m. In the recent past, its distribution was contiguous from southernmost Western Ghats up to the state of Maharashtra (Kumar, 1995b). The severe loss and fragmentation of wet evergreen forests resulted in the local extinction of the lion-tailed macaque populations by the 1950s in Goa and Maharashtra. The lowland wet evergreen forest in Kerala has also been destroyed, confining the population to higher elevations (Kumar, 1995a). At present the species is restricted to three states, in which Kerala has about 2,000 animals, and Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have about 1,000 animals each (Kumar, 1995a). The current population is fragmented into many subpopulations, ...

Context 2

... has been identified as one of the 12 megadiversity countries (Myers, 1992) with about 126,000 species. India has 8% of the global biodiversity, even though it covers only 2.4% of the land area of the world (Khoshoo, 1995). The Eastern Himalayas and Western Ghats are also among the 18 biodiversity hotspots in the world (Khoshoo, 1995). The Western Ghats covers only 5% of the land area of India, but has 30% of India's species. It has about 5,000 flowering plant species of which 1,500 are endemic (Nair, 1991). There are 58 endemic plant genera, of which 42 are monotypic. About 490 species of trees occur of which 308 (62.5%) species in 58 families are endemic. About 267 species of orchids occur belonging to 72 genera, of which 130 species are endemic. There are about 65 species of non-volant mammals in the Western Ghats, of which 11 are endemic. Endemism is not high among mammals compared to reptiles (80 species out of 170) and amphibians (90 species out of 120). Among the mammal endemics, the Malabar civet ( Viverra civettina ) is the most endangered species. The lion-tailed macaque ( Macaca silenus ), Nilgiri langur ( Trachypithecus johnii ), Nilgiri marten ( Martes gwatkinsi ), brown palm civet ( Paradoxurus jerdoni ), Travancore flying squirrel ( Petinomys fuscocapillus ), jungle striped squirrel ( Funambulus tristriatus ), spiny dormouse ( Platacanthomys lasiurus ), and Nilgiri tahr ( Hemitragus hylocrius ) are endemic at species level. The brown mongoose ( Herpestes fuscus ), stripe-necked mongoose ( H. vitticollis ), grizzled giant squirrel ( Ratufa macroura ), Layardi's striped squirrel ( F. layardi ), and dusky striped squirrel ( F. sublineatus ) are endemic at sub- species level, and are also found in Sri Lanka. The Western Ghats contains the largest population (15,000 individuals) of Asian elephant ( Elephas maximus ) and also contains healthy populations of other large mammals that include gaur ( Bos gaurus ), sambar ( Cervus unicolor ), spotted deer ( Axis axis ), tiger ( Panthera tigris ), leopard ( Panthera pardus ), and Indian wild dog or dhole ( Cuon alpinus ). There are 508 species of birds, of which 15 are endemic (Ali and Ripley, 1987; Daniels, 1997). The existing forests of the Western Ghats, especially wet evergreen forests, are highly fragmented. Between 1920 and 1990, when forest loss was nearly 40%, the number of forest fragments was estimated to increase nearly fourfold, from 179 to 769, with an 83% reduction in average fragment size (Menon and Bawa, 1997). Moreover, there has been an increase in perimeter-to-area ratio of the fragments. Only a few areas have more than 200 km 2 of continuous wet evergreen forests. These are Agasthyamalai Hills, Cardamom Hills, Silent Valley-New Amarambalam Forests, and southern parts of the South Kannada District in Karnataka State. There are several proposed hydroelectric projects that could submerge some of the best remaining lowland wet evergreen forests (e.g., Pooyamkutty Project). New roads and railways could cut across the few remaining large rain forest areas (e.g ., the proposed road from Papanasam in Tamil Nadu to Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala across the Agasthyamalai Hills and the railway to Sabarimala Temple in Kerala). The objectives of the project were to assess the variation in the occurrence and abundance of primates in forest fragments in relation to several landscape and habitat parameters; assess the changes in the demographic parameters of lion-tailed macaque and Nilgiri langur due to habitat fragmentation; and use the findings from the study to suggest appropriate measures to enhance the survival of these primates in forest fragments. The Indira Gandhi (formerly Anamalai) Wildlife Sanctuary (IGWS) in Tamil Nadu is one of the largest sanctuaries in south India (Figure 1). Created in 1976, it covers an area of about 987 km 2 , extending 45 km north to south and 25 km east to west (10 ° 12' and 10 ° 54' N and 76 ° 44' and 77 ° 48' E). It is located about 90 km from Coimbatore City, mainly in the Valparai Taluk, but