Ecology of Mahabaleshwar

How Does Mahabaleshwar Plateau Matters?
WHY are we making so much fuss about the Mahabaleshwar plateau? Why it its ecology so important that we must take special care to see that it is not damaged by the wrong kind of development? Let us consider the main reasons one by one.

SOURCE OF MAJOR RIVERS

Five main rivers have their source in Mahabaleshwar:

The Koyna and the Solshi rivers flow south, filling the enormous Koyna reservoir and then flowing on to join the Krishna River near Karad. The Koyna reservoir, over fifty kilometers in length, is the biggest hydro-electric project in Western India, and one of the biggest in all of India, supplying both the Kokan and the deccan with water and electricity.

The Venna River flows southeast to fill the newly constructed Kanher reservoir near Satara and then flows on to join the Krishna.

The mainstream Krishna River also has its source in Mahabaleshwar, filling the Dhom reservoir, just upstream from Wai, before flowing southwest .The parched, rainshadow areas of satara district get vitally needed water from the Dhom and Kanher reservoirs, and the Krishna river flows on to water Southern Maharashtra, Northern Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

The Savitri River flows northwest into the Konkan plain, watering the Mahad area and thus contributing to the rice-fields of the Konkan. Uniquely high rainfall, rain-attracting, water shed forest

During the monsoon months, Mahabaleshwar gets some of the heaviest rainfall anywhere in the world,250 to 300 inches in a period of four months, which makes the ecology of Mahableshwar’s forests something unique special . But this ecological uniqueness does not make Mahableshwar an odd, but of the way place and thus irrelevant. Far from it Mahableshwar’s special character is that it is an extreme/ & thus unequely valuable example of three very importantand useful types of forest. Mahableshwar is at once a tropical monsoon forest, a watershed forest, and a could forest.

As a uniquely high rainfall tropical monsoon forest, Mahableshwar is valuable for its many special varieties of plant life and their adaptation to extreme conditions in a delicately balanced ecosystem without deep soil fertility but with nutrients recycled through the “leak-proof” lushness of thick vegetation. Mahableshwar is also naturally very rich in animal life and a large variety of birds and small animals and also wild boar, deer and occasionally panthers can still be seen but many of the larger animal species like tigers, which used to be common, have been driven away because of excessive disturbance and molestation by human beings. Fortunately there are still some forests not far from Mahableshwar-the Koyana  lakeside forests between Vasota and Bhairavghad where animal life retains its original richness, including bears, bison and tigers, because excessive human exploitation has not yet penetrated these last remaining undisturbed areas.

As a watershed forest, or in other words, as a mountain-top forest which receives a large quantity of rainfall that flows down from the mountains in streams and rivers, the value of Mahableshwar’s tree and plant cover is illustrated by the following quotations:

“Watershed forests are particularly important because they protect soil cover on site and protect areas downstream from and other fluctuation in stream flow. By thus reducing the silt load of help prevent the clogging of reservoirs, irrigation systems, canals and docks, and the smothering by sediment of coral reefs” (Quoted from the United Nations world Conservation Strategy-IUCN, UNEP, WWF, 1980).

“Rainforests are important regulators of water supply and quality and keep soil from moving into streams, reservoirs and lake, where it would reduce the usefulness of these for agriculture, power production, navigation, municipal water supply, fishing and recreation.” (Quoted from Tropical rainforest-a fact sheet, by Linda E. Scheck, Sierra Club, International Earth Care Centre)

Center of Ecological Diversity:
The Mahableshwar- Panchgani plateau is a center of ecological diversity that could have few parallels elsewhere in the world.

From its Arthur’s Seat end. The plateau looks out on the high rainfall ecology of the konkan coastal plain, four thousand feet below. The western mountain slopes and Mahableshwar itself have of course their own extraordinary high rainfall ecologies, and within a few kilometers, the rainfall and hence the ecology of the plateau changes with astonishing rapidity: from over 250 inches a year in Panchgani. Immediately to the east of Panchgani can be seen the very dry rainshadow area with a lack of rainfall that approaches desert conditions except where there is irrigation from rivers and. Canals. Ands a result of the new accumulation of water in their respective alleys.