The Coromandel Coast is the southeastern coastal region of India, which forms much of Tamil Nadu\u2019s eastern coastline, and part of Andhra Pradesh\u2019s.\u00a0 Human activity there has been reported as far back as the second century AD, and the population has been growing ever since.\u00a0 It is home to the growing metropolises of Chennai, Pondicherry, and Nellore.\u00a0 Determining the exact type of its forest has been difficult, as it was densely settled before any proper surveys could take place.<\/p>\n
The East Deccan Dry Evergreen Forest is one of the only three dry evergreen forests in the world, with the other two in Sri Lanka and SE Indochina.\u00a0 This forest happens to be one of the driest because it is in the rain shadow.\u00a0 This means that the clouds turn into precipitation long before they reach the eastern coast.\u00a0 Around 60% of the trees in TDEF are evergreen.<\/p>\n
Despite having around 66 species of mammals and 230 species of birds, TDEF has very few endemic species.<\/p>\n
Most trees in TDEF have waxy leaves, seeds encased in small fruits, dense wood, and generally lack thorns.\u00a0 They also help stabilize climate and store carbon.<\/p>\n
Sadly, logging, grazing, and other human-caused events have reduced the TDEF to about 5% of what it used to be.\u00a0 TDEF is found only to occur within a 30km range on India\u2019s eastern seaboard.<\/p>\n
TDEF hasn\u2019t been part of a dense forest ecosystem in living memory, or perhaps even recorded history.\u00a0 Much of what used to be TDEF along the Coromandel Coast is now reduced to scrubland.\u00a0 Only 1% of TDEF is in a protected area, usually as small fragments where there happens to be a sacred grove or temple.<\/p>\n
They looked at two forests with differing levels of human disturbance.\u00a0 The forest with greater disturbance had shorter trees (but was denser) and only 65% of trees found were evergreen, as opposed to 77% at the less disturbed site.\u00a0 Even within the scrublands, the local people have still found uses for them, mostly comprising of medicinal uses.\u00a0 People are now actively trying to protect the scrubland by transforming the 70 acres of eroded town into a complete ecosystem.<\/p>\n
Saving the tropical dry evergreen forests is important not only because there are just a few left but also because they help us in so many ways.<\/p>\n