extends to Pollachi and Udumalpet Taluks of Coimbatore District and Kodaikanal Taluk of Dindugal District. Three major public roads from Pollachi Town pass through IGWS—the Pollachi to Chalakudi Road through Valparai, the Pollachi to Parambikulam Road through Topslip, and the Pollachi to Munnar Road through Udumalpet Range. A network of roads connects Valparai Town to various estate settlements (Figure 2). Almost in the center of IGWS is 180 km 2 of tea and coffee estates that are under private ownership, and in its center is Valparai Town. IGWS is bordered on the southwest by Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary (287 km 2 ), on the south by the Reserve Forest of Chalakudi Forest Division and Eravikulam National Park (97 km 2 ), and on the southeast by Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary (90 km 2 ), which are all in Kerala State. In the east it is mostly surrounded by cultivated plains. These sanctuaries along with the Reserve Forest of Nelliyampathi Hills form a large conservation area for large and wide-ranging species such as elephant, gaur, and tiger. The altitude of IGWS ranges from 220 m in the plains at the foothills in the east to 2,513 m atop Thanakkanmalai in the Grass Hills. Rainfall varies considerably, ranging from 500 mm in the eastern slopes of IGWS to 5,000 mm in the western slopes. IGWS receives both southwest (June to September) and northeast (October and November) monsoons, with about 80% of the rainfall during the former. The daytime temperature varies considerably from 23 ° C to 40 ° C at the foothills (200 to 350 m) to 20 ° C to 30 ° C at higher elevations (1,800 to 2,300 m). In the night, temperatures range from 15 ° C to 25 ° C at the foothills and from 10 ° C to 20 ° C at mid-elevation of 900 m to 1,200 m. The temperature is lower at higher elevations, going down to 0 ° C in December and January at about 2,000 m. March to May are the hottest months. The natural vegetation in this area includes wet evergreen forest, montane shola- grassland, moist deciduous, dry deciduous, and thorn forests (Figure 3). Tropical wet evergreen forest is found in an altitude of 600 to 1,600 m. Fragments of wet evergreen forest were identified during a survey of the study area in January and February 1994 (Table 1). A fragment was defined as a patch of natural vegetation originally of wet evergreen type, isolated from other such forests except for narrow corridors, if any. It is often surrounded by human-made vegetation such as plantations and human settlements. The fragments were initially identified based on personal knowledge of the area (Umapathy, personal observation) and inquiry with local forest officials, estate managers, and Taluk administrative officers. These fragments were marked on a Survey of India Map and later verified by field visits. We identified 25 total forest fragments in the study area within a radius of about 35 km of Valparai Town (Figure 1). A total of about 400 km were surveyed on foot, ranging from 500 m up to 10 km per fragment depending on its area. Habitat parameters were recorded from a total of 350 circular plots with 5-m radius. An analysis of the data revealed that several of the habitat and landscape parameters were closely interrelated. These interrelationships are presented first, before examining the occurrence and abundance of the primates in the fragments. Even though all the 25 fragments that we identified came within geographical limits of IGWS, 14 of them were privately owned and 11 were within the administrative control of IGWS (Table 1). All privately owned fragments were formed when the surrounding forests were cleared for planting tea, particularly by Tata Tea, Kothari, Parry Agro, and Non-conventional Energy Power Corporation (NEPC), as well as cardamon, coffee, or eucalyptus. The fragments were retained for soil and water conservation (on hilltops and slopes), for cardamom and coffee cultivation, or to meet firewood needs of estate workers. The first of these fragments was probably created in the 1880s, and the last one in the 1930s (Congreve, 1938). Some of the privately owned fragments have been fully or partly underplanted with cardamom (5 out of 14). In most of the privately owned fragments (10 out of 14), trees have been lopped and logged repeatedly, lianas removed, and undergrowth replaced with cardamom and coffee or have been invaded by weeds such as Lantana camera and Eupatorium odoratum. All the cardamom and coffee planted fragments have labor settlements nearby, the neighboring people often remove firewood, small timber, and forest produce from the fragments. A road passes through or near most of the private fragments. Within privately owned fragments there was a clear difference between those owned by ...