Climate crisis in forests: Trees missing fruits, first forest landslide — Karnataka’s Anshi stands altered

Teloli village lies on the fringes of the ancient Anshi forest in Uttar Kannada district of Karnataka. The people of the village are witnessing the forest change, in ways never seen before, due to rising temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns and extreme weather events — many of them new for the territory and could be causing cascading events.

Anshi forest is a hotspot for the impacts of climatic changes between 1951-2019, according to the Forests Survey of India (FSI) technical study from 2020. 

“This year, there were no vate huli fruits on the trees in our village or in the nearby areas,” 55-year old-Suresh Babu Gavada, a resident of the village, told Down To Earth (DTE), showing a single tree that grows just between the village and the forest area. Vate Huli or monkey jacks are sour fruits used by the local people as a condiment, especially with local tuber vegetables. 

The production of monkey jacks has reduced over the years but extreme low volume this time has come as a surprise for people. “Earlier we used to get around 50 quintals of fruit from a single tree, which has reduced to around 30-40 quintals in recent years. But 2023 was a shock for us,” said Shantaram Kamat of the nearby Kumbarwada village. Kamat runs the Kali Farmers Producer Company and is a local expert on forest ecology.

Monkey jacks are semi-evergreen trees that grow wildly in and around the Anshi forest and also other areas of Western Ghats in northern Karnataka. They shed leaves for a short period in Autumn. They flower around February and fruiting happens in April and May. 

They are used for food, fodder, timber and for medicinal purposes. They generally grow in deep permeable soils and require mean annual rainfall of 700-2,000 millimetres. But in 2023, rainfall has been scarce. Between March 1 and May 31, there was 59 per cent less rainfall than normal in Uttara Kannada district. 

“We always used to get continuous and medium intensity rainfall during Holi and Gudi Padwa, both of which fall in the pre-monsoon season but that hasn’t been the case for the past few years,” said Kamat. There is either no rain or heavy to extreme rainfall, he added.

The effects of the lack of rainfall can be seen in other areas of the region as well. When DTE travelled from Kadra, from where the Anshi forest division begins, to Kumbarwada, there were a lot of dry forest patches. 

Other forest-based products such as honey and tuber crops are also getting affected by the decrease in rainfall. For instance, for a good collection of honey, good pre-monsoon showers are required.

“When there is no or little rainfall, honey thickens, which decreases the overall volume of production. The rains are also required for flowering of trees, which is the source of nectar for bees to produce honey,” Kamat shared.

Around 4-5 years ago, they could collect around 20 kg of honey from a single honeycomb, Gavada pointed out. This has come down to 5-10 kg now.

Many other forest plant and tree species also require good pre-monsoon rainfall for germination and other life cycle activities. The monsoon rains then aid their further growth. “But this is not being monitored inside the core forest areas and there is no data for us to come to any conclusion,” said Kamat. 

One crop that can be used as a proxy are tubers, whose growth outside the forests has gotten affected, despite being irrigated and taken care of by the local farmers. The situation inside the forest would be much worse, according to Kamat. 

Another unusual and never-seen-before event was a landslide inside the forest area just outside Teloli village that occurred on July 21, 2021. The depleted patch of forest was still visible in May 2023.

A landslide occurred in the Anshi forest area next to Teloli village for the first time on July 21, 2021. Photo: Akshit Sangomla

“Lots of rainfall came in a short time that day and the side of the hill slid down. Such a forest getting washed away by rain has happened for the first time in this area,” said Gavada. 

The change in rainfall patterns has also led to other ecological impacts like the reduction in the number and diversity of butterflies as well as decrease in the appearance of migratory birds in the area. One such bird known as Batki in local language was once abundant in the area from August to January every year. “Two individuals were last seen in November 2022,” according to Gavada. 

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